[HN Gopher] Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joy...
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Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'
Author : nxobject
Score : 248 points
Date : 2026-03-20 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (portlandtribune.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (portlandtribune.com)
| superkuh wrote:
| It's crazy to me that cell phones, and especially smart phones,
| were ever allowed in the classroom during class.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I once had to sit in the principals office for bringing in some
| electronic fishing game. How we went from that to phones being
| allowed is insanity. They came like a tsunami.
| reedf1 wrote:
| They are not allowed in any school I've been to, especially
| during class.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| I suspect it was sneaky.
|
| The old Nokia in school wasn't a problem. You get in trouble
| for playing snake. The iphone 1 wasn't really a problem. There
| weren't that many, and it served as a calendar.
|
| But year after year, release after release, the industry
| deliberately loaded more and more addictive machinery, pushed
| more and more boundaries, until it's beyond unacceptable.
|
| As an aside, it's amazing how hard it is to turn the modern
| phone into a no-nonsense tool, and I'm an adult with self-
| control, a deep understanding of dark patterns, and a fully-
| functioning brain after 3 cups of coffee.
| svachalek wrote:
| Completely. I'm a software engineer that has a better shot at
| this than just about anybody, and I have no idea how to give
| a child a phone that's not just digital crack. If you think
| ScreenTime etc will do the job you probably have no idea
| what's actually happening on your child's phone.
| eloisant wrote:
| You can buy a dumbphone. For example a Nokia 3210 4G.
| eloisant wrote:
| Interestingly dumb phones are making a comeback.
|
| They disappeared for a few years, but now you can buy a dumb
| phone, for example running KaiOS, that charges with USB-C and
| supports modern cell networks. You can even get a Nokia!
|
| There is absolutely no need to buy a smartphone to any kid
| younger than 15. Now for high school students it's a bit
| different, they should be old enough to have self control and
| respect rules to keep their phones in their bags during
| class.
| j2kun wrote:
| They were not. The rule now is that they have to go into a
| special bag that cannot be opened while school is in session.
| Before they could be left in a backpack and snuck out or used
| between classes.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I agree with the cell phone bans (I would extend it to all
| electronic devices, schools should be pen and paper). But we just
| got our phones taken away in highschool.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| Surely an electronic wrist watch is fine, and maybe an mp3
| player. Also graphing calculators.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Why do you need a music player in school?
| WithinReason wrote:
| For the walk home
| mrinterweb wrote:
| Listening to music can help people focus.
| bananamogul wrote:
| In 2026 the number of people with mp3 players that are
| not also smart phones is vanishingly small.
| shimman wrote:
| If you are interested in standalone digital audio players
| (DAPs), I just recently bought this:
|
| https://www.fiio.com/echomini
|
| For ~$60 you get a device that can play every type of
| audio file and has better sound quality than your
| cellphone + streamer combo.
|
| I've been reading more about Chinese hardware and if
| you've been sleeping on it there are a lot of great
| Chinese consumer products that are both extremely high
| quality + very cheap.
|
| Turns out when you have tens of millions of engineers
| they pump out banger after banger. Also always hilarious,
| in an enduring way, finding the factory engineers
| engaging with consumers on random forums that take their
| feedback seriously.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Woah, skeuomorphism writ large!
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Note that in this case, you are getting what you pay for:
| I had a FIIO DAC that sounded amazing but was really bad
| about full-scale turn-on, sync and desync pops to the
| extent that it damaged my speakers. Yes, perfect power
| sequence hygiene would have prevented the problem, but
| one can't always be ready with the amplifier volume knob
| when their playback system crashes.
| shimman wrote:
| ah good to know. Outside of having a very basic dac for
| my cans on my desktop, I wouldn't think of any serious
| equipment failures could happen. Probably wrong to assume
| that these things are engineered to be safe/redundant.
|
| This is going to be my first DAP in like 15 years, zune
| being the last one I had. Pretty excited to rock it out
| for a bit.
|
| There's a current fad out there to move to more single-
| service type of devices rather than using a phone for
| everything. Want to try it out myself to be more
| intentional with my digital actions and ween myself away
| from corporate social media.
| rtkwe wrote:
| If they're allowed and help where phones wouldn't or
| don't there are still lots of options for stand alone MP3
| players with minimal or no connectivity. They still exist
| as a market because they're dirt cheap to make.
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| music players were often essential for my ability to stay
| focussed on my work and reading.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| During class time?
| john_strinlai wrote:
| not all classes are 100% lectures. many of my kids
| classes have 15-30 minutes of "work time". sometimes
| entire periods are "work periods" when they have a big
| project or whatever.
| bityard wrote:
| "Need" might be strong, but I am okay with music players.
| My ADHD self is able to focus many times better if I have
| certain kinds of music playing to block out nearly talking
| and other distracting sounds.
| superkuh wrote:
| I mostly just listened during homeroom and lunch period.
| But once I was sent to in-schoool-suspension in high school
| in the early 2000s for listening to my mp3 player (Diamond
| Rio PMP300) after I finished taking the yearly standardized
| tests the state used to judge schools.
| alexfoo wrote:
| I gave my 16yo ADHD kid an mp3 player with hours of "ADHD
| focus" music on it.
|
| It's proven very useful a few times where a few ND-unaware
| teachers have confiscated phones that the ND kids use to
| help them focus.
|
| They don't get it to use it whenever they want but there
| are some situations where they are allowed to use it and
| where having a phone is tricky given the lack of trust some
| teachers have.
|
| Old school technology fallbacks are sometimes useful. Who
| knew.
| arijun wrote:
| Having all been in high school, I think we can all agree
| that lack of trust is warranted. Not for every kid, but
| for enough of them that blanket rules make sense. We also
| don't allow students to use the calculator app on their
| phone for tests, and instead make them buy the "old
| school technology fallback" version.
|
| An MP3 player seems like a good compromise, and far
| cheaper than the phone they're replacing.
| bawolff wrote:
| Do graphing calculators actually help people learn? We used
| them in high school, but when i needed to take calculus in
| university we didn't use them. I'm doubtful they are good for
| learning especially when trying to teach the foundations.
| jeffgreco wrote:
| Complete waste for anything math related for me. Did act as
| a proper gateway into coding though!
| soperj wrote:
| Same for me. Felt like a superpower.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I distinctly remember writing a minesweeper game, using
| the built-in programming language. Not the fast compiled
| one you needed a cable to transfer! Just button presses.
| masfuerte wrote:
| I don't see the need for it. The only time I ever needed to
| graph a function was to answer a homework problem that
| specifically asked me to. Having your calculator do it
| misses the point.
| veilrap wrote:
| Personally, playing with the graphing and algebra functions
| on the calculator were hugely informative. Rapidly trying
| out different things, seeing how they looked how tweaking
| things would cause adjustment, all added educational value.
|
| I feel like graphing calculators enable exploration in a
| way that doing it manually with pen and paper cannot.
| Obviously, pen and paper is super valuable as well, but I
| feel that they are complimentary.
| isk517 wrote:
| Back in the day the feature I liked most about my TI-82 was
| the amount of information that could fit on the display,
| the formatting options available, the ease of entering and
| editing what you entered, and the amount of past entered
| formulas that would be saved and how easy they were to
| retrieve. It made doing large blocks of basic BEDMAS math
| very quick and less suspectable to errors caused by
| accidentally hitting the wrong key entering in large
| formulas, and very easy to go back and find out where I
| messed up and quickly retabulate everything.
|
| All of that mostly comes up in physics and chemistry were
| its about knowing what long formulas you need to plug the
| numbers you have available to you to find out what you need
| to know. Oddly enough their seems to be very little benefit
| to using a graphing calculator in a actual math class.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _BEDMAS_
|
| I think I figured out what the B stands for, but where
| I'm from, we call it PEDMAS - the P standing for
| Parentheses.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| In my case it did. I took "advanced math" (trig, mostly) in
| high school from an abysmal teacher. Ignoring her and
| developing an intuition through graphing was the best thing
| ever. I had the best final grade in the class.
| subscribed wrote:
| They were brilliant in electric engineering classes. I
| found these calculations very tedious.
|
| For maths not so much, as it was less about providing a
| numerical answer, and more about understanding the
| question.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It really depends on the level of the class and the goals.
| Usually by the time you're getting to calculus you're
| moving away from simply calculating a numerical answer
| anyways and the problems where you do need to find one just
| to test that final step can be finessed so they're simple
| to calculate by hand and eliminate the problem of full
| computer algebra system calculators that can handle the
| symbolic manipulation too.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| This was some 20 years ago, but
|
| - iPods? Taken away
|
| - didn't have fancy smart watches, so those were fine. But
| I'm sure a modern smart watch wouldn't fly
|
| - graphing calculators were fine. Just don't make it too
| obvious you were playing Pokemon Red on it.
| ronbenton wrote:
| I remember reading somewhere else that there was a psychological
| benefit for kids as well. Not having the constant pressure to
| check the device. Just seems like a big win all around.
| windexh8er wrote:
| In our district phones are banned during the day. Most students
| don't care about their phones, what they care about is FOMO.
| And so the ban does great to not only reduce distractions but
| also the cognitive load of constantly wondering what they're
| missing.
| justonceokay wrote:
| I surprisingly found this with my Apple Watch. was so concerned
| it would make me even more plugged in. But in reality now 90%
| of the time I get a junk email I just say "huh" instead of
| needing to open the phone to see what it is (and the other 15
| notifications). Can't have fomo if you know you're not missing
| out, amirite?
| subscribed wrote:
| That's still quite insane. I get a lot of email daily but
| notifications onto about priority / important ones.
|
| Which is about 1-2 per _week_.
| reedf1 wrote:
| My understanding is that these are already banned in most schools
| and the practical difference between enforcing this at a state or
| national basis is basically nonexistent vs simple local
| enforcement.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| If anything I suspect it helps reduce the adversarial
| relationship between local schools and their parents. "State
| law, not our policy, sorry." Sounds childish, but hey, if
| parenting has taught me anything it is that plenty of people
| never outgrow childish behavior.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| "Banned" is only meaningful if there are consequences for
| defying the ban. My experience as a high school English teacher
| in a handful of schools across several states was that admin
| is, generally, unwilling to implement a hard ban on smartphones
| because a significant portion of parents would vocally object
| (to put it mildly).
|
| Pushing the ban to the state level acknowledges the broad
| inability of district level leadership to self-police these
| problems.
| eru wrote:
| See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity
|
| Any ban above school level is silly.
| caderosche wrote:
| I don't think banning is the right solution to this. At some
| point, I think we are going to have comms devices imbedded in our
| heads and whatnot.
|
| I think the right approach is finding teaching techniques that
| still work when every human has all the world's info at their
| finger tips 24/7.
|
| At some point, an uninterruptible, 24/7 live connection to the
| rest of the world is inevitable.
|
| I'm not convinced a human teacher is a required part of this.
| shimman wrote:
| Ah yes, some point (possibly 100s of years into the future) we
| have to be concerned with a sci-fi scenario not borne in
| reality so we can't possibly ban cellphones now. Just ignore
| all the negative externalities of these mass misery machines,
| we have to plan for a future that has no basis in reality!
|
| There needs to be a politics of rejection, because I an assure
| you 95% of humanity does not want a device implanted in their
| skull where communication sent to you is unblockable.
|
| SV has clearly cooked a generation of engineers that think
| working on ad surveillance tech is the pinnacle of humanity and
| not just another American moral failing that is wrecking the
| world while a select few profit off it.
| caderosche wrote:
| "imbedded in their heads" was a bit over the top.
|
| All I actually mean is I'm sure that soon there will be some
| cell phone equiv tech that teachers won't be able to
| ban/control without scanning their entire bodies every day
| for RF signals.
| scuff3d wrote:
| We're talking about kids, not adults. You ban cell phones for
| the same we weren't allowed to play our Gameboy during class
| when I was a kid. They lack the self control and decision
| making capabilities to forgo something fun for the sake of
| something important.
|
| Not to mention we have plenty of studies that show even a
| silent phone sitting quietly in your pocket or on your desk can
| be an attention drain, as you're subconsciously waiting for a
| notification to go off.
|
| I'm amazed it took this long for the schools to finally ban the
| damn things.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > We're talking about kids, not adults.
|
| Frankly, I believe the world would be a better place if we
| did a lot more banning of smartphones for adults, too. They
| are like crack.
| scuff3d wrote:
| I quit all social media (unless you count hackernews I
| guess), killed all notifications except calls and text
| messages, and regularly leave my phone in another room
| while I'm working or doing anything that requires prolonged
| attention. Helped a lot.
| kingbiz wrote:
| I'm doing the same thing except YouTube and certain niche
| subreddits have been very hard for me to kill off. Also
| apps that I want to check up on every now and then get
| put behind a firewall so they can only access the network
| when I allow them to, but some are still able to send me
| notifications despite being blocked. I need to figure out
| how they are getting around that or better yet just
| uninstall the app. After I killed off all the big tech
| social media slop I found notifications for random things
| to be almost as bad.
| caderosche wrote:
| I don't disagree that people lack self control.
|
| My only disagreement is that bans on cellphone-like tech will
| be at all enforceable in the near future.
| scuff3d wrote:
| They're kids... Even in some dystopian ass scifi future we
| all have implants in our eyes or some shit, we aren't doing
| that to kids...
| Peritract wrote:
| > At some point, I think we are going to have comms devices
| imbedded in our heads and whatnot.
|
| This will have limited impact because, at some point shortly
| after that, the moon will hatch and the lunar dragons will
| consume our satellite infrastructure, disabling all comm
| devices.
|
| You can't make policy now based on nebulous ideas about
| possible futures, particularly not when those ideas aren't
| based on any reasonable inference.
| kleiba wrote:
| This has absolutely been the standard in every school around
| where I live for years. Anecdotally, however, I wouldn't go so
| far and say it lead to "engaged students" and "joyful teachers"
| :)
| bawolff wrote:
| I'm a little confussd... was there a point they were allowed? I
| went to school in the late 2000s, and even at that point if a
| teacher saw you with a cell phone it was immediately confiscated.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Late 2000s was just after smartphones became a thing, and
| before they became a crack epidemic. In my personal experience,
| it has really been _bad_ for about the last 10 years, getting
| better over the last few years however. Took a few years for
| everyone to really understand how bad the problem had become
| and how quickly.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Here in india it became normalised to bring it to school
| around 2016. But even today it's completely not OK to use it
| in class. It'll be confiscated immediately.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Around 2015 or so they became a lot more accepted. From talking
| to teachers, a surprisingly large amount of the distraction is
| parents texting kids while they're at school.
| temp84858696945 wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is actually parents texting kids,
| and how much of that is that kids are using that as an excuse
| to why they checked their phone mid class.
|
| That seems like one of the easiest excuses for kids to make
| that is hard to argue against.
| genthree wrote:
| No, no, it's the parent.
|
| Parents _calling_ their kids in class isn 't as rare as you
| might think...
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Yeah, there was a recent NYT article about the ongoing
| phone ban/pouch discussion and one parent reported having
| a shared Google Doc for emergency communication with
| their kid to work around the lack of a cell phone. The
| nature of such emergencies was not discussed, but I
| cynically suspect it was along the lines of "do you want
| mac n cheese or nuggets for dinner?"
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/style/yondr-pouch-
| school-...
| genthree wrote:
| Consider how many people are clingy and/or just have
| questionable judgement about boundaries with their
| friends, family, and acquaintances in general, usually
| with a healthy dose of neuroticism thrown in for good
| measure.
|
| Consider that lots of these people have kids, and when
| they do, they tend to have a very friend-like
| relationship with them. Like, they aren't just magically
| better at this stuff when it's their kid.
|
| These situations are a source of a great deal of this
| behavior, and the "I can't contact my kid-friend!"
| anxiety.
| Aurornis wrote:
| It's some of both. Parents do text their kids during the
| day, but kids also pull out all the excuses when caught.
|
| Even when I was in high school "I was responding to my mom"
| was the go-to excuse when caught using a cell phone. I had
| one teacher who would actually read what was on the screen
| (this was before locking your phone was common and probably
| lawsuit material today, but things were different) and call
| kids out when they were lying. The threat of having a
| teacher _read_ your text messages was enough to put an end
| to cell phone usage in class.
| simplyluke wrote:
| > a surprisingly large amount of the distraction is parents
| texting kids while they're at school
|
| We're entering pretty substantial numbers of parents who grew
| up or at least spent their entire adult lives with cell
| phones and the expectation of constant communication. In
| fact, from my anecdotal experience, the mid-older millennial
| cohort is the worst at expecting immediate replies at all
| hours to any form of communication be it social or work.
|
| One of the things I realize I'm grateful for in hindsight is
| parents who didn't grow up with that, and had no problem
| calling the front desk of the school if there was a
| legitimate emergency that needed to involve pulling me out of
| school. And it turns out for anything short of that, the news
| could wait until 4PM.
| jedberg wrote:
| In the last 10 years, driven a lot by school shootings, the
| tide shifted and parents started fighting schools about letting
| their kids keep their phone "so they can be contacted in
| emergencies". The schools gave up fighting with the parents.
|
| Laws like this give the school cover to confiscate the phones
| and say "talk to your congressperson if this bothers you, my
| hands are tied".
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| There is a difference between being allowed to have the phone
| (in your pocket) and taking it out in the classroom.
| jedberg wrote:
| Yes, and parents were getting mad at the school when their
| kids couldn't reply to their midday texts.
| bawolff wrote:
| FWIW i'm outside the US so maybe there are cultural
| differences.
| engeljohnb wrote:
| I was in high school in the early 2010s. In 2010 I went to a
| school that gave all students ipod touchs, which seemed
| futuristic at the time. By 2012 phones weren't banned from
| school, but a teacher would still take it if you were blatantly
| using it during class.
| simplyluke wrote:
| When I was in high school in the early 2010s it was down to
| every teacher to enforce their own policy on phones. In
| practice, this meant that it was wildly variable, kids were
| getting texts from kids in more permissive environments (the
| gym teachers had no issue with you playing on your phone as you
| did a mile walk) which was driving FOMO and leading to students
| leaving the classroom to check their phones, lots of trying to
| sneak a look when teachers were distracted, etc.
|
| The rollout of LTE data and more-modern smartphones + social
| media during that area was a nuclear bomb on teenagers's
| ability to focus in hindsight. I can distinctly remember the
| divide between dumb phones/ipods/early smart phones with slow
| data, and modern social media + fast cellular data to get
| around school network bans. Things went from the occasional
| student thinking they were clever with a wired headphone down
| their sleeve to near constant distraction very rapidly.
|
| The "innovation" has been basic leadership -- setting policies
| at the school/district and in this case state level. Consistent
| expectations make it easier for students to follow the policy.
| Some schools have gone as far as physically locking phones away
| for the day, though reading the article it sounds like that's
| not what Oregon is doing.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| From my teacher spouse's perspective, a lot of it seems to be
| the monetary value of smartphones. Some kids are coming to
| school with the latest and greatest $1000+ smartphone, so if
| the teacher drops it, scuffs it, misplaces it, etc, the parents
| are coming after the teacher about an item with real value.
| Teachers don't want any part of that battle so confiscation is
| now off the table.
| Aurornis wrote:
| But this new law also involves confiscation.
|
| I don't think that explains anything.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I'm not sure what law you're referring to. The linked
| article discusses the implementation of an executive order
| in Oregon that mostly bans use of cell phones during school
| time.
|
| Some schools may do things differently, but it seems like
| the one highlighted in the article allows the kids to keep
| phone in their backpacks: "Rather than use pouches or
| lockers, students are allowed to keep their phones safely
| stored in their backpacks"
|
| I didn't see anything in the article or the text of the EO
| about confiscation. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R5kfyM
| YsA6cg3VQKutUxLTIGVpI...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Previously, the confiscation was the teacher's policy.
|
| "I dunno Mom, at the start of 4th hour I put my iPhone in
| the basket Mrs. Wormwood makes everyone drop their phones
| in, and when I got it back after class the screen had this
| big crack in it. It wasn't because I dropped it in 3rd hour
| in Mr. Lockjaw's PE class while walking and checking
| Instagram, nuh uh. Can you get me the iPhone 17 Pro Max
| instead of the iPhone 17e this time?"
|
| And then at conferences (or worse, at the PTA meeting or
| school board meeting) Mrs. Wormwood is going to hear from
| Mom how she broke Johnny's phone and cost them $1100.
|
| Now it's state law. It's not Mrs. Wormwood's decision to
| confiscate phones from students, preventing little Johnny
| from texting Mama when there's a lockdown, it's the law and
| her hands are tied.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Previously where, though? In this specific Oregon school
| district?
|
| It's not up to the teachers' discretion in the schools
| near me.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| thats funny, if i park illegally and my car gets damaged
| while towed, no ones paying for those damages.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I'm also confused by stories that imply that kids were allowed
| to use their phones during class.
|
| The local schools I'm familiar with allowed phones in
| backpacks, but if you got caught using it during class there
| were consequences.
|
| Enforcement was never perfect. Some teachers didn't care, some
| students were sneaky enough to not get caught. Yet the
| consequences seemed to keep the kids afraid of using phones for
| the most part (from what I've been told, obviously I wasn't
| sitting with them in class).
|
| Some of these articles are written like entire classrooms were
| just scrolling their phones during class? I don't get it. Was
| there just a total lack of enforcement?
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Right? when I graduated HS in 2008 phones had always been
| banned. If you got caught with one out, you could have them
| just not out and in theory off, you would get detention and
| your parent would have to come get it. When did it suddenly
| become OK to have phones out.
| technothrasher wrote:
| My son, who recently graduated high school, went to a school that
| banned phones but insisted on laptops (providing them for the
| kids who couldn't afford one). He said it was ridiculous, as none
| of the kids had any problem using their laptop for anything they
| would have used the phone, which was mostly texting, scrolling
| social media, watching videos, and playing games. Even when the
| school tried to lock down services, as soon as one kid found a
| way around it, they all did.
| svachalek wrote:
| My son is in middle school and it's the same thing. They can't
| have devices in the classroom, except for the school mandated
| device that does everything the phone does and more.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yeah it probably took about 15 seconds for the first kid to
| figure out that you could just share a google doc with your
| friends and use it for texting.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Way back when I was in school (2004 or so) I set up a proxy on
| my personal website to get around them blocking email, because
| I don't want to have to save things to a damned floppy drive.
|
| I then let a teacher use it because he was frustrated half of
| his search results would get blocked. From there, it spread
| like wildfire. Eventually they blocked it and from then on the
| IT guy would give me a side eye whenever we crossed paths.
|
| Anyways, I can only imagine the clever ways kids get around
| things now. If it's not per device, all a kid would need is a
| mobile hotspot to be king.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Back in the day when every hotel that was charging for WiFi
| was stupidly leaving port 53 wide open, I wrote an IP over
| DNS tunnel to get free WiFi. Worked great until I went to a
| hotel in Tokyo and turned it on. Suddenly my network
| connection was completely dead. They were clearly watching
| for shenanigans. Took me a few minutes to figure out they had
| redirected my MAC address to the bit bucket. I spoofed my MAC
| to a different one, and then behaved, as well as admired
| those IT guys.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Yeah, back when I was in school it was a cat and mouse game
| of finding a new proxy every week when the last one got
| blocked. The minute someone found a new one, it was
| everywhere.
|
| I decided to sidestep the whole game and run my own proxy at
| home. I didn't have enough bandwidth for multiple users, so
| it was just me. I don't think IT ever caught on.
| paradox460 wrote:
| We'd just copy democrakey thumb drives and use those, since
| the network filtering was done using IE policies and not
| anything actually network level
| fidotron wrote:
| The whole "browser game" industry is built on this phenomenon.
| It's about getting kids on school laptops mindlessly looping on
| something while shoving ads in their face.
|
| Honestly, get the tech out of classrooms. A few 8 bit machines
| that can run LOGO are far more genuinely educational than all
| the gunk they have today.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Gotta get schools back to using paper homework. There's so
| many of those awful online classroom portals for homework.
| Absolutely trash software, technically speaking.
| lurkshark wrote:
| TurnItIn.com was starting to be a thing when I was in high
| school. I found out it didn't sanitize the papers you
| upload and had no CSRF protection, so I could upload a doc
| with inline JavaScript to hit the change-password and
| logout APIs.
|
| Was pretty impactful for my education, just not in the
| intended way
| zdragnar wrote:
| What? Browser games were half of what made flash popular back
| in the day before laptops were even a normal consumer device.
|
| You're spot on with classrooms not needing tech though. They
| add complications and distractions on top of an already
| difficult task.
| bitmasher9 wrote:
| Flash was founded in 1993, and while desktops were much
| more popular laptops were indeed a product sold to
| consumers
| andai wrote:
| I grew up in the 2000s and I remember almost everyone in
| the computer lab would be playing Flash games, until
| someone came in and yelled at us because it wasn't
| "educational" enough.
|
| They almost let us play RuneScape (something something
| medieval history?) until they saw me firebolt a rat and
| declared it unacceptably violent.
|
| I visited my old school once, a few years after graduating,
| and was startled to see many people on their laptops in the
| hallways. I guess they had become required. I had graduated
| right around the time smartphones came out, and we didn't
| have laptops either. (You'd see a laptop at school
| occasionally but it was a rare sight.)
|
| I'm glad the fanciest thing I had was a TI-84, because it
| got me to spend most of my time socializing, which I think
| was pretty good for my development.
| max8539 wrote:
| It should be more simple devices with only helpful apps like
| books reader and learning videos player, not general access
| devices
| johnfn wrote:
| It's hard to imagine a slow, overworked, somewhat inept,
| bureaucratic school board, with a thousand other things it
| wants to care about, managing to stay ahead of thousands of
| crafty and highly motivated teens.
| bdangubic wrote:
| they brought laptops to cafeteria? outside? the core issue is
| usage of phones outside of the class, no? if he used it during
| the class, cool (we all gad boring teachers). if he was able to
| use it after the bell rang that is not having a ban
| bananamogul wrote:
| "decreed by executive order"
|
| That's the only bummer here. I do agree with this policy, but no
| one voted for it. The governor just said "you're going to do
| this".
|
| Yes, yes, I know - people elected the governor. But this sort of
| policy seems like something that should require legislative
| approval, not just one person deciding the whole state must do
| something.
|
| For every time something good comes of that kind of behavior,
| there's 10 times when it's a disaster.
| j2kun wrote:
| The legislature (of states and the federal government)
| routinely passes laws explicitly giving the head of state the
| power to make decisions like this without passing a law. The
| most recent one in Oregon about schooling was SB 141.
| roughly wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > The kids also weighed in on the debate around the extent of
| the ban. The two options bandied in Salem were a "bell-to-bell"
| policy or just inside classrooms. The latter would allow kids
| to use their phones during passing period and lunch. Several
| advocated for that change. That mirrored the debate within the
| Oregon legislature. It ultimately led to a stalemate and the
| need for Gov. Kotek's executive ruling.
|
| It sounds like the legislature broadly agreed on the ban, but
| couldn't agree on a couple final details. Insofar as an
| executive is useful, that's the case for it: calling the shot
| in the face of several good (or bad!) options but no clear
| winner.
| nxobject wrote:
| This is a fun bureaucratic aside, but in Oregon the governor
| _is_ the statutory superintendent, rather than an elected
| official. (There are other oddities in Oregon: policy is
| otherwise extremely devolved, _and_ because property taxes are
| capped, funding goes through the legislature.)
| mentalgear wrote:
| 'Engaged Students, Joyful Teachers' ... but sad Zuck ! As soon as
| this becomes popular and Zuck's engagement numbers tank, prepare
| for a propaganda campaign of nuclear proportions - maybe they
| even pull the OG Sheryl Sandberg back to steer the PR ship. And
| with the current crop of cronies in office, don't be surprised if
| a new ID bill will be introduced that requires "social
| connectivity" as requirement for ID verification. Your "trust
| score" might eventually depend on how much data you feed Zuck's
| sucking machine and whether you've hit your daily scroll quota.
| If you think that sounds crazy, you haven't been paying attention
| to how fast the goalposts are moving.
| glaugh wrote:
| Saw this the other day:
| https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5726492-social-media-...
|
| Writer's org's founders include Meta, among many others:
| https://itif.org/our-supporters/
|
| I'm no expert here, so leaving this as a datapoint
| ecshafer wrote:
| Social Media Bans are never the answer says unbiased author
| Zark Muckerburg
| soopypoos wrote:
| more like gaolposts amirite
| dgxyz wrote:
| UK here. My kid's school is insane. They think they are so
| progressive because they banned personal phones entirely, which
| is fair enough. But they forced us to buy marked up Yondr
| pouches, which is not fair.
|
| However this isn't the only problem. They also force us to pay
| monthly for iPads with wonky ass Logitech cases to be issued on
| which they do everything on Google classroom.
|
| Google Classroom is an abhorrently bad bit of software on an
| iPad. It's just horrible in every possible way. Clunky, interface
| sucks, slow, unreliable.
|
| Then they give detentions when children can't submit work, some
| auth issue means the entire device goes down the toilet for two
| days, documents won't open because the staff use Office instead,
| they keyboard case craps out and you can't type with anything but
| the screen, the staff forget to submit the work until an hour
| before it's due, the entire school wifi network is down for a
| week and they have no backup.
|
| They should ban that too. Technology MUST be fit for purpose in a
| classroom and most of it isn't.
|
| Go back to paper for everything. Work, journals, timetables, the
| lot. And the teachers can use whatever to drive projectors in the
| classroom.
| Neywiny wrote:
| When I was in uni I would repeatedly get told that such issues
| with their software were fine because the lowest N
| quizzes/homeworks/etc wouldn't get counted. So instead of
| spending that leeway on a bad day I had to use it on their
| servers being down or whatever.
| bitexploder wrote:
| Probably a similar problem to AI. Using AI for the sake of AI
| in an engineering workflow probably wastes time right now.
| Using technology in the classroom for the sake of using
| technology is probably similar. Is it really creating access,
| opportunity, saving time. All that? I am skeptical. I have had
| similar experiences with my children over time. There was a
| layer of technology that made sense for education. Probably
| peaked when I was in school in the 90s.
| dgxyz wrote:
| Well saving time it does not.
|
| My daughter got a 0/20 for a test that she sat and did. Now
| she's not a complete idiot so this was suspicious. I asked
| about it and they said that it was likely that she didn't get
| any questions right. I asked for them to provide me with a
| copy of the exam paper so I could independently verify that.
|
| Magically she got a 17/20 grade updated but no paper
| appeared. I pushed it further and was told it was resolved. I
| raised a formal complaint immediately and they did a full
| investigation. The conclusion was there was a defect in the
| system used for tracking progress and it was losing
| information imported from the exam system. They had to
| manually enter over 200 student papers again due to this.
|
| No one had noticed or actioned it or saw it was a serious
| issue until I raised a formal complaint.
|
| When technology is in the loop it's very difficult for anyone
| to take personal accountability as demonstrated.
| bitexploder wrote:
| My partner is currently in an online college program for
| computer science. The platform and way they have structured
| it feels like actual computing hell. There is so much
| friction compared to what I know a more seamless learning
| experience online should be like.
| dismalaf wrote:
| This reminds me of university. Thankfully I did it long enough
| ago that a lot of stuff was still pen and paper, but some
| obvious stuff used computers (I did finance and econ, so some
| programming, lots of spreadsheets and statistics, etc...).
|
| We had some student portal thing online for submitting
| assignments, MS Office was "required", but the portal was weird
| and it was right after the .doc/.docx fiasco so everything
| related to office was a shitshow. Some of our profs simply gave
| up on the blessed tech stack, issues assignments as Google Docs
| files, and had us submit assignments through Google Docs. So
| much easier. I know Google gets a bad rep because of weird
| perceptions about surveillance, but no one does cloud syncing
| better. And because most of their software is browser based, it
| does basically "just work".
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| My children's secondary school (England) also banned use of
| phones, but the rule was that the phone had to be switched off
| and kept in the school bag, which was all very sensible.
|
| State schools cannot charge for essential equipment needed for
| the curriculum. Some schools are taking the p. If all parents
| told them to do one they would have no leg to stand on, and it
| is rather scandalous that nothing is done to stop this at
| Council and government level (they probably prefer to turn a
| blind eye rather than footing the bill).
| dgxyz wrote:
| They just step around that with a policy that you aren't
| allowed to bring phones into the school if you don't have
| one. Yes they are arseholes.
| alexfoo wrote:
| > They should ban that too. Technology MUST be fit for purpose
| in a classroom and most of it isn't.
|
| Absolutely agree.
|
| It's just bad luck that your kid is in a school that can't get
| it right.
|
| My 16yo kid's (state) school is far from perfect but the school
| provided laptop works well, is reasonably locked down and
| policed, and is fixed or swapped out quickly if there is a
| problem. Sure we have to contribute towards it but we can (and
| we pay extra to help cover the cost for someone who isn't able
| to pay for it). There are no similar tales of broken WiFi,
| unavailable servers or whatnot.
|
| They went through some problems where there were multiple
| systems in use and the kids regularly got confused about where
| they had to check for homework, with different teachers for the
| same subject using different systems, but that was resolved
| eventually.
|
| Phones are officially banned but enforcement is sometimes
| sporadic. If they do take the piss with it then it gets
| confiscated and a parent has to come in to get it released (the
| school has some generic Nokias to hand out at the end of the
| day if the kid has to have some way of being in contact). That
| deals with the majority of it.
|
| They seem to have got the balance mostly right in terms of
| doing enough to keep the lessons mostly distraction free, and
| also reducing access to keep FOMO down (if hardly anyone has
| access to their phone during the school day then they, as a
| group, don't think they are missing out on much).
|
| Not a fan of them going back to paper for everything, but 100%
| on screens isn't good either, especially as the exams are
| pretty much all paper based.
| ottah wrote:
| Do you have an elected schoolboard? In my state, if something
| was that bad, there would be no end to the meetings and public
| complaints.
| dgxyz wrote:
| There is an academy board. Unfortunately it's filled up with
| the sort of people who should never be allowed on a board of
| any sort.
| donatj wrote:
| I have worked in Edtech for the last 15 years, and I stand by
| it when I say most of it is just added noise.
|
| 1:1 programs are a waste of money and time. Students don't need
| continuous access to a computer. Shared computer labs with a
| set goal for the time will always have better outcomes.
|
| Kids frankly aren't learning more today with all this tech in
| the classroom than they were twenty years ago with paper and
| whiteboards, and the metrics prove it.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| I teach CS in the US and I have gone back to pencil-on-paper
| quizzes for my classes. I allow one page of hand-written notes
| and given them a quiz review beforehand where I essentially
| tell them what's going to be on the quiz.
|
| My intent isn't to trick anybody with hard questions, but
| rather to force the knowledge through their head out through
| their hand, then back through their eyes and through their hand
| again.
|
| Next semester I'm doing in-person paper readings, where the
| first 20 minutes of the class are reading a paper I print out
| and hand to them, we discuss the paper in class, then they
| submit their annotated papers to me for a participation grade.
|
| An irony of the AI era.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Man. Offloading all tbose costs to parents is stupid. But that
| aside: why is it always that edTech seems to have such shoddy
| software?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > why is it always that edTech seems to have such shoddy
| software
|
| The people buying it have shoddy qualifications to evaluate
| it.
| dgxyz wrote:
| Exactly. They take the claims from the vendor as true
| without validating them.
| gaws wrote:
| > Go back to paper for everything. Work, journals, timetables,
| the lot. And the teachers can use whatever to drive projectors
| in the classroom.
|
| Kids in Gen Alpha and beyond cannot fathom using analog tools
| for school work. Their collective minds would break.
| dgxyz wrote:
| Yeah definitely agree with that. I have one.
| dizzy9 wrote:
| > In crafting its policy, Estacada incorporated feedback from
| parents. That led to some key decisions around the cell phone
| ban. Rather than use pouches or lockers, students are allowed to
| keep their phones safely stored in their backpacks. That was for
| two reasons -- it allows students to contact loved ones during
| emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on
| their kids.
|
| I'm glad to hear this. They're currently trying to shill the
| magnetically sealed pouches in the UK, but the flaws are obvious:
| massive bottleneck at the pouch station would delay entry and
| exit from the building, phones would be unavailable during
| emergencies or to record incidents of crime or staff malpractice,
| and financial burden on schools.
|
| Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class"
| rule.
| starkparker wrote:
| Don't get it twisted, almost every Portland-area school has
| gone full in on the stupid fucking Yondr pouches, and yeah it
| fucked up entry/exit: https://katu.com/news/local/portland-
| students-adapt-to-new-c...
|
| They also begged parents to help pay for them:
| https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/portland-schools-ask-...
|
| A friend's kid needs an exemption from their doctor because
| their phone is also their glucose monitor and diagnostic
| tracker, and the exception only allows them to unlock the pouch
| under supervision when necessary.
| selectively wrote:
| What a vulgar situation. Policy made from a moral panic and -
| look at that - it is negatively impacting actual people who
| exist.
| bpt3 wrote:
| It's not a moral panic. There are loads of studies
| indicating that disconnected classrooms produce better
| outcomes for students.
|
| I'm not sure what argument there is for allowing all
| students unfettered access to their phones, but feel free
| to present one.
| selectively wrote:
| There are no reputable studies showing both correlation
| and causation there.
| bpt3 wrote:
| I'd link to some of the many studies published by
| reputable sources, but I suspect you'll brush them aside
| with your caveats
| selectively wrote:
| That 'caveat' is the actual science. So it's a pretty big
| deal.
| bpt3 wrote:
| More meaningless words that can be defined as needed by
| you to support your rather bizarre agenda.
|
| Numerous peer reviewed articles published in reputable
| journals have reported that there are advantages to
| banning cell phones in the classroom, yet you as the sole
| arbiter of "actual science" declare otherwise.
| jon-wood wrote:
| The sealed pouches are a bit of theatre. My son's school has a
| policy that pupil's can take their phones to school but if one
| is seen or heard on the school grounds it'll be confiscated and
| the owner's parents called to come pick it up on their behalf.
| From what I hear they're not shy about applying that policy
| either.
| alexfoo wrote:
| Offsetting part of the punishment to the parents (having to
| get them to come in to the school to collect the phone) is
| going to help get the policy reinforced from home in most
| cases.
|
| My kid's school had a similar policy. I didn't mind having to
| go out of my way to collect the phone and didn't pass any of
| that on to my kid, they were annoyed enough about having it
| confiscated that it only took a few times before they
| modified their behaviour accordingly.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This is how it works in my kids' school. Not Estacada, but not
| that far away, and not in Portland. No pouches or lockers, just
| an understanding that phones which are seen will be
| confiscated. First time they get sent to the office and
| returned as the student leaves school. Second time they have to
| be picked up by a parent.
|
| You'd think it would be a huge deal with rebellious teens, but
| my daughter says it has basically been a non-issue.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| >Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class"
| rule.
|
| And what if they don't? En masse?
| rtkwe wrote:
| At first a lot of parents get inconvenienced coming to get
| confiscated phones and if that doesn't inspire them to
| discipline their kid at home the school can move to the more
| draconian pouch systems.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class"
| rule
|
| That was the general policy before these bans. It was not
| working.
| kimbernator wrote:
| >Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class"
| rule.
|
| I'm honestly not educated on the topic right now since I
| haven't been in school for 15 years and have some time left
| before my daughter starts, but is this rule really not in place
| in most schools? How could any school justify not having this
| rule at the very least, regardless of how well-enforced it is?
|
| I always assumed it was a lack of enforcement due to
| understaffing that was the problem
| DANmode wrote:
| It's a lack of enforcement due to _unruly, unparented
| children_ ,
|
| in most regions' school districts.
| kimbernator wrote:
| I tend to avoid placing the blame on individuals (parents
| in this case) when the problem being described is so
| widespread. People act as rationally as they can, so if
| it's that common, it's a systemic failure. Scolding the
| masses is a fool's errand.
| DANmode wrote:
| > People act as rationally as they can
|
| We're talking about underdeveloped minds in the face of
| excruciating social and physiological pressure.
|
| I'm _pretty sure_ the systemic failure is, in part, that
| parents are, en masse, abdicating their responsibilities
| of guiding their children through the minefield of modern
| technology, from iPad kids on up.
|
| The reasons why vary - and include being addicted
| themselves.
|
| I'd love to hear any anecdotal evidence to the contrary -
| not just a dismissal, or being called a fool.
| eloisant wrote:
| > it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies,
| and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids
|
| That's such bullshit.
|
| - There is no emergency that require students to contact
| anyone. Communication can go through the school
|
| - Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at
| school
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Oof, the "my child is my property" parents are not gonna like
| this.
| heavygrit wrote:
| > Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're
| at school
|
| The tracker sends a notification when they're not at school,
| that's the point. Plus, I can lock down social media apps
| only during school hours. Blanket statements like this are
| plain ignorant. Also, I'm glad Utah finally passed a similar
| ban. Phones in use in class are a tremendous distraction 99%
| of the time.
| jwcooper wrote:
| This is ridiculous. The school will notify you if the
| student is not at school, or the teachers will eventually
| (or their grades/missing assignments).
|
| Also you don't need to track your kids to enable school
| time mode, if you want to lock down their phone during
| school.
|
| What are you going to do when they go to college? Track
| them? Monitor them? Make sure they go to classes?
|
| At some point, you just have to trust your kids to do the
| right thing. It's a part of them learning how to grow up
| and be independent. It's better to make mistakes the
| younger you are so you can learn from them when there is
| less on the line.
| heavygrit wrote:
| This is even more ridiculous, how about that?? My
| particular school will send a message at 5pm daily with
| any attendance issues, but I can be notified instantly
| through the app. Why would I ever choose to be less
| informed? Also, I appreciate your points about college,
| but have you noticed a large number of students
| disproportionately boys are disenchanted with the whole
| education system at large and opting out of college. I'm
| clinging on to a hope that mine will see the value, but
| there are lots of different developmental speeds and some
| students need more guidance than others. You do realize
| some high school students just become burnouts, right?
| Your one size fits all, hands off and trust mentality is
| naive and if you happen to be a parent, hopefully you'll
| be able to avoid the situation of parenting a student in
| crisis. Cell phones are a major problem in schools and
| I'm glad to see efforts being made to address it
| briffle wrote:
| Kids are smart. My school district has sealed pouches.. Its
| amazing how many kids throw an old phone in there, and put
| their actual one away hidden on silent.
|
| Which I guess gets looked the other way, since they aren't
| using it in class.
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's definitely a mix of the actual phone pouches and the
| bans giving teachers actual authority and permission to
| confiscate phones when they're out and disruptive. IMO
| there's likely a shift that happens with pouches where there
| are enough kids following the rules and only having one phone
| in the pouch that it tips the social balance over. That would
| be harder with just teacher enforced bans I think.
|
| It's definitely a hard problem over all balancing their
| completely disruptive nature if there's no bounds to the
| issues around safety and parental worry from not being able
| to contact their kid all the time which phones have made the
| norm.
| tiberone wrote:
| > Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class"
| rule.
|
| Anybody who has spent even a day teaching knows how wildly
| inaccurate this statement is
| mystraline wrote:
| For a country that likes to brag about being a "democratic
| republic", the 2 major areas of society (school and work) are the
| most fascistic top-down authoritarian structures we have.
|
| And sure we can vote every 2 years. Yay.
|
| But what freedom do we have when schools can steal student's
| property, or a business owner can fire you for speech made
| outside of work.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Given the free market nature of cellphones, where vendors and
| companies have unfettered access to monetize users, having
| cellphones in school is akin to making school children line up
| and listen to sales pitches from companies around the world for
| several hours a day, instead of focusing on education.
| wjholden wrote:
| For what it's worth -- my last workplace did not allow cell
| phones in the building and I learned to love it. When people
| attended meetings, we all made eye contact and talked about the
| task at hand. Nobody ever got distracted by notifications or
| tuned out with boredom. And since we all had traditional
| telephones at our desks, someone would come get you if your
| family was calling with for an urgent crisis. I miss it.
|
| My kids' school banned phones during the school day. The
| principal promised that the office would relay any messages if
| parents call, and they do. I would be interested to see if there
| are already statistics showing academic success. That is, are
| grades and test scores affected by phone bans? The article talks
| about graduation rates, but doesn't directly address grades and
| scores.
| moduspol wrote:
| > I would be interested to see if there are already statistics
| showing academic success.
|
| It's fair to expect that data, though honestly at this point,
| it might also be reasonable to expect data that increased
| screens IMPROVE the outcomes before allowing or issuing them.
| selectively wrote:
| Phone bans are bad.
| saltyoldman wrote:
| Why is that?
| selectively wrote:
| The obvious reasons. People who do not have political agency
| should not have decisions made that prevent them from using
| their own devices in a setting that they are legally required
| to be in. That's not how things should work. One group of
| people should not be setting policy for another group of
| people in this matter. The victims of these policies aren't
| infants; they will be adults in about five minutes.
|
| Blankets bans and these idiotic 'oh just ban phones/computers
| entirely, pen and paper am i rite?' ideas have a ton of nasty
| externalities that no one seems to care about. They reduce
| the quality of life for people who rely on AAC (having your
| actual voice on the device you carry day to day is nice,
| having a lesser experience without your actual data is
| intolerable + 'everyone' having the kind of device that you
| use for this purpose prevents you from standing out at all
| times) in service of chasing and responding to a moral panic.
|
| In the real world, kids just unenroll Chromebooks via the
| nine million exploits that have been found over the years
| (many of which are unpatched and some are hardware flaws) and
| load software that lies to the management system about the
| state of the device. They do whatever they want on on those
| devices - which is mostly 'doing their actual work without
| staff being able to spy on their screen/being able to play a
| simple game when they have no work to do'. The people using
| phones in class are the exact same people who were using
| iPods in class, were using non-smartphones in class to text
| constantly, using Discmans in class and so on. To pretend
| that smartphones are somehow different from that past
| involves gesturing towards pseudoscience and non-credible
| actors. For more on this:
| https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/21/two-major-
| studies-125000...
|
| These policies have both possible problems - the 'gun control
| problem' (you can't really achieve anything that you claim to
| care about while also issuing kids laptops that are used in
| class + you have to issue laptops in order to much of the
| kind of relevant teaching necessary in 2026, so there is no
| real way around this problem) and also the problem of the
| policy itself not addressing an actual real problem that
| exists - it's mostly a moral panic about social media, not
| some real problem of widespread usage of phones during class.
| The people who are interested in learning will learn, the
| others will not, that's that. People should be treated as
| individuals rather than a faceless blob of youth who need
| hostile policy designed for them. I'd also remind lawmakers
| that these people will be adults in about five minutes and
| resentment can easily carry over into the voting booth.
|
| By the way, the Oregon ban is illegal and will be tossed out
| the moment that it gets to the appropriate level of judicial
| review - the Governor cannot make law.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I have no idea how you've generated this principle. I'm
| going to ignore the noise.
|
| 1) "The victims of these policies aren't infants; they will
| be adults in about five minutes."
|
| You've made no case for why adults couldn't be banned from
| using phones in class.
|
| 2) "They reduce the quality of life for people who rely on
| AAC..."
|
| I don't know what this stands for, but if it is some sort
| of handicap, exceptions can be made. It's fine to ban
| wheelchair use in school for people who don't need
| wheelchairs. Even if having a wheelchair makes you stand
| out because everybody isn't using one.
|
| 3) "To pretend that smartphones are somehow different from
| that past..."
|
| That past is very recent, and is also garbage. Chromebooks,
| iPods, cellphones, and "Discmans" in class is also a
| terrible idea. If whatever advantages that Chromebooks
| provide (I don't want Google in schools at all, but ignore
| me) are nullified by the fact that kids can bypass the
| security on them, _get rid of them._
|
| 4) "...you have to issue laptops in order to much of the
| kind of relevant teaching necessary in 2026"
|
| You definitely don't.
|
| 5) "The people who are interested in learning will learn,
| the others will not, that's that."
|
| That is a good argument for not even having schools. But we
| have schools because we are concerned with setting up
| situations that can make it easier to learn, even for
| children who are less interested than others.
|
| 6) "Also, the Oregon ban is illegal and will be tossed out
| the moment that it gets to the appropriate level of
| judicial review - the Governor cannot make law."
|
| The state can make policy, though, for its own schools. If
| this ban extended to private schools that weren't taking
| any money from the state, I could see this being a problem.
| This includes "vouchers."
| selectively wrote:
| If you are going to ignore 'the noise' (the actual
| content of my post) we don't have anything to talk about
| and you should not reply. Do not reply to me if you are
| not going to actually respond to the content of my post.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I'll reply to what I want, and I think I pulled out the
| actual content of your post.
|
| The rest of it just seems to be strange pronouncements
| you are making about what people should and shouldn't
| want to do, and the motivations of the people you don't
| like.
| selectively wrote:
| You will comply with instructions given or you will be
| reported to staff for a probable ban. Treat others with
| respect - when they tell you to not interact with them,
| follow that instruction. I do not consent to your kind of
| abusive, garbage type of reply. Do not reply to me.
| rendang wrote:
| They shouldn't have chromebooks either...
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| It's tough to imagine how different it must be for kids now than
| when I went to school.
|
| I know there's a billion other reasons, but I've heard parents
| say they want their kid to have a phone so they can keep in touch
| if they need to.
|
| When I was a kid, cell phones weren't a thing (at least for kids)
| so the once or twice a year I needed to call a parent I went down
| to the office and asked to use their phone.
|
| Then I got to have whatever, usually embarrassing, conversation
| with my mom while everyone in the school office stared at me.
| Good times.
| nabbed wrote:
| I would love it if my laptop had a "study mode" for when I am
| trying to debug something or learn something new using my laptop.
| Some of us have less than stellar self-control, so a study mode
| which requires a multi-step rigamarole to shut off might prevent
| me from casually checking my email or a news website when I am
| supposed to be learning a new data structure or figuring out a
| data corruption bug. I have no idea how it would work in real
| life: I need access to the internet to lookup API documentation,
| download libraries, and read online books, but I imagine
| something could be worked out.
|
| (This article mentions that not only are cell phones banned at
| the featured school, but these kids have hobbled laptops that
| supposedly help them focus on school work, although the imperfect
| nature of the hobbling has unintended consequences).
| corporate_pie wrote:
| Here is how it would work in real life:
|
| The laptop would come with a study mode button.
|
| You would push it and turn off distractions.
|
| Then 5 minutes later you would disable it just to send a chat.
|
| Then since it was off, you'd just quickly check TikTok.
|
| Then while you're at it, it just a quick break, you'd pop over
| to Twitch.
|
| 3 hours later...
|
| If you can't teach yourself restraint, a button won't help.
| alexfoo wrote:
| That's a very simplistic view.
|
| Granted it won't work for 100% of people but I'm sure it
| would work for lots of people.
|
| Something as simple as a button you have to press to disable
| it is often enough of a barrier to prevent people from doing
| that as it makes the context switch from work to non-work
| more obvious than simply alt-tabbing to a different browser
| window.
| kibwen wrote:
| Slowing down the dopamine feedback loop works. Many impulses
| that lead to distraction are automatic, not conscious. Ever
| closed a Hacker News tab just for your fingers to immediately
| re-type the URL into the bar and hit enter? There are browser
| extensions that delay loading pages on a given site for a
| number of seconds, to cut off that sort of automatic
| behavior, and they work as long as the delay to load the site
| is less than the time and effort it takes to open up your
| addons manager and disable the addon.
| DenisM wrote:
| Create a separate Mac / Windows non-admin account just for
| coding? I'm sure there are parental control measures for either
| platform. As time goes you can update the deny list of web
| sites.
|
| Another thing that helps is recording your screen for the whole
| day. Once you start doing review in the evening it will create
| back-pressure on the monkey brain that jumps to distractions.
|
| Yet another thing is to setup a separate computer. You can
| browse crapnet as long as you want, but you have to walk to
| another desk. The back pressure is subtle but has long-term
| effect and requires very kittke will power.
| nabbed wrote:
| >Create a separate Mac / Windows non-admin account just for
| coding?
|
| Yes, I got as far as creating a separate account on my MBP a
| few years ago and I do programming and open source stuff with
| that account. And it has helped quite a bit! Although it's
| not perfect (case in point, I am here on HN right now).
| rd wrote:
| A combination of https://selfcontrolapp.com/ and Hammerspoon
| automation and you can lock yourself out of pretty much
| everything.
| overvale wrote:
| I managed to build myself exactly this with Claude's help.
| There are 3 levels of protection.
|
| 1. I use an app called SelfControl, which blocks websites
| temporarily.
|
| 2. I have a script which watches `/etc/hosts` with launchd and
| reverts it to a version pulled from a server if the file
| changes. This blocks websites I never want to go to.
|
| 3. I setup a 'focus mode' with hammerspoon prevents me from
| launching certain apps, and makes me wait 30 seconds and type a
| string of text when I want to switch it off.
|
| Yes, all of these things can be disabled when I want to, but
| the point is that they all add some fiction and give me a
| chance the reconsider the distracting action I was about to
| take.
|
| I've been doing it for about 2 weeks, so far it's working
| pretty well!
| jmward01 wrote:
| I think this is likely a good concept for schools, but I want to
| see the data and not opinions. Lack of evidence based policy is
| what got us here, we should at some point start using evidence
| based policy to get us out of it.
| mrinterweb wrote:
| There are many sources for data on before and after school cell
| phone bans. Oregon is far from the first to implement this. 35
| US states have some form of school cell phone ban, and I
| believe the UK is doing a nation-wide ban. There is a good
| amount of supporting data measuring results on this topic.
| cmxch wrote:
| Any data that discusses the effects of jurisdictions that
| still have refused to pass or enact such provisions?
| mattbaker wrote:
| It's the right idea but it also puts the burden of enforcement on
| teachers that are already over extended, especially in schools
| where behavioral challenges are more prevalent. Great in a
| scenario where students are compliant, and a nightmare in
| environments where they're not.
|
| I don't have a solution to that problem, but I also think it's
| important to acknowledge it's not all sunshine and roses.
|
| I'm saying this as a person with close friends in Oregon school
| systems, based on the experiences they've shared with me.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > It's the right idea but it also puts the burden of
| enforcement on teachers
|
| As opposed to what? Enforcing rules of the classroom is part of
| the teacher's job.
|
| I don't understand this objection. What's the alternative? Just
| let the classroom be a free for all because we don't want to
| burden teachers enforcing rules? Put a separate security
| officer in the classroom?
|
| Enforcement becomes easier, not harder, when the rules are
| uniformly applied everywhere and without exception. There's no
| gray area and less temptation to bring the phone out because
| they know they'll lose it wherever they use it, even if it's in
| the hallways.
| alexfoo wrote:
| I think this more about it coming from a higher authority than
| the school itself.
|
| Many schools have similar bans but they don't get support from
| many of the pupils or their parents as both groups have members
| that just believe it is the school choosing to overstep their
| authority.
|
| Now it is a diktat from above it makes the school's job in
| enforcing it much easier. They can just point to the relevant
| legislation/diktat and say that their hands are tied, if you
| disagree here are the places you can go to voice your opinion.
| Meanwhile we (as a school) have no choice but to apply the rules,
| etc.
| philistine wrote:
| That is exactly why this is a success.
| akramachamarei wrote:
| This notion discomforts me. It has poor implication for
| decentralization of decision making, i.e. federalism in school
| administration.
| briffle wrote:
| its a blanket rule, which has almost no exceptions. So there are
| some silly parts. One of my kids is in band and the school uses
| YONDER pouches. They have had to dig out some really, really old
| analog tuners to use. They have a fraction of the capability of a
| $4 IOS app, but the kids are supposed to keep their phones in a
| special sleeve with no exceptions... (so many kids break that
| rule, or throw an old dummy phone in the pouch)
| 50208 wrote:
| Good ... do it the old way ... I support the blanket ban, wish
| it would go further. It's a good start.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Tuners?
|
| We had the oboe tune from a tuning fork, then the rest of the
| band tunes off of that. Or everyone tunes from a piano.
| xjlin0 wrote:
| Tuning by ears is an important skill for musicians, learning
| that is beneficial. For example, you cannot rely on apps to
| tune your signing voice during performance.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Pianists are musicians that don't tune their instruments.
| People that use computers, too.
|
| A whole band tuning by ear? Ouch!
| 50208 wrote:
| Now ... what do we do about the rest of society. This problem
| isn't just a school problem, it is whole of society, escpecially
| senior citizens. They are more prone to the problems of phones,
| social media, and continuous disinformation ... and they vote.
| tejohnso wrote:
| Not having distraction devices in a classroom is such a basic
| concept. I'm surprised it required government intervention. Every
| half decent school principal should've banned them in their
| school, and if the principal didn't, the individual teachers
| should have banned them from their classrooms. The first time a
| kid had to have a question repeated to them because they were
| looking at their phone should've been the last time phones were
| permitted in that class.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Part of the problem is with each step down the ladder there's
| less authority and support and more chances for blowback from
| angry parents going higher up the chain. Teachers fear not
| getting support from principals if they're DIYing a device ban,
| principals fear blowback from complaints to the board or
| superintendent etc.
|
| There's also the normalization problem at the teacher level
| where kids are used to using them in other classes so it's a
| bigger lift to get different behavior in one specific class.
| lmf4lol wrote:
| Here in Amsterdam, most of the schools have a complete ban(!) for
| pupils below age 15 or 16. It has been a great decision so far.
| My daughters are essentially phone (and internet) free until they
| come hone from school. I love it
| dkhenry wrote:
| Just wait until you find out the benefits of taking them away
| from kids altogether! Phones are a mental health hazard for
| children, there is no benefit for them having a phone. The only
| downside is they feel left out when their friends only want to
| sit around and scroll TikTok, and can't manage to have any in
| person interactions without their face in a screen.
|
| None of my children have phones, and when they do get one, it
| will be when they are driving and will be a dumb phone for
| sending text messages and making calls.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Smart phones came out like 20 years ago. Why did it take so long
| to ban them in schools?
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