STOP! That's mine!

 You can’t take my property!

 

School systems and private schools are disallowing cell phones in the school.  As with all things there are three sides to every story.   My side, your side and the right side.

Students say that the phone is their private property and the system cannot take it away.  One could split hairs and remind students that in almost all cases the phone itself is the property of the parent or whomever is paying the cell phone bill, most likely not the student.   Of course, we have a history of taking kids’ private property if it is not appropriate to school or we made a rule against it.  You cannot smoke on school property or we will take the tobacco away, ditto alcoholic beverages.  No weapons, no drugs.  Taking things from students we don’t want them to have has a long history.

What if there is an emergency, how can I contact my parents.  Depends on the emergency but most likely the school officials will contact your parents if it’s a true emergency.

I am a parent and I need to be able to reach my child!  Exactly why?   Do you allow your child to call you at work to chat?   School is your child’s  job.  He/she needs to be left alone to do that job.   And if you really need to get a message to your child, just call the front desk.  It will get through.

Data show that kids get hundreds of messages a day on their phone during school hours.   No, that was not a typo.  It’s very hard for kids to attend to their job (i.e. learning) when they also have to respond to all of those pings. And if you are a student, the pings may have more value than what the teacher is trying to do. Teachers don’t need children to do a constant dialog with their parents on what the teacher is doing.  Just one more reason teaching has lost a lot of its fun.  

Teachers and school administrators say kids don’t need phones in school.   Important messages to families can go through the office.   And then there are the not so important messages kids are sending- photos of bodily parts that are best left covered, insinuation about which students are dating (or not), having sex (or not) and just generally gossiping about what’s happening now.  

Most great compromises please no one and have something for everyone.  Put student phones in a safe place every morning so they can see where the phone is going, lock it up AND put the phone on the charger.   Teachers/administrators get peace to do their jobs.  Kids get a fully charged phone at the end of the day to use on the bus on the walk home.   See something for everyone.  And everyone gets something to be annoyed about too.

Oh, and by the way, the property isn’t the students and the school administrators can indeed take it.