If you freaked out over the implemented phone policy by the school district last spring, you better get ready. Through Senate Bill 206, the state government has issued a new cellphone ban to take effect in every New Hampshire public school district.
Some districts, like Derry and Hudson, have adopted the new policy, while others, like Londonderry, are easing their students into this ban.
This policy requires cellphones to be shut off and in your backpacks from the first bell of the day at 7:20 a.m. until the last at 2:14 p.m. Although this new policy may seem similar to the one Londonderry implemented last year, it is much stricter. Currently, students are allowed to use their phones during studies, lunches, passing periods, bathroom breaks, and even just in the hallways, but, soon the school is to be fully phone free.
It’s understandable the government wants to increase students’ focus in class, however they have seriously overlooked potential issues this ban incurs.
Phones are tools
In many classes, cellphones are used as an educational tool. Sometimes students are required to take and submit photos of work, whether that is science experiment results, math work, art work, really anything your teacher wants.
Having to dig your computer out of your bag, log in, wait for your computer to load, take a photo, download it and save it in the right spot, then uploading it to Google Classroom is extremely time consuming. It wastes class time when you could easily snap a photo on your phone and upload it to Google Classroom with the click of a button. Plus after doing all of that, the photo does not come out great because the quality and resolution of the cameras on the computers are very poor, ruining small details in the photo.
Specific classes, like journalism, rely on the new technology of cellphones for every day class. The process of writing a story requires going out into the school, recording an interview, transcribing that interview, uploading onto a google doc, and taking photos, all of which require the use of a phone if you want to complete the story in a timely manner.
The school would end up needing to provide equipment for the journalism classes including voice recorders, multiple cameras, and video cameras. What could have been done with one device, now needs three. This will decrease productivity and the amount of work that gets done.
If a student in an art class wants to take a picture of their progress or a student in a cooking class wants to take a picture of their food, they would need to go to the library and check out a camera. This would waste a lot of class time and then the student would need to download the image.
Yes, there are a handful of students that abuse their screentime at school, and it is completely understandable to want to regulate this issue. The problem is, not all students deserve these consequences. Students who respect their education by putting away their phones during class should not get their property taken away from them. It isn’t fair that phone privileges are gone for everyone just because a select few students are being disrespectful.
Technology is not going anywhere, it gets upgraded on a daily basis, so we need to learn to embrace it instead of turning to old habits that once worked. Just because students learned without phones once, doesn’t mean we should sit in the past and watch while the world advances around us.
How will consequences be administered?
What is the point of making this a state law, instead of schools coming up with their own system that works for their district?
If a student so much as glances at their phones do they get arrested? Technically, they are breaking the law, so what does a punishment for this look like? The official consequences for schools have not been released yet.
Why is this the problem that the state wants to control? There are many bigger issues with teenagers rather than being a screenager. Issues of substance abuse and unsafe driving all put students’ lives in danger, looking at a cell phone at school, however, does not.
Conclusion
Lets face it, eventually this law will get removed because it is not thought out enough and will end up just wasting time and energy.
This sets us back as learners, which is the main reason we attend school. This policy will waste class time by having to use computers for simple tasks that only require a phone and possibly take away local law enforcements’ valuable time. The problems these officers should be focused on won’t get the attention they deserve, which can only lead to more issues.
It is understandable that the government wants students to be more engaged in learning and not be distracted by phones, but the state should let each district decide for themselves and come up with the right system for their schools. There should be no issue with using your phones during a lunch or study period, especially since these are “free periods” students can use to relax throughout the day.
A complete ban of cell phones will only create more ways for students to get around it. Why not teach students to live with their phones in a responsible way rather than just cutting them off completely? Extremes are never successful.
