Phones in Schools

    Recently, many schools have been banning the usage of phones, stating that it is affecting the focus of students and their education. Although I do believe this is partially true, and sometimes phones do draw students away from the initial importance of school, there are other things that make it difficult for students to stay focused and focus on their education as well.

    Starting off, the other students. Schools have posters about being kind and preventing bullying, but its still there. And regardless of how many kids come forward about their negative experiences, not much is done about it, at least from my perspective that is. Its difficult and almost unrealistic to expect people to focus on their education when coming to school and what the teacher is saying, or even show up at all when there is this constant, lingering fear that they will be made fun of or not be heard. Another thing, teachers don't really engage with students as much as they used to, or at all now. Since technology has become such an important factor in schools, things like slideshows have become the real teachers. In most of my classes, the teacher puts up a slideshow, or notes on the board, and just tells us to copy it instead of actually teaching and explaining the subject like they're expected to do. For many, it makes learning much harder when they're just staring at bold letters on a big screen. I think that if administration really wants to have an impact on students education, they should focus on things like that instead of automatically resulting to take away phones. Or better yet, actually talk to students, see what's making it hard for them to focus, see why they're uninterested or distracted.