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‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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How would this work? What about people that need to contact their parents?
We need to move away from schools just being prisons for children while parents are at work, and encourage learning and more autonomy over what to study. Imagine having full access to Coursera and EdX and being able to choose what you wanted to study and collect credits like that - building your own syllabus from some of the best educators in the world.
Let kids program video games together at school, build sensors and robots, do basic genetic engineering (e.g. plant patterns), simulate and build model bridges, etc. like stuff that is actually fun but requires basic skills. So you're not just memorising the trigonometry equations but really learning it because you need it in your projects.
And have zero tolerance for disruption and bullying with cameras, etc. It should be a place for collaborative learning, not a prison. It should feel like a much better place to learn than anywhere else.
I'm of the opinion that if something is distracting a student, they shouldn't use it in class (without a very good reason). Which means if a student brings their phone into class, they better make sure it won't distract them. If they play with it when they shouldn't be or it rings, by all means, punish them just like you would punish talking in class.
But stuff like using it right up until the teacher actually starts teaching? That's not a problem. Or if it rings for a legit emergency (do not disturb mode can allow this), that's totally fine. If some assignment actually benefits from a phone, great! If you finished an assignment early, go ahead and use it so long as you aren't disruptive.