Next year he hopes to be in university and expects freedom.
Transcription:
Steve Inskeep, host:
More states prohibit students using their hard phones school hours. Some individual schools too. One of my children has to close the phone in a small bag false school hours. Daquoia Carrillo de NPR has the story.
Sequoia Carrillo, byline: This school year is the first in which each student in the public schools and Charter of Texas will be without their phones to last the school day. But Brigette Whaley, associate professor at Education at West Texas A&M University, has a Hasch how things will go.
Brigette Whaley: A more equitable environment, a more attractive classroom for students.
Carrillo: The last year spent the deployment of a prohibition of cell phones in a public high school in western Texas, focusing on how teachers felt about the program. They saw an improved commitment and more conversation among the students.
WHOLEY: They were very happy to see that the students were more willing to work with each other.
Carrillo: Student’s anxiety also collapsed, according to their research. The main reason? Students hide with fear of being filmed at any time and shaking themselves.
WHOLEY: They could relax in the classroom and participate and not be so anxious for what other students were doing.
Carrillo: The findings in western Texas align with the results of many of the states and districts that return to school without phones. Students learn better in an environment without a phone. It has been a rare problem with bipartisan support, which allows rapid adoption of policies in many states. That fast pace, says Whaley, can sometimes be a danger to the impact of politics. While most teachers in the school who studied supported the ban …
WHOLEY: There was a teacher who did not apply politics well, and that seemed to cause difficulties for other teachers.
Alex Stegner: Each teacher had a slightly different policy about it.
Carrillo: That is Alex Stegner, teacher of social studies and geography at Portland, Oregon, speaking about the prohibition of cell phones of his district. He says that the different types of application were normal in his school. Last year, each Lincoln High School teacher obtained a safety box to collect phones at the beginning of the class.
Stegner: Some teachers did not bloc the boxes. Some teachers left the doors open. And some teachers, like me, blocked them. I was committed to the son of going with that, and I like it.
Carrillo: He said that last year was the first year in a decade that did not spend class time chasing cell phones around the room. Now, when Lincoln enters his second year with a child or prohibition, things are changing a little. This year, students’ phones will be locked throughout the day, not just class time. Stegner believes that it will be a learning curve, but not only for teachers and students.
Stegner: I think some parents will fight. But I think it seems to be this child of collective understanding that we have to do something different.
Carrillo: Like many schools, Lincoln High School will distribute individual blocked bags, known as Yond bags, students this year, which were used in the Whaley district studied in Texas and for about 2 million students.
Stegner: I listened to stories last year about yond bags, you know, open, destroyed. And there is a logistic thing of everything, such as, that they come with the students’ thesis bags and tell them, such as, Ok, now that is their responsibility.
Carrillo: Then teachers seem to like cell phone prohibitions. But as for children …
Rosalie Morales: You will see a different response from the students.
Carrillo: Rosalie Morales is in its second year that supervises the pilot program of Delaware for a cell phone prohibition throughout the state. He surveyed teachers and students at the end of the first year to ask if the ban should continue continuously. The eighty -three percent or the teachers said yes, while only 11% or the students agreed.
Zoe George: It’s annoying.
Carrillo: Zoe George, a student of Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, says that no one asked before the New York state banned cell phones.
George: I would like to listen to us more.
Carrillo: You are concerned about the implications for the task and the free periods of school work. She says that the school cannot do laptops for each student, so students often used their phones. But also, it’s just a nuisance.
George: It’s not the sausage, it’s my last year. But at the same time, it is my last year.
Carrillo: Next year, he hopes to be in college, and look forward to freedom.
Sequoia Carrillo, NPR News.
(Soundbite of Song, “Phone Down”)
Erykah Badu: (Singing) I can do you, I can do you, I can make you leave your phone.
INSKEEP: Is there any history of human beings surviving without cell phones? YEAH. Yes, there is.
