Reply to Many teachers have considered leaving education, union says

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You are making a couple of pretty big assumptions. My experience as a classroom teacher is very different. No parent would sue? I’m not so sure about that, particularly in priviledged and litigious MoCo. But, even if they don’t sue, they will stir up trouble for the teacher because, after all, their precious snowflake deserves to have her/his phone at all times! Teachers already don’t have enough time to do their jobs. They don’t need an additional time-consuming fight with some idiot parent complaining about their kid’s loss-of-phone “trauma.” In addition, you assume the school administrators will back the teacher who took the phone. All I can say to that is....LOL! LMAO! The teacher would be thrown under the bus in a split second. MOST administrators just want to placate the parents. That’s how the principals curry favor and move up to central office positions where they rarely have to deal with parents, teachers, or students, but can mandate what goes on in schools. Nice work, if you can get it?. MCPS [b]needs a district-wide policy banning the use of cell phones during instruction[/b]. But...that will never happen because the school system’s “leadership” lacks both vision and guts.[/quote]

I agree, and I'm not sure why they haven't done it already. If phones are seen inside the classrooms, teachers should be able to take them away. It's a pretty easy no brainer. They can use them in the hallways or recess.

To be honest, as much as I don't like the excessive inequality in top private schools, I have to say that their discipline system works well. If they break the rules multiple times, they will eventually get kicked out.[/quote]

I teach ES and devices are banned, including smart watches.  We have one student whose parents appealed, so he gets to keep his smart watch while that's worked out.  But no cell phones--they stay in backpacks, turned off.  If they are seen in class, they go to the office and the parent has to come pick it up.  I don't understand why it's not possible to have the same policy in MS/HS.[/quote]
MS/HS students aren't monitored and managed constantly like ES students. HS students have bigger pockets, wear hoodies all day, and carry their backpacks. There is no way to managed them keeping their phones put away. You have no idea how "critical" phones are to MS/HS students and their social lives.  :roll: They are at the point that they will "die" if they can't constantly check their notifications. I'm in high school and I start class with a reminder every period to put phones into backpacks, and to take out airpods and earbuds. Of course, I have to go tap on the shoulder of about 4 or 5 kids who can't _hear_the instructions to take out their earbuds. I wasn't hired to be the cell phone police, and I have no interest in doing that. I'm not about to take $500 devices away from kids and then be responsible for the things.

Cell phones and social media addiction are stealing motivation from our students. Why do they need to learn anything, when they think they have all information at their fingertips and would rather just be entertained all day? Critical thinking? What's that? I am shocked and dismayed that my current average 11th grade high school students can't do tasks that my 8th grade students from 10 years ago had no problem with. The complete lack of intellectual curiosity is saddening. Teachers are considering leaving education not because of any one particular thing, but because there is a complete disconnect between current societal needs, current parent imaginings of what should and is happening in the schools, current disengagement in education by students, and a system designed in a different century for kids with different motivations and a society with different needs.[/quote]

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