[celticninja]

I went through 10+ years of schooling where I could not immediately contact my parents and I and many others survived just fine. I think that school aged children having mobile devices probably does more harm than good when you factor in cyber bullying. Has there been an occasion where your child has had to contact you in an emergency?

For everyone who is misinterpreting this statement. I am not suggesting that jamming phone signals is acceptable. It isn't for the very reasons provided to the headteacher in the article. What I am suggesting is that children do not need access to their devices during lesson time, at which point the children are being supervised by a responsible adult (the teacher) who is able to contact emergency services or parents in the event of an emergency. Requiring students to hand in and retrieve their mobile phones from teachers at the start and end of a lesson is an entirely reasonable solution to the problem being faced by this (and probably many others) school.

[dpark]

I often had to call my parents to pick me up, both because of snow days and after school activities. Depending on pay phones for this was a giant hassle.

It's also ridiculous that someone who has a life threatening accident near this school might not be able to call emergency services from their cellphone.

Your appeal to cyber bullying is also baseless unless you can provide some evidence that blocking cell phones at school will accomplish this. This kind of hollow emotional appeal is how we end up with draconian laws that don't actually accomplish anything except massive inconvenience.

[celticninja]

You are conflating two issues here. I am against the use of jammers, the UK govt has strict laws against this for the very reasons provided to this headteacher and which you refer to when you mention accident reporting to emergency services. We have no disagreement on that issue.

I had those issues to, but the school notified parents if the school was closing early due to adverse weather and I made arrangements in advance for after school activities, same way I made arrangements to meet friends before we had mobile phones.

re: cyber bullying I never supported the blocking of cell phone access. My point was that we can survive without having them available to us 24/7. In a school setting having children hand them in and collect them from the teacher at the start/end of every lesson is a reasonable solution. Should some catastrophe befall the the student the teacher is there to call emergency services or contact the parents, if the catastrophe occurs on the way home or the way to school or at break time then the student has their phone.

[dpark]

Your previous comment, made in this thread, makes it sound like you supported the jamming. I completely agree that students don't need their phones with the 24/7.

I don't agree with having the teacher collect them and give them back out because that sounds like a massive waste of time, but students could keep them in their locker, or in their backpacks (with the understanding that use during class would result in immediate confiscation for the day/until a parent collected it), or whatever. They don't need them in hand during class, clearly.

[celticninja]

Apologies if my first comment was unclear. seems like we agree.

[wlesieutre]

Me too! Now that you mention it, I've never even had to call 911 once in my life.

I guess we can just start putting cell phone jammers up everywhere and it'll be fine.

[celticninja]

Perhaps you misunderstood me, at no point did i say jamming phone signals was acceptable. 24/7 access to a mobile device is what i was suggesting was unnecssary.

[libeclipse]

That's anecdotal evidence. What's to say your experience reflects the experience of all children in school today?

[celticninja]

please see my edit.