[always_good]

When I was in school, all I wanted to do was read the Sitepoint forums and learn more about HTML / CSS / PHP.

I had one teacher that took me up on my offer to let me use the one class computer when my work was done and that's exactly what I did with it. Then other kids opted into my sweet deal and ended up ruining it by causing too much disturbance around it.

Back then, I always resented the fact that it was more acceptable for me to sleep during class than to read material on the computer. So I ended up sneaking on my home computer after my parents slept and getting 4 hours of sleep each night so that I would then sleep during school.

I would've KILLED to have a smartphone in my pocket.

Now, I'm not sure what the best policy is going to be, here. But I can certainly relate to the injustice of feeling punished for something that doesn't apply to me.

I can certainly understand that a smartphone in the hands of a student will only make distraction more likely. But to take it away completely seems to overestimate the value of being attentive 100% of the time in school.

For example, imagine if you can take out your smartphone when you're done with your work AND you are averaging above a 85% in the class. Maybe something like that would offer best of both worlds.

[jclardy]

I think the problem isn't so much the technology, maybe it is just our general teaching methodology. I feel like in US schools we don't allow much room for self-learning inside the school itself, every class has a teacher and lesson plans, and not a lot of self-guidance. Personally I learned a lot on my own through high school that never would have been taught (z80 assembly to build games for the Ti-83.) I did most of that on my own, at home, rather than during class time for other essentially "irrelevant" courses. I think the main issue is what may seem unimportant to a child when they are a child, might end up being an important part of their life in the future. But they just don't know what they like or what they want to do when they are young, which is why we have general education courses.

Maybe if there were more opportunities for that it would be useful. But given the infinite amount of distractions a personal smartphone can provide I don't see how you can have 30 kids just doing whatever simultaneously and have a positive outcome for the majority.

[craigsmansion]

> For example, imagine if you can take out your smartphone when you're done with your work AND you are averaging above a 85% in the class.

Imagine taking out a book on a different subject when you're done and are keeping up, and no teacher complaining about that, ever. Then imagine being the teacher not having to deal with the other kids protesting because a single one of them is allowed to use his phone in class including all the teenage drama that you're definitely not getting paid enough for.