Phones in School

Jori Lamce and Lillian Byrne

Students should be allowed to use  phones in school.

Students who go to MS.890 are no strangers to the strict phone policy. Some students get their phone confiscated for over a week which, in most of the students’ eyes, is very unfair. It's understandable why phones shouldn't be used on certain occasions, such as in the middle of a lesson, or during work since it can be distracting. Due to this, we only ask that phones should be used during lunch and recess. 

Phones are a huge part of many students' lives. On average, kids spend around 1-3 hours on their phones a day. During the weekend, that time is doubled. So as you can tell, it is a huge part of kids' lives. Lunch and recess are some of the only parts of the school day where kids get a break from non-stop school-work. Students want to spend their breaks doing what they like, which could be playing soccer or basketball and even using their phones. MS. 890 does not have a wide variety of equipment to use during recess, most students even have to resort to bringing their own equipment. Some students even prefer indoor recess because there's more to do there than outside. Because of this, many students would prefer to just use their phones instead of physical activity.

There are many pros to using phones in school but there are also cons too. However the cons of phone usage would be minimized since we only ask to use our phones during recess / lunch.

Many teachers in the school think that phones will start problems and fights in school and that things like that should be kept out of the schools. However, many online problems between two students end up getting brought up to school staff anyway. We understand that social media can start many fights, but limited phone usage is not what's preventing it. Fights and disagreements are a part of life and they are part of growing up so that we can learn from our mistakes. 

Also, teachers are allowed to use their phones on their break and sometimes are seen using them during class. Students might be working on independent projects or classwork and teachers are observed using their phones, or connected devices. Sometimes it’s understandable, replying to something important or if there's an emergency. Other times, teachers are texting or sometimes even checking their socials. Students might ask to search something up about the assignment when laptops are not available and it's a really quick search but teachers would still say ‘no’. Is it really fair that teachers have the opportunity to take out their phones to search things, but students don’t?

On the other hand, if we really need to call our parents we have to go to the main office and figure out how to use the phone. We believe that we should be able to use our phones during our break considering that it is our free time. Also we should certainly be able to use it in case of an emergency.      

PROS

  Students can use their phones for calculators if there are no extras and none of them work

Students can use their phones for research if there are no computers available.

Students can use their phones for can use their phones to go one certain sites for research that would be blocked on the school computer

CONS

Students might take photos or videos of other students and cyberbully or spread rumors and gossip.

Students can play around with other kids' phones and accidentally break it.

Some students can lose their phone or can get it stolen.