“Do students actually use their phones in class?”
Of all the questions people ask me about teaching high school, this one is probably the most perplexing – even more than “What’s the teacher’s lounge really like?” or “What do you do with all of the extra money in your paycheck?”
The simple answer to the phone question is yes. Classrooms are not autonomous utopias (or dystopias) untethered to the outside world; they reflect society. So, just like the rest of us, students have their phones on them at all times. Most actually have them permanently connected to their hand like a tree that has grown around a rock over hundreds of years. Removing it would take a surgeon, a chainsaw, or an upgrade.
Usually it’s the prerogative (word I learned from Bobby Brown) of the teacher to set the phone rules in the classroom. So, those can vary widely. However, if you choose to be the kind of teacher who forbids all phone use, you will have to come up with consequences. (Good luck.) Then you will spend most of your class time policing your “no phone” rule. (Double good luck.) It would be easier to keep an 80s boy band together than to prevent 30 teenagers from using their phones for an hour. While you’re running around like Mr. Telephone Man, other students will be live recording your every little step. Come on kids, don’t be cruel.
I tried being strict with phone use at first, but I got tired of the slight-of-hand games. Phones slid up sleeves, tucked in to jackets, or held behind papers (where the shadow would give them away). The most common method is to prop up a book in a very unnatural manner. Sometimes it’s upside down, so it’s even easier to spot — as if the simple act of reading wasn’t suspicious enough!
Phone patrol can also lead to lots of uncomfortable conversations. “Why do you keep looking at your lap? Are you using your phone? Well, it’s glowing …” Back when phones had actual keys (e.g. Sidekicks), I would have students who could text during class without even looking. They would just stare straight ahead while their hands moved furiously inside their sweatshirt pocket. How do you call someone out for that?
Phones have lots of benefits (such as research or further understanding), so I obviously don’t hate them. However, I do lament the loss of some nostalgic school activities like MASH, those folding paper fortune tellers you put your fingers in, or just simply passing notes. You can’t confiscate a text and read it aloud to the class. I mean, that was going to be one of my great joys of teaching!
With auto-correct, spelling has also taken a serious hit these days. So many essays are turned in with “I” not capitalized. “Usually my phone just fixes that,” they say. When I have students write a paper with their actual hand and pen (cursive is a topic for another time), there are words I don’t even recognize. As I often say, I love my students, but many of them would lose a spelling bee to the Chick-fil-A cows.
After eight years of teaching, my current phone policy is pretty simple. First, I have students write their suggestions on sticky notes during the first week of school and put them on my wall. I compile them and we discuss the pros and cons of the ideas. This gives students a say in the process, some self-governance, and total buy-in … then I do what I was going to do anyway. I announce that we are going to have respect for each other, be responsible human beings, and use our phones sparingly and appropriately.
Then we all laugh.
