r/mildlyinfuriating • u/TheAeroplaneBear2906 • Jul 16 '26

Unskippable ad Clear Backpacks + Pay to Keep Your Phone

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My freinds school is now requiring these items, and is also using AI to promote this đŸ« 

17.9k Upvotes

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154

u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 Jul 16 '26

Sounds like school staff need to start actually enforcing policy. Our school district has competent staff and they handle it really well.

147

u/Infinitiscarf Jul 16 '26

Right bc our schools are so well funded and haven’t been steadily defunded over decades while we pump money into prisons and war instead
. 🙄🙄🙄

44

u/BKlounge93 Jul 16 '26

I mean I went to an underfunded high school years ago. You get caught on your phone, teacher takes it away. Happens more than once or twice, your parents get a call. Idk why it’s so hard.

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u/Humble-Cook-6126 Jul 16 '26

I dont think the parents care or agree anymore.

4

u/iTzGiR Jul 16 '26

Ding ding ding. This is the correct answer. As someone who works in the school, this is the real problem. Without a legitimate policy in place like this, parents will go ballistic, because “you can’t take MY kids phone”, and will try to go after the teacher, with admin usually caving.

Policies like this allow teachers/staff to just point to a school wide policy and ignore the headaches this kind of interaction causes. Parents will almost ALWAYS back up their kids on this stuff, and there’s no real accountability or real change because of it.

Ontop of this, teachers are there to teach, not to constantly be be babysitting 25+ kids and constantly stopping things to check on phone use/taking then away and the argument it always causes.

It would be fantastic if this DIDNT need to happen, and all the kids could just be responsible, and then if they didn’t, then a quick call to the parents would sort things out. But unfortunately that’s not the world we live in, and the kids, and more importantly their parents, would rather argue, fight and threaten lawsuits, then actually care about what a teacher has to say.

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u/atuck217 Jul 16 '26

As a parent, though admittedly my child is currently too young to have a phone, I would be pissed about the pouches. You are the adult in the situation and teaching them discipline is part of the job. If they pull out their phone at an inappropriate time, you tell them to put it away as a warning. They do it again, you confiscate it and tell the parents.

If my child has an emergency or even just wants to send me a text in the middle of the day at an appropriate time like between classes or something, they should not have to deal with the pouch.

I'd be protesting this if it was at my childs school.

10

u/killershwee Jul 16 '26

Teachers cannot effectively teach that discipline to 30 kids when the parents refuse to reinforce that discipline to their one kid at home. In a class of 25-30 kids, a solid chunk of them are quite literally addicted to their phones/screens. So am I supposed to teach literature, or manage a room full of addicts? Because I can't do both.

12

u/zecfrid Jul 16 '26

A teachers job is not to teach a child discipline if they are old enough to have a phone. The problem is the majority of children have no discipline. There is no emergency that a student can’t use a teacher’s desk phone or office phone for.

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u/Humble-Cook-6126 Jul 16 '26

I see your point. And this is how I'll raise my kids as well.

I just think we're in the minority. Schools aren't doing this because this novel new technology was just introduced. This is their solution to a problem that hasnt been solvable for sometime due to lack of support/pushback from parents.

3

u/NashvilleFlagMan Jul 16 '26

You and parents like you are actively holding back the school system.

5

u/rnason Jul 16 '26

If your high school age kid lacks discipline that’s on you as a parent

4

u/YUNoJump Jul 16 '26

You have a point, but also the reality is that kids are always gonna misbehave to some degree, and dealing with that wastes a lot of teacher time. Their primary job is to teach a lesson, and support students in learning it. If it takes time to discipline kids or deal with distractions like phones, that means less time the teacher has to actually teach things.

The pouches mean that if a phone is seen at all, the teacher can instantly say "you're doing the wrong thing" and send the kid to admin or whatever, minimal class disruption. If your kid needs to communicate with you, then the school has ways to contact you. With no pouches, it becomes a lot easier for a kid to waste time arguing; "it just fell out of my pocket/bag", "I was just turning it off", etc etc.

It'd be great if kids just did the right thing and teachers didn't have to worry about discipline, but that's hard to achieve. In the meantime, systems that minimise disruptions mean that kids can get a better education.

0

u/sorry_con_excuse_me Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Yeah but I don’t understand the issue. Are students actually disrupting class by being on their phones, or are they just not paying attention (hurting themselves)?

We didn’t have smart phones, but we just doodled or stared out the window. I’m not sure why it’s suddenly different with a phone.

It will be reflected in the kids’ grades and it’s up to the parents to deal with that. It’s not really the teacher’s or school’s problem if it’s just a matter of not paying attention.

I guess what I don’t get is on the one hand people are like “it’s not the teacher’s job to babysit” and then on the other hand “let’s babysit the kids’ phone use.” Like idk man, maybe just let them fail and learn the hard way.

2

u/zecfrid Jul 16 '26

Here is the thing. We can let students fail(which we do in high school), but that student who is failing is still sucking up resources. It’s still costing tax payers money to have the teacher in the room, run the AC, keep the lights on, maintain the school, etc. the introduction of smart phones has also led to worse outcomes across the board for students.

And yes, as a teacher, I can tell you students in their phone in class is disruptive to those around them. Before phones were banned in my state, I don’t know how many times a student would text others, airdrop shit to everyone in the class, or just start playing audio from their phone. Like others have said, the pouch sets an expectation that is easy to enforce. Phone not in pouch? It’s mine.

2

u/YUNoJump Jul 16 '26

It’s not the teacher’s job to babysit, but unfortunately that’s what they have to do when the alternative is “the child doesn’t learn anything”. And obviously the teacher’s job is to help kids learn things.

I think there’s an important difference here between “fail” and “learn a lesson from a mistake”. It’s easy to goof off in class and end up failing the term, but if the kid doesn’t actually shape up and do better after that, then they’re just gonna keep falling behind until they’re incompetent in critical skills like literacy, poorly prepared for entering the real world of adulthood.

There’s no way to ensure a kid learns that lesson themselves, so the next best thing is to ensure it doesn’t become a habit. Unfortunately parents don’t always play an active role in teaching kids discipline or assisting with their schooling, so it falls to schools to play that role.

And of course, the kicker is that if a kid flunks school because he goofs off on his phone all day, the school is where blame gets placed.

2

u/minkdaddy666 Jul 16 '26

That's one of the core issues, they aren't letting kids fail

6

u/pooppaysthebills Jul 16 '26

The entire school day is an inappropriate time.

-1

u/atuck217 Jul 16 '26

What are we 5? No it's not. There is nuance to things. My kid is sick or not feeling well and they take a second between their classes to tell me they are feeling okay/worse? Completely appropriate.

My daughter calls me privately from the girls room because she needs feminine hygiene products for the first time? Completely appropriate.

The point of not allowing phones in school is so they are not a distraction to the child or others during times of learning or otherwise. Not to just ban them from being able to communicate no matter what.

9

u/killershwee Jul 16 '26

There is a phone in the front office for that, and the guidance counselor/nurse/most women teachers/a friend will have feminine hygiene products for your child. They don't need a cell phone for that.

2

u/YUNoJump Jul 16 '26

Issues like that can be handled by the school, including contacting you. Plus school staff are much more available than parents, who might be at work or a long drive away or some such.

1

u/minkdaddy666 Jul 16 '26

That requires trust, and none of the parents trust schools because they all experienced a power tripping asshole growing up that didn't believe/listen to them