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« 

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512

u/commandant_ Jul 16 '26

yeah, genuinely trying to teach when everyone just is on their phones is
 completely impossible. It’s understandable they’re desperate to fix it, but sucks everything is commercialized now

243

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '26

I can’t imagine being responsible for the performance of kids and not having any authority to do anything but stand there and talk at them.

0

u/not-the-nicest-guy Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

What authority should you have?

Getting downvoted for asking what Plane-Tiger means? I was a teacher for 15 years. I was just wondering what they couldn't do. We took phones away from students. Honest question.

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u/Some-Show9144 Jul 16 '26

The ability to fail a student who didn’t learn the material would be a start.

8

u/not-the-nicest-guy Jul 16 '26

I was wondering about the topic of phones.

28

u/Roonil_Wazlib97 Jul 16 '26

For phones -- when I was in HS they got taken to the office and you could only pick up on Thursday. So yes, if you lost your phone on Friday that meant no phone for the weekend. Second offense and beyond meant you had to pay $15 to get it back, there may have also been detentions attached, I can't remember.

Basically we actually had consequences.

23

u/not-the-nicest-guy Jul 16 '26

We took them away and students could pick them up at the end of the day. If they were persistent about it, we would hold the phones for a few days. Students hated so much having their phone out of their possession for even just the day that that was usually enough to keep them in their bags.

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u/Gloomy_Fig2138 Jul 16 '26

Those are still the consequences at my kids’ school and all of my friends’ kids’ schools.

8

u/Every_Television_980 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I teach on one of the largest school districts in the country and they do not confiscate phones or hold them in the office. There are consequences, but just the standard call home, detention, etc.

6

u/OldValariya1014 Jul 16 '26

So that is how you get sued by parents though. And that’s the last thing a school system wants

3

u/Mlpony2010 Jul 16 '26

Charging people for their own property is wrong

just taking it is reasonable

0

u/JalapenoPopPoop Jul 16 '26

That's not the right answer either though. Phones cost a grand and are personal property, a school doesn't have the right to steal your property and keep it for days on end. I would be surprised if that's even legal. And especially charging people to get their own legal property back definitely would be a lost law suit for the school district.

Keeping it until the end of the day to enforce no phone in school is one thing, but taking a very expensive device and one that parents use to stay in contact with their kids for 6 entire days is psycho

3

u/2ICenturySchizoidMan Jul 16 '26

lol nope they can. Ever heard of a tow truck?

0

u/JalapenoPopPoop Jul 16 '26

No never tell me all about it so I can hear all the ways its not the same thing at all!

1

u/Physical-Cook451 Jul 17 '26

Yh that's overstepping like crazy lol

10

u/wesborland1234 Jul 16 '26

Not allow them in school. I see a phone, you fail.

Or just teach inside a giant Faraday cage ideally.

4

u/2ICenturySchizoidMan Jul 16 '26

If they have their phone out they don’t care about their grade lol

3

u/Drow_Femboy Jul 16 '26

Failing grades should handle that, really. Phone use in the classroom is a problem the parents should be dealing with. If their kids start coming home with shitty grades now the parents are gonna get involved. And you can say, "Yeah, I taught him all this, but he was sitting there looking at his phone during the class and not paying attention." Then the kid gets punished and stops looking at his phone in class. Problem solved.

If the kid is looking at his phone throughout class and maintains good grades, then the problem is solved a different way--by not giving a fuck. As long as the material is getting learned, it doesn't matter what the kid's doing in class.

11

u/not-the-nicest-guy Jul 16 '26

I think of a classroom more as a learning community than a group of individuals doing whatever they want, with consequences showing up or not showing up somewhere down the line. Plus an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex makes it very, very hard for kids/teens to make reasonable decisions in the moment, especially around devices specifically designed to capture attention (the more of the attention economy an app grabs, the more money it makes). There are good developmental reasons why parents and teachers set screen limits, and I believe that's important for everyone, even high achievers. As a teacher, I wanted my classroom to be as productive a learning environment as possible and a "healthy brain" environment too. There's a ton of research on the intellectual, mental health and social-emotional benefits of no-phone zones, so that's the direction I took when shaping my classroom. It helps a lot to teach students about the value of taking time away from their devices, so I would do mini-lessons on brain development too. They found it interesting and were quite cooperative.

1

u/Drow_Femboy Jul 16 '26

That sounds fair to me, I'm not a teacher and haven't been in a classroom since smartphones were new and expensive. I just remember what school was like for me personally. When I was in school, I would read all my textbooks cover to cover over the first couple weeks of the year, and then I'd just read novels throughout every class. I aced every test and everything was good... except in classrooms with teachers who took themselves very seriously, where I'd be forced to sit and listen to a bunch of stuff I already know in order to sell the illusion of putting in hard work to learn, even though I'm not doing anything except daydream and look at the clock. Those classes sucked and I still resent the (thankfully very few) teachers who treated me that way even though I'm pushing 30.

Smartphones may be fundamentally different from novels, but the act of doing a leisure activity in 'free' time is the same.

5

u/creuter Jul 16 '26

The alternative explanation to what the teacher was dealing with is that you're setting an example for the other students in the class that might not have your motivation. If they see you getting an exception to dick around, they see it as permission for themselves to dick around too. The classroom has rules, and those rules are meant to help the whole group adapt to the rules they will encounter in society at large. It might feel like it sucks, but there's good reason to ensure that everyone is following those rules.

-1

u/Drow_Femboy Jul 16 '26

And if they dick around and get bad grades, the parents get involved and the problem is again resolved.

The real world works this way, too. The worst jobs I've ever had are the ones where the boss goes all "I'm not paying you to look at your phone!" and "Time to lean, time to clean!" The best jobs I've ever had are the ones where I spend half my shift doing whatever the fuck I want because my boss knows that when I'm needed I'll do what I need to do.

You're not describing giving someone real skills, you're describing preparing them to be exploited, abused, or drawn into a cult.

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u/Helpful-Dot-3782 Jul 16 '26

Schools are insane now compared to what we were supposed to do. I’m 37 and recently volunteered to help special education classrooms in a middle school. Kids had blanket, headphones on, sat on pillows in the corner to “calm down” and were falling asleep/napping at their desks. The things they are allowed now for accommodations are things that would get you to the principles office now.

0

u/Drow_Femboy Jul 16 '26

I mean, in my regular public school I occasionally had classmates with headphones or blankets, and I saw plenty of people nap during class. Hell, I'd have napped during class if I was ever able to sleep while sitting. What you're describing sounds completely normal for special ed situations where people may have severe sound sensitivities or the like.

2

u/not-the-nicest-guy Jul 16 '26

You were definitely the exception. Amd books for sure are exactly what brains need to develop sustained and focused attention, so that's excellent and probably still serves you well. And teachers who make students sit and listen to them talk on and on about something are just plain boring and ineffective. In a good classroom, all students are able to push their own understanding and skills to the next level, not just learn a textbook. So there really shouldn't be wasted free time.

It's too big a topic to fully explore in a Reddit post lol. But I assure you that a really good classroom environment has everyone challenged and engaged and, dare I say, having a bit of fun too.

2

u/suicide_blonde94 Jul 17 '26

That’s just not realistic. There’s a curriculum to follow. Sometimes school is boring. Sometimes learning is a lecture and notes. Students naturally want to do something not boring; that’s why phones and not taking them away are detrimental to their education.

Why are you against a textbook? It’s a physical source of knowledge that students always have access too.

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u/vi_obsiver Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

I mean, yeah, but like at the same time that's a failure of parents and/or the system - we need to give the teachers more agency but simultaneously there needs to be much more robust systems for following up on those failures and getting them back on track - and also tbh it would probably help if we just went to pass/fail systems.

In real life failure is bad, but it doesn't always have to be a catastrophe, and if we stop making it feel like one, kids will be less afraid to try hard and learn from mistakes

Overall we will see more kids on average become educated if we stop making them so focused on getting the best scores possible. Its counter intuitive but all the focus on scores makes kids focus more on passing tests than learning, and also creates a lot of stress. It doesn't foster creativity or curiosity

1

u/Every_Television_980 Jul 16 '26

Im a teacher and fail students every year, so do all the teachers Ive ever worked with.

-4

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

I don’t see the issue? If they take their phone out, confiscate it. Send them to the principal. Make a call to parents etc. get enough repeat violations and get suspended. Get enough past that get expelled.

But why can’t they keep it on them and learn to ya know be responsible and not take it out during class. Not like they are gonna have those same rules in college or work. For example, I’m on phone now and my boss just walked by. He doesn’t give a shit. He knows I’m gonna get my work done despite typing this shit on Reddit right now.

Anyway, I get you don’t want phones to be disruptive but there’s more effective ways to deal with it in my opinion.

Edit to add:
Apparently the admin at every school is incapable of holding students accountable and so the answer is pouches.

So the admin is willing to enforce a pouch policy, but not a no phones in class policy.

Plenty of excuses below about why policing phones doesn’t work, yet here we have these pouches that are supposed to police phones and work. And do tell what will happen when the kid ignores the pouch rule?

Stop making excuses. Administration needs to enforce rules. If you’re gonna have a pouch it’s gotta be enforced. So why can’t they enforce without the pouch?

Stated better, what is the pouch going to change about enforcement of the rules? If you have a no phone policy and kids ignore it, and they aren’t afraid of the discipline, then why will the pouch matter?

21

u/ireneabean Jul 16 '26

At least in my experience a lot of my kids these days don't care to be responsible with it. If I had to confiscate phones during class, I'd spend all day playing phone cop instead of teaching and half of the kids will probably argue with me and just be belligerent.

1

u/01bah01 Jul 16 '26

Depends where you are it seems. I'm in Switzerland, phones are banned, I've never heard of kids having them on at school. They are in their bags turned off and it seems to work quite well.

3

u/ireneabean Jul 16 '26

Oh definitely. I'm relatively new and only been in one district so my experience is very limited. We don't have the pouches but our rule is that phones must be in lockers during school hours. There's kids in my class who'll totally be responsible having their phones with them and get their work done, but unfortunately there's just more kids who'd rather be disruptive so here we are ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

So don’t argue with them? Just send them to the principal. Suspend them. Etc.

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u/ireneabean Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Then I'd be sending half my class to the principal's office which would also get me on the admin's shit list because the principal doesn't really care to deal with these types of things and the kids just end up wandering the halls to waste time. Suspension and expulsion requires a whole admin process here, idk about other schools, and it's often not worth risking my position nor arguing with parents just for a silly phone. Plus I've heard too many kids talk about suspension like it's vacation so I don't even know if it's even a punishment anymore.

Believe me I'd love it if these type of BS equipment isn't necessary or forced in schools.

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Stop making excuses.

Send half the fucking class. Have a spine. Hold them accountable. Kick them out.

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u/justguestin Jul 16 '26

Admin (if they show up), coddle the kids and send them straight back. Any referrals you send take weeks to process. The parents that bother to respond to teachers or admin have a strop because you took the kids phone. Teacher gets a bad rep for creating paperwork. They don’t get renewed for the following year and have to find a new job.

And that’s with just the less than half of students that have less than 20-30 absences for the year.

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u/Chief-Drinking-Bear Jul 16 '26

Yeah if every teacher at the school took your advice, maybe the school admin would implement some sort of policy to prevent this! Like Yonder Pouches!

Oh wait, that’s the exact thing the person you’re talking to is advocating for.

Use your brain

5

u/Judge_Syd Jul 16 '26

Dude just say you’re not a teacher and don’t understand how running a classroom works lol

-1

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Sure thing. Just say you don’t want to have to enforce any real discipline

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u/Judge_Syd Jul 16 '26

I do. It got to the point, district wide, where we enforced them leaving their phone in the office upon arrival.

I really don’t think you understand. Starts with a warning, then a detention + call home, sending them to the office. They just don’t give a shit. Admin send them back, their parents either don’t really care or say “oh we will take care of it” and the cycle continues.

I enforce discipline every day in my classroom. The phones were a totally different beast. And we were NOT allowed to confiscate them per our district policies.

1

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

How is the pouch going to change any of this? If they don’t follow the rules and have their phone out and not in the pouch?

How is the pouch going to make adherence the rules or discipline any different?

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u/LotteTakesNoShit Jul 16 '26

That's not how it works. Teachers don't have unlimited authority. Parents have eroded what they can or can not do.

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u/poon-patrol Jul 16 '26

“Stop making excuses. J do something that would more than likely get you fired”

1

u/SubSoniq Jul 16 '26

But the kids are the problem. What about shit teachers
.

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u/dms269 Jul 16 '26

Unfortunately, teachers (and some admin) have been completed neutered by their disciplinary problems. Confiscating phones leads to confrontation and upsets the "stakeholders". Suspension hurts the schools discipline numbers which in turn hurt funding. Schools are deathly afraid of hurting their "numbers" so they manipulate them to make them look better while also keeping parents happy (so they don't go running to complain to higher ups or file lawsuits).

Discipline has changed so much in the last 10 years.

6

u/loyalsons4evertrue Jul 16 '26

College is usually a tad different because you're usually spending a lot of money to go that school and I would sure hope someone would care enough to not be on their phone and actually learn....and well, if you're always on your phone at your job and nothing ever gets done, well have fun becoming unemployed.

2

u/soofs Jul 16 '26

For the most part but there are professors who ban electronics in classes. During law school, which I paid a SHIT LOAD to attend, I had a professor who banned all use of phones and laptops during his classes.

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Whether you are paying is irrelevant. Either you learn how to exist in a professional world and not use your phone, or you get treated like an addict who is restricted from even having it on you and never have to learn self control or regulation etc.

1

u/loyalsons4evertrue Jul 16 '26

I would argue there is at least a little bit more of an incentive to try if you're the one footing the bill for education.

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Nope.

1

u/loyalsons4evertrue Jul 16 '26

I work in higher ed and quite literally see the results of people paying and doing better than the alternative....but I know nothing I say will convince you otherwise so it's not worth my time..... have a great day.

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

No it won’t convince me because it doesn’t matter if they are paying for it. College kids outright skip class. Have for literally decades. It has no bearing whether they are paying to be there or not.

I will say most profs I had, had the mindset that you get out of it what you put in. You want to skip etc that’s fine. You’re the one who is paying to be here. It’s your loss if you choose to skip etc.

As long as they aren’t being disruptive I’m sure there are entire lecture halls across this country right now that have multiple students fucking off on their phone.

Back when I was in school it wasn’t phones, it was handheld video games. Same shit different generation. You gonna go to class and sit there and play games, why go? Plenty didn’t. Some kids I only saw on test days. It’s been like this forever. Stop acting like it’s new behavior to not give a shit about your college class.

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u/Jogurt55991 Jul 16 '26

If a teen has a meltdown it disrupts education for a good 15 minutes for the rest of class and creates a rough environment for some time afterwards.

Children flip out and have broken their phones and demands schools pay which ultimately is a loss for the family since schools will not- Parents have come flipping out over their child's things being confiscated.

Outward defiance has been higher amongst black and latin students- so even when enforcement is not targeted- more suspensions have happened around those groups of kids- which puts spotlights on 'racist schools'.

Your boss may-or-may-not give a shit, but if he was really irked he would stop paying you and you would stop reporting to work. Legal access to Free and Public Education restricts teachers and schools from this.

Ultimately children have far too many guaranteed rights in schools for the good of the entire school society to function.

That's why we are where we are today.

3

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Why engage with them?

It’s very simple. Put it away. If you don’t, go to the principal. If you don’t, we’ll call school security whatever to escort you. And that’s your first occurrence. Hit 3 of them and you’re suspended for a week. Come back and have another occurrence, you’ll be elevated for expulsion.

There’s a real simple way to deal with it. Consequences. If they don’t care then kick them out.

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u/Jogurt55991 Jul 16 '26

Students will not go to Principal.

Security is the 15 minute situation I described.

Suspension for Non-violent/drug related offenses is not permissible in almost every state now.

There are almost as few school expulsions as their are individuals getting the death penalty these days.

Consequences have been slowly removed from public schools since Arne Duncan was Sec. of Ed.

Teachers absolutely wish for those things to return- but society continues to coddle poor behavior as to not 'target specific groups.'

0

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Sounds like excuses

2

u/Jogurt55991 Jul 16 '26

Don't know what to tell you.
These 'excuses' are the reason that educators hands are tied at enforcing consequences.

When the ED started this -

Duncan, alongside the Department of Justice, issued U.S. Department of Education School Discipline Guidance urging schools to abandon "zero tolerance" policies and warning that racially lopsided discipline could trigger federal civil rights investigations. Duncan expanded the Civil Rights Data Collection, forcing school districts to publicly report suspension and expulsion rates by race.

Look at suspensions across the board from 2009 onward--- it's a clear indicator what happened. Exceptions : All White or Asian school districts- their numbers don't count.

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u/honeyedbee19 Jul 16 '26

Right? That's how it was when I was in school, those of us who knew when to put our phones away got to keep them, others got it taken away during class (and everyone did during big tests/exams).

Forcing everyone into using clear bags is just icky imo. It's one thing to keep the phones with a teacher during class, but this makes no sense. No teen wants everyone able to see all their belongings all the time, especially with medications/period products, or even keeping important things hidden from bullies... who needs privacy I guess /s

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u/MetaNovaYT Jul 16 '26

I don't think the clear bags are for the phones, I believe they are to prevent students from being able to take firearms into the building

2

u/Double_Cow_8238 Jul 16 '26

You know teachers need time to actually teach right? Being the phone police is pointless and exhausting. If they really weren't taking it out this wouldn't be an issue.

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

And if policies are set in place and enforced and are punitive enough, they won’t take it out.

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u/ireneabean Jul 16 '26

Imo the pouch and policies like it are really only to make breaking the rules more tedious. I'm sure there's plenty of ways around the pouch but then you only have to deal with students who actually bother to do it. It's a bandage "solution" used for triaging, not to actually solve the root problems.

3

u/ScallionJealous Jul 16 '26

They’ve literally been trying that for the last decade and it’s not working—they are losing the battle for our children’s hearts and minds and they need HELP. Haven’t had legislative support until the last few years (and still don’t in some states). They don’t have the same rules as work or college because they are children and their brains are still forming. They do not respond to impulses or stimuli in the same way.

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u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

We’re talking about middle to high schoolers. They aren’t babies.

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u/ScallionJealous Jul 16 '26

Yes we’re talking about middle to high schoolers, whose brains are not fully developed and do not operate the same way that a 25 year old brain operates. Please study some basic human development.

-1

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

I don’t need to study human development. If it’s not cell phones it’s fucking video games. Stop clutching pearls. The kids are fine. They need to learn to regulate and they can’t do that if you don’t let them have it.

Also at 18 they will do what they want when they leave high school. Whether work or college they will have access to their phone

2

u/ScallionJealous Jul 16 '26

The kids are literally not fine. There is so much science to back up this decision making I’m not going to argue with you about the merits. Your take is ignorant and ill-informed but it is your right to have it. Enjoy.

0

u/RedditsFullofShit Jul 16 '26

Science to back up what? The kids aren’t fine is a pretty broad statement.

They suck in math. But that’s an elementary problem that compounds by the time they are older.

They suck in reading. But again, elementary problem.

In what other ways are they not fine? From where I sit, taking things like a phone and blaming the phone is bullshit. The phone is a symptom at best. It’s not the issue.

1

u/ScallionJealous Jul 16 '26

You are committed to your ignorance and I am committed to no longer engaging with you.

1

u/LotteTakesNoShit Jul 16 '26

They learn from their parents.

0

u/alexnedea Jul 16 '26

Just, take their fucking phones? If I used a phone in certain classes, the teacher would take it until end of day. And I would probably be made to solve whatever was on the board and be made fun of.

0

u/vi_obsiver Jul 17 '26

Teachers, but much more importantly education boards and the like, need to adjust, imo. Yeah we gotta teach kids some discipline, but also we need to accept that phones are a part of our daily lives and involve them in the curriculum even if its as simple as requiring them to, say, use a calendar app to budget their homework time, or something like a kanban board for projects

Takes way more effort to stop a river than divert it

-1

u/MudInfinite8791 Jul 16 '26

I have 3 kids in school, 1 elementary, 1 intermediate and 1 in high school.

No one is on their phones during classtime. The use them during passing periods or when they need to contact their parents, i.e. "Hey, I forgot my flute" - yeah that one happens a lot

This idea that people are just chilling in class texting/doomscrolling while a teacher is giving instruction is insane. Kids will always have distractions that teachers have to deal with. I had my pokemon cars taken away a bunch in 5th grade because I'm a dumb kid.

All this has done, is taken a system that was built around cell phones existing(there are no pay phones in the school, secretaries/classrooms are reluctant to let children use their phones to call) and made this 10x more difficult for the teachers who now have to do all communication directly to parents of children who cannot yet transport themselves.

My daughter can't drive yet, but is also expected to attend after school practices for band, festivals, marching events, concerts, etc.

That's just one class....

I get the spirit of what they're doing, but schools already had policies in place to deal with cell phones.

3

u/commandant_ Jul 16 '26

nah, disagree on everything above.

Maybe your kids aren’t on their phones literally all day at school, but that isn’t the case everywhere for every kid. From what I’ve heard from teachers, it’s a huge problem. I promise kids getting upset over the phones getting taken away isn’t because they might not be able to text their mom they forgot something, it’s because they want to text and scroll. I’m not blaming the kids either. They’re addicted because these things want and purposefully cause their addictions and addictions can physically hurt to break. I’d probably be the same if I was that way, hell, I’m addicted to my phone now and I wish more teachers had been proactive on keeping them away.

Also
 I graduated school not even a decade ago and you’ve always been able to go to the front office if you needed to make a call to your parent. When I was in the younger grades that is all you could do, and it still works perfectly fine.