Clear Backpacks + Pay to Keep Your Phone

[u/TheAeroplaneBear2906]

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

[u/not-the-nicest-guy]

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.

[u/Drow_Femboy → u/not-the-nicest-guy]

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.

[u/creuter → u/Drow_Femboy]

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.

[u/Drow_Femboy → u/creuter]

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.

[u/creuter → u/Drow_Femboy]

You can't fire someone from the classroom. The kids who have trouble with this stuff need these rules. It sucks for you sure, but the point of the class is to learn what the teacher is teaching you.

If you set an example of dicking around, the other students, like I said are going to feel like there's a pass to do that. The teacher has an incentive to keep those kinds of a distraction to a minimum. It doesn't get clearer than that. You latched onto the wrong part of my comment. You're doing just fine, but not every person is you, that's the point. The ones who would fail if they're distracted, and seeing you doing whatever you want as permission to be distracted are the ones who need to build those habits. The parents can't make you stop being a poor influence on their kids, that's the teachers job, and you seem to be pissy about them doing it.

[u/2ICenturySchizoidMan → u/Drow_Femboy]

School ain’t preparing you to become a person with a job it’s preparing you to become a person. Kids need not use phones to learn to be people.

Also fwiw the parents DO NOT get involved hahaha

[u/suicide_blonde94 → u/Drow_Femboy]

The thing is, parents don’t get involved. Then they get mad when their kid has a consequence. Working in education is ABUSIVE.