Unbelievable!

This is tragic. When did communication become such a threat? Education is not about control.

It’s about lighting a spark, or in this case harnessing their spark (for technology), in a way that artfully manages a learners direction. Good teachers know how to “follow the child” and incorporate their interests into meaningful discussions.

I’d love to see these admin have to surrender their walkie-talkies…

On a postive note, I just learned how to use Jott.

Seriously, this story is pretty disturbing.

First off, this is an article in the Times about kids, so let’s consider the class angle. By all appearances, this story is about privileged white students and parents having a fit over being subjected to something (metal detectors) that many, many poor students in urban schools are subjected to every day. Not to say I agree with the policy, but this is only news when it is done to white kids.

Concerning cell phones in schools in general, I think there is a sensible center, but I’m not sure you’ve got a grasp on it. It seems to me that having cell phones in school is inevitable, but I really can’t see having them on or out in class, with some caveats I’ll explain below.

If you are pro-cell phones in schools, does that mean you think seventh graders should be able to answer and place phone calls in your class? If 13 year old kids are sending and receiving SMS’s when they should be programming their robots, is it OK for the teacher to tell them to knock it off? If they say, “I’m asking someone a question about my robot” does the teacher have to back off?

I think cell phone enthusiasm is the kind of thing which increases the further one gets from an actual core subject area classroom. It is easy to think of vague, gauzy uses for cell phones in the classroom, but it is a lot harder to think of specific ways they would improve the educational process in an English, Math, Science or Social Studies classroom. The contrast with, say, blogging, is stark; once you understand the basics of blogging the ideas pour out. Certainly in a school like The Met, where kids are off campus much of the time, the utility is clear, but not in most schools, even most progressive schools.

The only reason cell phones will be important pedagogically in schools in 2011 is if educational computing, as it has been constructed over the past three decades, finally fails completely. I think that people who are very excited about the possiblities for cell phones see an opportunity for a fresh start, but it is a mirage. The same problems will follow us, on a platform which is inherently less hospitable than the general purpose computer.

Let me start with some framing statements:
I am committed to the integration of web 2.O tools across the school
I believe the day will come when I encourage ipods and cell phones at school( that is I get their power and relevance so I generally agree with Will)
I am a K-8 administrator
I am open to learning …but I need your help

Now here are the areas I need your input…
At the K-8 level how do we deal with…
liability issues like “someone took Johnny’s phone and ran up the bill”
My child’s phone/mp3 etc was stolen
When the students do not have equal access to these tools

Yes as a principal I deal with these kind of issues and electronics are not the only things stolen… but they are very tempting. I am willing to go there… and the staff is moving that way…I want to move into using all of this as the situation warrants but I also have better things to do than be a policeman and investigator…
One more thing I am in the private sector so i do not have a dean of discipline ect…
So what do I do to manage this????

Anyone tell the principal that phones and ipods come with an off button - “built-in” - now a days.

Another post on this issue

Well….I’ve got the reaction, but…I don’t have the context…so, a couple of questions (naive, if you like, but Barbara’s comments set me off):
1. What were the kids bringing phones and iPods to school for?
2. Why did the school authorities find it necessary to remove them?
3. How/is the school planning to incorporate these technologies into learning, and if so when? And will they be relying on the kids to bring their own devices into school to achieve the aims, or will the school be providing every child with the same device?
There’s a debate to be had here, not a shouting match…

Tom,
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. (Not that all of your comments aren’t thoughtful.) I agree with most of what you say, and no, I’m not saying that kids should be allowed to use them whenever they want. But I do think that we should model appropriate and effective use when and where we can. There is no question that this can be one tool that we can use to connect to and create and publish information. Not the end all, but one other. And in the case of poor kids especially, many if not most of whom have a cell phone as their only option to connect, we should, I think, be figuring out how to help them leverage it, not take it away.

I may be naive in thinking that many of the issues we have with these shifts come up because we aren’t teaching kids how to make use of the technologies from a very early age. My 7 and 10 year old should see their teachers using phones to access information when appropriate, should see them modeling their use of the Web to connect and communicate and publish, even if they may not be cognitively ready to do those things on their own. It should be seen as just the way we do things.

Will, I think it might be time to move the message beyond the blogosphere. I totally agree with what you are saying. But, does Mayor Bloomberg read your blog? He and/or one of his staff members may. But what about the possibility of putting together a petition and sending it to his office. What about putting together a joint statement and distributing it around the country (this entry is very much USA oriented)?

Andrew, I am with you. It would be great if he was reading this blog. Even if he did, it is just too easy to continue on the same path.
This is really a national, maybe even global problem. Fear of change, is at the root of policy in our nation. How can we expect our policy makers to vote for change, when they too fear what lies ahead?
I think of an old saying…”If it’s not broken, then don’t fix it”. This is the motto of our country. The problem is that they have absolutely no clue that it’s broken!!

Tom, I think you’re absolutely right about this only being news because it’s happened to privileged white kids. But I’m not sure where to go with that idea.
I guess one way is to take the approach I would’ve taken had I read this ten years ago, when I was an undergrad completely taken with the idea of a Rage Against the Machine-style Socialist utopian rebellion (complete with awesome riffage): let’s bury this story, ignore it, until we can convince the nation’s major media outlets to cover the same injustices as they happen to poor students of color.
But another thing to do with this is to use it as another example of how our schools and school policies are not in line with the reality our kids live with. I, according to the rules of the school where I work, do not allow my students to have their cell phones out on their desks during class. When a phone rings in my class, I ask the student to turn the phone off; if he or she refuses, I confiscate it until the end of the period.
If our school had better cell service (if you use Verizon and stand near some windows, you can receive calls–otherwise it’s pretty bad), though, I wonder if my thinking would change. Despite our school’s block of all social-networking sites (and, recently, most blogs, including ed-tech ones like Dy/Dan and a few others, I applauded my students when they made a Facebook group in order to better organize a class project.
We have to find ways to let our students use the technologies that enhance their lives, whether through enjoyment/leisure (social networking, videogames, etc), personal expression (digital camcorders, blogs, etc), or research (the internets), to drive the change we want to see in our classrooms.
Otherwise we’re still just dictating what students need to learn to deal with the world as it existed when we were their age. For me, that was ten years ago, and it’s incredible how much it’s changed since then. I eat lunch with a cadre of teachers in their mid-20s, and even the 24-year-olds can’t believe what our students know how to do online, with their phones, etc. The sooner we stop confiscating potentially useful tech items, the sooner we stop looking like idiots to most of these kids.

[…] My comment at Weblogg-ed. (I just found out that this is the middle school that my mom and aunt attended. Go figure.) […]

Students are extremely social creatures and part of our responsibility as educators is to nurture rather than ignore or neglect their social nature. Aside from the educational value of cell phones (which unfortunately most teachers aren’t realizing yet), communication tools also perform an important function in the social development of our students (AND ADULTS) at “appropriate” times…before school, lunch, after school, and yes, we may even consider the value of teaching effective communication, accountable talk, etc. using cell phones and other communication tools during class. I spend much of my week providing professional development for educators for whom I must explain when it is appropriate to use their cells, blackberries, laptops, etc. Without putting these expectations and structures in place, they engage in the very same behaviors they disapprove of in the classroom. We should be doing the same for our students. Maybe if the educators I work with had been taught appropriate use of these devices when they were in school (acknowledging this is impossible for digital immigrants) I wouldn’t have to spend time setting up these protocols today. However, now that we have the opportunity, we should give our digital immigrant students the chance to develop these skills as part of their educational experience.

We had the same policy where I work. If we see an ipod or cell phone we are suppose to confiscate it. Ipods and cell phones are expensive. I’ve had things stolen from my room before. I’m not going to take the added liability of having to replace something like that.

Now my question is, do they have the same policy for teachers? I’ve seen staff at my school either on the phone or text messaging while at the same time telling students to put their phones away. I want to yell at them about the example their setting and how their expectations can be so off from what they’re doing.

They’re also usually the staff members that talk through a staff meeting (or fall asleep) but complain that their students won’t sit quietly and listen while they’re talking. I guess it’s par for the course.

Learn from cell phones”… please expand?

Come on Will, a 35yr old calling his wife to explain why he will be late for dinner is a little bit different than a 13 yrd old texting who they have a crush on…

Middle ground… they drop- off their cell phones in homeroom or the front office in the morning….pick them up after school….emergencies… call the front office.. American students survived for a 100 years using that method…better yet.. converse with your family {face to face} before going to school..

If anyone has lessons on cell phone use.. please post.. be sure to include variations for students who are unable to afford them…

[…] Will rails against shortsighted school authorities stamping on young people and their phones in NYC. Having just had a battle with my son’s school who saw fit to confiscate his mobile and keep it for nearly a week (until I started to point out Union and Gov guidelines) I’m with Will. […]

Tom is certainly correct that this story achieved New York Times attention because of the class/race of the students violated by such authoritarian hysteria.

However, this is an indictment of the news media’s priorities and bias rather than a dimunition of the isses at stake.

Allow me to be really radical here.

My ONLY concern about having cellphones in class, mine or anyone else’s, is rude behavior. Don’t educators know how to create environments in which students behave in a civil fashion?

When I board an airplane or enter a concert hall a polite announcement asks me to turn off my cellphone - done - no police action necessary.

Why have schools become so antagonistic?

The larger problem is that our school paradigm is militaristic and built upon a top-down hierarchy of blind obedience to arbitrary rules and regulations (ie… NCLB)

If one desires to create a productive learning environment free of coercion, grades, tests, ranking, sorting and discipline problems, they can - tomorrow.

I just earned my PhD for documenting the work I did along with Seymour Papert (and others) in creating an alternative learning environment inside of a state prison for teens.(1) Not only did we create a productive context for learning where the only rule was “do something,” but we did not have a single incident in three years requiring a student to leave the classroom for disicipline reasons.

My work with severely at-risk children in the USA, Australia and Canada continues to reinforce my belief that it is possible to create educational experiences that place the needs and interests of children ahead of adult domination fantasies.

(1) Lest you think this was some sort of idealistic setting, Amnesty International documented examples of student torture within the facility.

[…] This is stupid. Posted by Josh Filed in Uncategorized […]

Here’s an article I wrote inspired by the issues expressed in this thread…

http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=19280

I lost something very important to me…

So they did a “sweep” with metal detectors at a middle school on the Upper West Side of New York City on Thursday and the result wasn’t pretty. Out of 900 plus students, 404 cell phones were “confiscated” from the……

[…] From Weblogg-ed: So let’s review. What does this teach those kids? First, it teaches them that they don’t deserve to be empowered with technology the same way adults are. Second, that the tools that adults use all the time in their everyday lives to communicate are not relevant to their own communication needs. Third, that they can’t be trusted (or taught, for that matter) to use phones appropriately in school. […]

[…] Will Richardson reports on Thursday’s sweep for phones and other electronic devices at a New York City middle school. As reported by the NY Times, police and school administrators set up metal detectors and confiscated “404 cellphones, 69 iPods, 23 other electronic devices, two knives and one imitation gun”. […]

I’m a parent at the school featured in the article. Most obviously, most of the comments so far are from those unfamiliar with the situation.

These random sweeps have been happening all school year, in response to the city-wide cell phone ban and supposedly to search for weapons. In addition to the items mentioned, also confiscated were house keys and markers (yes, really).

First, let me point out the school’s ethnicity: 38% white; 26% black; 33% Hispanic; 5% Asian–this is not a case of “whiny privileged white parents.” Do the addition–whites are a minority in this school. The parent body, however, is vocal when it comes to our children’s safety.

Martin M-B: Most of the students travel to/from school by themselves using public transportation (some from quite a distance away) and their parent/s work. These are 11-14 year-olds. Having cell phones (and keys, which were also confiscated) are necessary. How would you feel if you were out of touch with your child in New York for 8+ hours? Or if he/she was unable to get into your apartment until you could get home from work? School offices will not relay messages to children and phone lines are often down (this is a wide-ranging problem at all school levels). Pay phones are few and far between, if indeed they are functional. NYC doesn’t provide cell phone (or book) lockers in many schools, including this one.

Will: For us, yes, it IS a safety issue as well. What you might not have known was a 7th grader was choked and beaten up the next Friday (the day the phones were returned) in the late afternoon on his way to a dance at the school. Help was called for. On a cell phone.

Tom: Another missed point (”If you are pro-cell phones in schools, does that mean you think seventh graders should be able to answer and place phone calls in your class?”)–of course not. And since 404 phones were confiscated, but the children have not abused phones by using them in class, why should they NOT have them turned off and in the bottom of their backpacks?

These children were frisked, cursed at, scanned and made to feel like criminals. Now THERE’S a lesson.

I’ve asked my administrators to read this post and the comments because we completely ban iPods, MP3 devices and all cell phones here. I’ve been asked what my policy would be for the use of cell phones and iPods. Can we brainstorm some ideas for a good school policy regarding these items?

I am a headteacher at a british school. We have also banned mobile usage within the school but do allow children to bring them on to the premisise. We just bought a product for each teacher from a company phonebuster and have found their product to be a very usefull detterent for phone usage within the classroom. I would say that it has probably cut problems ( which used to occur almost on a daily basis ) by over 90 per cent. The children are scared that if they use their phone the product will detect them and we will be able to confisgate their portable. I think the website for this is http://www.phonebuster.co.uk

[…] So the question really becomes one of opportunity costs: what are we losing out on by our (over)emphasis and dependence on technology and our neverending quest for the lastest, fastest, and coolest tool? This is not a nostalgic call for a return to “simpler times”, but rather a challenge to think more critically about how we use digital technologies in our lives, including in education. In my opinion, this is something that’s really missing in schools. Schools are struggling to keep up even though they are investing lots of money and time into getting basic technology into classrooms (while simultaneously trying to figure out how to block access to more advanced tools). The thinking that does take place has more to do with how to block access to “dangerous and distracting” tools than to teach and learn about meaningful, responsible, and safe use of these tools, and that includes knowing when to embrace technology and when to push it back. […]

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