Middle school removes bathroom mirrors to stop kids from making TikToks::Southern Alamance Middle School in Graham, North Carolina has taken drastic steps to reduce the time kids spend outside of class.
Why not just ban smartphones in school? There’s ample research now that they’re harmful to teen mental health
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Add phone functionality to their guns?
Got you covered
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Flip phones.
You don’t. You die like everybody else, without saying goodbye.
They could just watch on the security cameras. I’m pretty sure they exist in every class and parents can access them at any time.
There aren’t security cameras in classrooms, at least in the schools I’ve worked. They are in the hallways though. I wasn’t allowed to record my class (despite that being good practice - watching yourself teach!)
I know a few schools in my area tried to institute zero tolerance no phones rule and the screaming from parents was loud enough that they gave up. One of the big sticking points was because of school shootings. Another was that schools have been bad about getting kids on the bus, that kids are getting lost or even ending up in bus depots at the end of the day.
I think a good middle ground might be to ban smartphones but not phones entirely. If you want your kid to be able to call you, buy them a nokia or something without internet capabilities
I mean the real reason is that parents are almost as bad as their kids with their phones. They have become accustomed to texting their children throughout the day.
Wow, that is eye opening. I can’t imagine how bad helicopter parents can be these days…
There are better tools these days than blanket prohibition.
The signals that voice and data go over are different from each other, so not all modern cellphone jammers jam the entire spectrum. Some can be set up to allow voice calls over the traditional channels while jamming data. This forces students to use the school’s wifi network for any Internet connectivity, whereupon their connectivity to apps and services can be whitelisted/blacklisted as deemed necessary by system admins.
Ergo, a system that keeps students off of their smartphones while allowing parental connectivity.
Yeah, because schools have thousands of dollars to spend on high-end cellphone jammers when they can’t even pay their teachers a decent wage.
Imagine jamming cell signal then an emergency happens. Oh the liability payout would be massive. And they say schools are underfunded now.
I proposed a Faraday cage once 😂. But running a jammer would be a good way to get the FCC involved (hint: massively illegal). And if you think dealing with the FCC is fun, ask your local ham operator…
Also they all know how to find proxies or unblocked sites. I watched severely intellectually disabled children teach other out to install VPNs. The smarter ones could install shit like Dolphin and would be playing Pokémon in class.
I feel that might be an issue from 4G onwards, considering VoLTE and VoNR are intended to avoid the use of a separate voice network to their existing data network
How do you only allow parent connectivity without allowing most everything else? Would this require schools to build an app specifically for them to allow through and make parents and kids use that? It sounds awful for everyone involved. A mildly determined and clever kid would probably be able to figure out how to circumvent the censorship anyways, and now you’re back at square one but with a bunch of useless infrastructure to maintain.
Most smartphones allow os level VPN, that will get around this.
How many VPNs are running on ports that’d be allowed? Schools can easily restrict wifi to only allow 443 through a MITM proxy and 80 (which firewalls can easily inspect and drop TLS connections.)
You can get VPNs that run over websocket connections.
You can’t solve behavioural issues purely with technology.
You’ll be so popular, with your dictator-like censorship of an organisation! How come no one even treats children like people, you wouldn’t find it acceptable to jam the mobile data of adults’ phones. Talk to the kids and encourage them to want to work at school, don’t be autocratic.
You can’t take them, because the district is worried they’ll get sued if one breaks. Your option is to tell the parent, and the parent will 80% come up with some bullshit excuse or accuse you of targeting their child. I worked one district that had a form we could fill out - after getting caught three times they were supposed to turn the phone in. Never happened.
Please. Do. Not. Send. Your. Child. To. School. With. A. Smartphone. DONT.
They are addicted. We’ve given them tech that adults can’t even manage to responsibly use. They don’t know how to be bored or curious. The behavior is just strange - when I’ve been fuck it and just taken a phone - they regress. 15 year olds babbling and throwing tantrums like toddlers.
Id feel safer sending my kid to school without a smartphone if I wasn’t scared there would be a school shooting or some other reason my kid would need to call me for help. I get the sense a lot of other parents feel that way too.
My kids are still too young for that but when they are in high school and maybe depending on the middle school I’ll probably start thinking about a phone of some kind.
Also my kids are bored all the time haha. Taking away their tablet or games is the best punishment most of the time when they argue. We are big on drawing over here though. Hard to stop a kid from drawing lol.
In a school shooting situation, cell phones could make things much worse. During my active shooter training, we were told to ask students to turn them off if we were in a shooting. The noise is an obvious danger, but the lines need to be kept clear for communication with emergency response personnel. There would be structured ways that the school would want to communicate with you - they don’t want the chaos of parents showing up to an active scene. I think it would be better to rely on things like the Rave app.
In other situations, the front office is there. That is the function that they have served for generations. Give the office aides something to do.
There’s just little reason for students to have smart phones in school. They cannot control themselves. We are asking them to have more self restraint than most adults do. It is not developmentally appropriate and it is harmful.
When I was a kid, there were pay phones so that kids could make calls for when they wanted to be picked up. And we had landline at home so that if you needed to make a call, you could.
Those things don’t really exist anymore. And now we have phones with apps that monitor medical conditions like diabetes. Let’s single out those kids?
In other situations, the front office is there. That is the function that they have served for generations. Give the office aides something to do.
So make the office staff stay after hours so that the kids with after school activities can make a phone call? Yeah, because fuck the school staff, right?
The horse has already left the gate. You’re not going to get it back.
At my school there was an office phone outside the office that anyone could use. No need to staff it.
504s exist for kids who need them for medical purposes. (Had a diabetic kid - her mom made sure she knew the phone was only for monitoring) While there aren’t pay phones; there is a landline in the office at every school that students will be able to use.
The office workers are hourly and are already scheduled to stay for at least an hour after school. That’s part of their job.
Good luck banning them from schools
I spent 12 years in American public school during which greater than 70% of the student body had cell or smart phones and 100% of them were successfully banned. If the phone is visible during the school day and you aren’t currently receiving a phone call from the President or from your parents on their way to the hospital, phone goes in the teacher’s desk. You get it back at the end of the day.
Its not that difficult at all.
they kinda are Ireland, in primary school mostly but even in secondary school teachers are allowed to take your phone for 3 days if they see you on it
What’s the difficulty? If they’re being used they’re out in the open, and if they’re out in the open they can be confiscated.
Is there research consensus on when children should be given phones? I would personally be very conservative about it, honestly.
I agree! There’s a campaign pushing to avoid giving kids phones until 8th grade, but I think even that seems a bit too young
Good luck with that, the highschool I went to had a hard enough time getting students to stop vaping at school and during class, smartphones would be a much bigger battle. I graduated in 2019 and I still remember when they would try to crack down on cell phone use, never really affected me that much cause I only ever used my phone during class if I was done with everything but I still saw it go the same way every time. It would always only ever last for a month or two before the teachers just gave up because in the end if someone doesn’t wanna pay attention during class taking away their distraction isn’t gonna make them. They’ll just find some other distraction like talking to people or just zoning out. The problem is school just isn’t engaging and sure you can blame cell phones and social media for making it harder for people to pay attention to things that they don’t wanna do. But that doesn’t mean the solution is to not allow them during school, cause I’ve seen from experience that doesn’t help even if you manage to take away the phones, which already is really hard without impacting students who are following the rules negatively.
Man I remember being in school and a cellphone or pager was instant suspension.
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If I had a kid I’d straight up tell them do not listen to anyone who tells you you cant keep your phone on you, get in trouble if you must and I’ll take care of the rest. If it becomes a distraction Ill deal with it as a parent, but the last thing I want is a kid caught in any kind of emergency without even a chance to phone help.
“But the teacher has a phone”
Okay I dont care. What if the teacher becomes the emergency? What if the teacher steps outside to see what that noise is and doesn’t come back? Not leaving the safety of someone im responsible for in someone elses hands.
I can teach a kid anything they miss in elementary school. I can’t re-alive the dead.
I said “smartphones” not all phones. If I had a kid, I’d get them a flip phone so they could call or text me, but one without internet capabilities
Wouldn’t make a mite of difference to me unless they’ve already prooven they’re not responsible enough for a smart phone. Can’t expect them to learn to stay focused if you eliminate all possible distractions, your just setting them up to fail for once they get old enough to make and buy their own distractions.
Keep in mind that teaching the students to deal with distractions isn’t the teachers job. They have a list of teaching standards and goals they’re expected to achieve, and they’re expected to provide the most effective environment and instruction available to meet those standards. Eliminating distractions is an extremely obvious and practical way to do that.
Did I not say if it becomes a distraction Id deal with it as a parent? Im aware of what a teacher does.
Apples don’t fall far from the tree I suppose.
The sign of a man who commented on a chain without reading shit, and got caught. Just slinging some insults, and not even good ones. If I were you, other peoples apples would be the last thing im concerning myself with.
Is your kid going to save the day with a cell phone? Do you think in that situation there is not going to be another adult who can call 911?
When you tell your child “just get in trouble and I’ll take care of the rest” you are telling the child that they don’t have to respect school rules. And having dealt with parents like you, your children turn out to be absolute terrors. (“Im texting my mom!” as you hear the fucking Rizzler song for the sixth time)
As part of my teaching training, I was in a program where I was not allowed to have my cell phone on me at all. 6 am to 9 pm, for almost two weeks. I survived.
Is your kid going to save the day with a cell phone? Do you think in that situation there is not going to be another adult who can call 911?
Yes and yes. Not every emergency effects every room or even every person.
I work in a developmental capacity with people and kids with disabilities. I’ve had clients in classes with their phones in pocket without issue. The Social Workers, Clinicians, Doctors, and other mental health professionals I work with daily prettymuch all do the same for their children, which came up when that wierd ‘national school shooting day’ tiktok trend or whatever happend encouraging it. All of this is coming from a professional place from people who actually have kids of varying ability, who get on just fine like that.
And I’m not sorry that upsets you. I am sorry you got a class of shitty kids, but if you think that ends if cell phones are in back packs I’d say think back to when you were in school, I don’t imagine there was a lack of horrible kids then either.
The cell phones do not stay in the backpack. They don’t. Sorry, a fourteen year old does not have the capacity to ignore the absolute barrage of notifications they get.
Also - every class room I have ever taught in had a phone. The classroom next door has a phone. The lab cabinet has a phone. If it’s really that important that you have 24/7 access, get a dumb phone. They’re cheaper anyway.
That’s great that you work with kids, but a classroom Is an entirely separate context. I invite you to go substitute in a classroom to get a better understanding about how my job differs from your job.
Few if any of the classrooms I’ve been in have landlines, from my schooling to today, speaking of, I do work in classroom setting frequently with my school age clients, and none of that changes the opinion of other professionals who I interact with and what they do for their kids.
Middle school removes mirrors so as to not distress vampires.
And why can’t we get blood on the lunch menu, huh?
L😂
So now they need to pull their phones out to see themselves. That’s totally logical.
Kids: press switch to front-facing camera button anyways
Most profile pictures I see suggest they don’t know this button even exists.
The front facing camera on iPhones is not great. Most kids have iPhones. I’m not willing to believe children who grew up with these phones don’t know their limitations.
The selfie camera, starting with iPhone 11 (both reg and pro) is 12MP, just like the main one. That’s plenty of good. Only the iPhone 15 line has 48MP main while retaining the 12MP selfie.
Not sure what you are smoking.
It’s probably my screen protector, now that I think about it.
I will say with confidence its’ low light performance is dogshit.
I am in agreement with your confident assessment.
Resolution is hardly the only thing that matters for picture quality. The two cameras are quite different in that aspect.
Yes, though the optics on the front facing camera are quite lacking in comparison. You’ll always get a better picture with the back cameras, but it’s just easier to use the front.
That said, I do just use the front facing camera.
Back in my day they removed mirrors so we wouldn’t summon Bloody Mary.
Bloody Mary.
Bloody Mary. 🫣
Bloody Mary.
Given that mirrors have never been an issue before TikTok, maybe, just maybe, the problem is elsewhere?
15-18 years ago when camera phones became commonly available for teenagers, but before front-facing cameras were built-in, we took selfies in the mirrors all day, most often to then upload them on our local pre-fb social media site for young people… I refuse to believe we were the only ones doing that.
However, I agree, that doesn’t mean the mirrors are the “problem”. Rather, there seem to be misaligned interests between the kids (some more interested in socializing, attention-seeking, being popular etc.) and the State-owned public schools (probably more interested in turning the kids into obedient “valuable citizens”). I think it’s better to reform the system than trying to deform the kids, but removing the mirrors doesn’t seem like the needed change…
How do they do that? IIRC, mirrors are required per building codes?
That’s a surprising inclusion in a building code. Do you have a reference for it?
I think it’s actually the ADA that requires them, now that I think about it, but I know in commercial buildings there are requirements for size and location of mirrors in bathrooms (maybe only if you choose to install them).
Probably if you offer mirrors to people who can stand code requires you offer them to those who can’t.
Maybe.
A good move by the school.
Or how about you give the kids extra space to let them practice their creativity?
Well, sure, but not the bathroom. I don’t need my bathroom activities accidentally included, visually or acoustically, in someone’s TikTok
So many people always seem determined to completely suck the joy out of schools, like it’s the 1950s again. Everything is so strict and anti-fun.
TikTok and social media in general are popular amongst kids today. That’s just how it is. I think schools should try to embrace youth trends and find creative ways to incorporate them into the learning environment.
GOP’s master plot of defunding public schools is years in the making in NC. Teacher pay, at least before I left, was one of the worst in the nation. As a result, this is sadly on point for the area.
Someone is always going to be the worst in the nation.
