The Washington Post: US schools are running out of patience with phone use – Human – Science & Technology

Schools in the United States are stepping up the fight against the use of cell phones in the classroom. New bans have been added to several states this year, while school officials increasingly see phones as an obstacle to learning, as well as a potential danger to students’ mental health.

After the resumption of classes after the pandemic outage, teachers observed that children are “glued” to their devices more than before the pandemic.

“We basically said, ‘This has got to stop,'” said Elizabeth Lolli, who heads the public school network in Dayton, Ohio. “We have achievement problems that cannot be fixed … if students continue to sit on their phones,” she added.

Federal data, according to WP, show that bans on the use of cell phones in class were already in place in 2020 in most American schools, but after the disruption of teaching associated with the fight against covid, their stricter enforcement and also tightening of the rules are coming. After the “covid years”, the question has gained urgency as many school districts in the US observe a decline in student knowledge and try to do everything to reverse this development.

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At the same time, after the students returned to their desks, teachers found that children use their phones even more during lessons to view content on social networks or to communicate. In particular, schools perceive social networks not only as an element that diverts attention from learning, but also as an undesirable phenomenon from the point of view of students’ mental health. School networks have even started filing lawsuits against technology companies in this regard.

Meanwhile, new phone bans have been implemented by schools in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and California since the beginning of the year, according to a new article. The methods of combating cell phones vary. In some places, students are simply forced to put their devices away during classes, in other places teachers take them away at the beginning of classes and store them out of their reach.

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“We don’t want to take away anyone’s liberties, but we have to have undivided attention in the classroom,” said Nancy Hines, the superintendent of one Pennsylvania school district. Her team first introduced a ban on phones in the second grade of primary schools last year, and this year extended the system to secondary schools. Here, every morning, students put their cell phones in lockable cases, which are unlocked when they go home by touching a magnetic device.