Contrary to popular belief, cell phones in the classroom are not a technology problem. Thus, the eternal clichés telling us that we should not “demonize technology”, that we should “rather show students how to use it well”, “empower them rather than ban them” (ah, how bad it is to ban!), all of this is entirely irrelevant. Whether it’s a cell phone, a comic book, a magazine or a newspaper, the problem is always the same: the student can read them or watch the images when he is outside of school, but when he is in class, he must be focused on the lesson. It’s as simple as that.
In addition to the elementary politeness which means that when a person speaks to us, listening to them and not consulting their cell phone is the least we can do, everyone will easily understand that there is no possible concentration if, during mathematical reasoning or an explanation of a literary text, the student reads a comic book page or responds to his messages.
And yet! To hear our pedagogues, and even some professors — which is a shame — we should take into account the “young people’s environment”. Ah, the “youth environment”! What a great concept! Shouldn’t “our young people” be able to find their “familiar environment” in class, their cell phone, their bed, their music and their certainties?
But who are they talking about, exactly, these “reference adults” with their “young people”? Students no doubt, but which ones? Serious students or others, those who are less serious, or not serious at all, or even disruptive? So of course, these disruptive students, we have a duty to take care of them too, yes, of course. But precisely. This endless discourse on “empowerment rather than prohibition” prevents precisely this assumption of responsibility. Not everything is resolved through “dialogue” at school. The cell phone even less than the rest, as each teacher can check in his classes every day.
It is not enough to dialogue with the students for them to free themselves from their cell phones; we must prohibit and punish, that is to say assume our responsibilities. It is true that, contrary to the school administrations of my youth, we no longer value, today, teachers who know how to show authority. The current administrations tend to summon them, reproaching them for their lack of “benevolence” and expecting self-criticism from them. As if “benevolence” towards cell phones in the classroom was not a form of malevolence towards students.
We need to protect serious students, which requires a courageous struggle against anything in a classroom that can disturb them; and by forbidding less serious pupils from disrupting a class, we protect them from themselves. Anyone who has ever taught knows very well that a working atmosphere attracts everyone and that an atmosphere of general relaxation, where you consult your cell phone according to the mood of the moment, even discourages students who would like to work and concentrate.
In fact, you only have to go to school to find out. The essential and priority right of students is not the right to consult their cell phones, the right to chat or negotiate their grades with their teachers as if they were carpet merchants. It is the right to learn something in a climate of concentration made possible by the authority of the teacher. It is this right that we have a duty to protect above all, and if we don’t do it, we are not doing our duty — through lack of professional conscience or through weakness (or both).
Even the strictest measures of a teacher cannot entirely overcome such a problem. You can take a student out of class who is caught in the act with his “cell” — that’s what I do without the slightest qualm in CEGEP — but the object is too easy to conceal for these measures to be entirely effective. There is therefore only one government measure – school administrations being generally pusillanimous when it comes to banning – that can prohibit the presence of cell phones in classes and thus ensure everyone’s right to be able to concentrate and learn something.
I am not optimistic, however: we have become so accustomed to invoking “student empowerment” to absolve us of our own responsibilities, and we do so with such a good conscience, passing off our lack of courage as humanity and benevolence, that teachers who forbid us to do anything in class other than follow their course can expect to be left alone — that is, without administrative or political support — for a very long time to come.