Posted yesterday at 6:00 a.m.
In the locker
The cell phone is a very useful invention for learning in a classroom. However, its use must be well managed. I don’t see the point of the student carrying it around the school. The phone must remain in the locker except for doing class work with the authorization and under the supervision of the teacher. In case of emergency, the school has telephones, as was the case before the advent of cell phones. Even if the cell phone is in a locker, parents can leave messages.
Francois Prior
Impossible mission
As a retired college teacher for more than three decades, I saw the cell phone arrive in the classroom at the turn of the 2000s. My colleagues and I quickly saw the devastating effects it had on student concentration. The vast majority of teachers forbade it during lessons. Teaching is first of all communicating with individuals with whom you have visual contact and interactions… Mission impossible with a group whose eyes are constantly glued to a screen.
Richard Durand
house rules
I believe that we should establish rules, of course. There are limits to everything. But it is at home that the education of young people begins. When you have parents who are themselves addicted to so-called smart phones, well, the school will always have difficulty establishing rules. These will be contested as much by parents as by their young teenagers.
Gisèle Milette, ex-teacher
Healthy too
Banning cell phones from schools is a great idea. Next step: banning it among healthcare workers. To have experienced it, as a former nurse, it is a scourge. Patients lose hours of good care. We shop, we look for friends on dating sites, we make appointments, etc. Hell!
Catherine Beaudry, retired nurse
Learn best practices
At work, in everyday life, there are already practices to follow. It is important to teach them to young people. When we attend conferences, shows, the cinema, we have to turn off our phones. It should be the same in class, that’s for sure. At my son’s school, the phone is used to teach students how to organize themselves with an electronic organizer, such as Outlook, to write down their homework, to receive notifications to submit assignments on time, to know quickly what is next courses, etc. In my opinion, there should be learning about good practices at school.
Sophie Poirier
Compromise
Denying what today’s young people are is in no way a solution. Prohibit to prohibit either. But trying to hold the attention of 32 teenagers hunched over their phones isn’t helpful either. So, the good old compromise. Allow phones, fine, but like many of my high school colleagues, have a box at the entrance to class where everyone can drop off their device. And take it back on the way out.
Caroline Proulx-Trottier
happy medium
That there are beacons, we all agree. But from there to banishing it completely, I don’t think. We are trying to reverse the trend based on past rules, it cannot work. How do you explain to a student the negative effect of cellphones when he sees his own parents staring at their cellphones all the time?
Lise St-Laurent
Like parent, like child
At the secondary school where I taught, the use of the telephone was prohibited under penalty of having it confiscated. On several occasions, I applied this regulation, and on several occasions, it was the parents of the students who telephoned their children during class periods! Following a seizure, the parents quickly rushed to the school to claim the child’s phone with a lot of aggression!
Alain Blais, retired
A question of habit
We banned smoking everywhere and people got used to it. It’s the same with phones, people will get used to it over time. Students will have it at home after class. Point.
Andre Verge
their oxygen
As a high school teacher, I could write a book on the issue of cell phones in schools. It’s a real nightmare. First, you should know that despite the ban on the latter in class, some teachers have abandoned the battle since it requires constant management, students being very skilled in finding ways to be able to text or consult it. School principals may establish regulations, but students would rather be suspended than hand over their phones. It’s like taking their oxygen away. For my part, I have tried everything. Place a shoe rack with transparent pockets on the wall (because they must never lose sight of the phone), give them a “Tupperware” that they leave on their desk, impose the locker… In short, I lost all the battles .
Sophie Crete
Testimonials compiled by Judith Lachapelle, The Press. In some cases, statements have been edited for clarity and conciseness.