Neville Chamberlain Weighs in on Cell Phones in Florida Schools

95% of the student body at St. Petersburg High School have cell phones and 97% of those bring the phones to school. The students constantly open their phones to check for, read, and send messages; they text away under their desks instead of focusing on the class; they invite constant conflict with teachers, etc. This isn’t unique to St. Petersburg - it’s everywhere. How big is this problem? The story tells you about Tina:

The minute the teacher’s back is turned, Tina’s phone is in her hand and switched on - an offense that could cost her dearly if caught. But to Tina, who uses 500 cell phone minutes a month and sends as many as 200 text messages a day, the risk is worth it.

If you’ve been responsible for a classroom for a day in the last year or two, you’ve had a few Tinas. If you can’t appreciate the scale on which schoolday cell phone use is problematic, consider that if Tina just wrote down a sentence every time she was tempted to send a text message, she’d author a novel of average length every single month. It might not be The Great American Novel, but it’s better than, “LOL omg rly?” 200 times over. Take a look at these stats from the article:

• 95% have cell phones.
• 97% of those who have cell phones bring them to school.
• 88% know the district’s policy on cell phone use.
• 90% of students who know the policy disobey it.
• 95% of the students who disobey the rule text message during class.
• 24% say they have used their cell phones to cheat.
• 28% say they have had their cell phones confiscated.

While the sample size is only five classes and we know nothing about the validity of the psychometrics, it’s clear that the current policy isn’t working [or, more likely, has never been implemented properly]. Even so, the most important issue here isn’t cell phone use. If it was, districts would buy wifi/cell jammers and end the problem. It really is that simple for the vast majority of classrooms - I wrote a bit about it here. The real issue is the attitude toward the learning environment and how the staff carries that out.

In spectacular homage to that bastion of appeasement Neville Chamberlain:

“We definitely don’t want cell phones on during instructional time,” said Gibbs principal Antelia Campbell. “But the schools that completely outlaw them and collect them from students have bins full of them. That’s not a battle I’m willing to fight.“

And there’s the problem. Regulatory policies only work if the staff and administration are unilaterally committed to enforcing them. This harkens to the old adage about only being as strong as your weakest link. If all teachers enforce a policy, it generally works - and, at the least, you’ll know whether the policy needs to be modified because you’re able to gauge its results after total implementation. Did that happen? Doubtful.

Gibbs High isn’t alone in its impotence:

And then there are principals like Fred Ulrich at Largo Middle School, who try to enforce the rules without being too hard on kids. Ulrich thinks a friendly reminder to put their phones away works better than the threat of punishment.

“They’re not making drug deals or calling bookies,” Ulrich said. “I try to work with them.”

Ulrich’s wrong about the specifics and he’s wrong about the theory. He exhibits spectacular dead reckoning by making a statement about the content of phone calls without any data to support it, but he might be right that students aren’t often making drug deals over the phone.

Instead, 1 in 4 students are just too busy using their hot little MotoRAZR to cheat.

And whereas cocaine trafficking might not be a hot topic [though a percentage of the conversations will include discussion of the illicit], what about students harassing and making fun of other students during the school day - the new high-tech bullying - or any other issue that negatively effects the school community?

Ulrich frames the debate with a reduction to the absurd - he’d like us to picture a hooded henchman with sword raised and at the ready to cut off a student’s phone-holding hand. Grow up, Mr. Ulrich. A bizarre, arbitrary threat of punishment isn’t what anyone is calling for. When you’ve got a well-reasoned policy - one that really makes sense - it’s easy to justify its existence and enforcement. You don’t need to whine and beg students to comply, you just do your job soundly.

Remember also, Mr. Ulrich, that when you give the “friendly reminder” to a student, the cell phone use has already distracted x number of other students and inhibited the effectiveness of their learning environment. This is a case of the students leading the school instead of being led by the principal; this stance is entirely reactive when administration should be proactive. Cut the phones, solve the problem.

A relaxed policy on cell phone use is remarkably shortsighted [and this is where the real problem lies]. Now we’ve got text messages and phone calls - and that’s just the tip of the technological iceberg. As Blackberry-style devices continue to develop and get cheaper, school administrators will face students with real-time, high-quality video capability [not just the chopping classroom videos you see on Youtube], high-speed multimedia downloads/sharing, and increased accessibility with every other feature of a personal computer. Keep an eye on websites like www.cnet.com - you’ll see how quickly products and their features are developing. It’s not hard to consider their impact on the school environment.

Without a firm stance on personal technology now, a school positions itself for even more trouble in just a few years. Creating and enforcing a strong policy will not only curtail improper use in the future, but also will speak volumes about a school’s commitment to its students and the seriousness of purpose which the institution professes. School districts should draft and implement fully a comprehensive policy and send out a full explanation not just to parents, but to all taxpayers as well. Explain the what and the why and lay out clearly how the school will compensate for parents not being able to contact students directly, e.g. publishing the phone number at which administration can be reached to deliver important messages to students, publishing a time (like an open lunch period) during which students are allowed to use phones, publish again the schedule for the school day so parents know exactly when they can call, etc.

A strong, sensible policy and plenty of communication are the keys.

Read the full article at the St. Petersburg Times.

Also check out some other opinions on the issue, which I’ll add to as I find them:

Betty’s Blog : Cell Phones are Like Gum

Todd Seal at Thoughts on Teaching has a different approach.

If you know of a school that deals with cell phone use effectively, let me know by sending an e-mail to mktabor@gmail.com [e-mail link opens in a new window] or, better yet, leaving a comment.

What’s the solution to regulating personal, non-academic technology in our schools?