Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

This week in class we discussed the ongoing debate on whether or not cellphones should be allowed in classroom. To start off the class, we were required to place hand over our phones to our professor. While at first I didn’t question this, after discussing the topic of phone use in classrooms, I find it highly unreasonable for teachers to take away students phones.

In todays classrooms in North America, specifically in middle and high school, you can almost guarantee that that majority of students will own a phone. We use our phones for almost everything, which means that they will also be brought with us into the classroom we teach in and the ones our students learn in. Students use their phones to figure out rides home from school, check in with family members, play games, etc. Can this be a distraction? Of course it can! But so can everything.

Banning students from using their phones or physically taking students away does not prevent distraction. When my phone was taken away from me last class, I was more focused on the fact that my phone wasn’t on me, than I would have been if my phone was just in my backpack. Banning phones also does not protect students from bullying, harassment, or other dangers of social media. This is going on beyond just the classroom and through banning it, you potentially create a barrier between you, an educator, and your students. What I mean by this is if a student is being bullied online and they find out in classroom, because you set strict limits on when and how they use there phone, they may not come up and talk to you even if they really need to.

Instead of banning or using “cellphone jails” educators need to find ways to work with phones instead of against them. Our job as future teachers is to find ways that students are fully engaged in the lesson and spark their interests so they want to participate. Developing a routine with your class so they are aware of your expectation for phone usage and how and when the best time to use their phone is, will also be super helpful. Technology and phone usage is only going to continue to increase so we need to find ways that they can work with the flow of the classroom.