I am a university lecturer and my colleagues and I are having this discussion constantly. Some want to ban smartphones from lectures but personally, I don't have a problem with them.
My perspective is that if the students are paying tuition fees to come to university, what they do with their time is up to them. I am there to deliver the best lecture that I possibly can and if they choose not to come because they were out partying the night before and are too hung over to turn up, that it their loss, not mine. If they want to spend their time in my lecture snap chatting or whatsapping or whatever, and miss out on some of my marvellous wisdom, then that is their loss, not mine. Young people need to learn to take responsibility for themselves. If we ban smart phones we are just continuing with the notion that children and young people need someone to tell them how to act all the time rather than supporting them to see how they can manage their own behaviour and become responsible adults.
It takes about half a year for them to catch on when they start in first year that they need to give 100% focus to my lectures or they will be lost. When they are crying in my office after Christmas because they got 18% in their first semester assessment, I gently ask them if there is anything preventing them from focusing on their studies and 9 times out of 10 they know what the problem is and take measures themselves to change their behaviour. This is far more effective than a list of rules that just make students want to rebel.
It might be different in schools with younger children but this works for me and I see a marked difference in attitude and behaviour as the year goes on. They need to learn for themselves how to get the most out of University for it to really have any impact at all.
I am a great believer in prevention before cure.
It also takes a responsible adult to guide children of the rights and wrongs, as parents we are also teachers.
How many young people/adults regret not paying attention, listening to good advice in relation to education as they were growing up. Basically just doing what they want and being lazy as I think Pixie_Hez has proved!
I am also a great believer in learning by your mistakes but children/ young adults have to be helped along the road sometimes to prevent disaster.
We are not born with this knowledge, we have to be shown/taught. Just as we do when we get a job and have to be shown/taught.
I was a mature student back in the 80's and the 90's and to be honest I found most students loved the lifestyle and learning and lectures got in the way.
I was one of those people who regreted not doing better but did something about it as an adult.
------------- It is a wise man who has something to say.
It is a fool who has to say something.
I agree with everything Pixie_Hez has said insofar as this relates to young adults in university education. I was one of the students who took half of the first year to realise (albeit in the days before smartphones) that I was going to have to attend all the lectures and pay attention, and then follow that up with some time in the library BEFORE going to the disco or the pub.
The thing is though that at the age of 19, I was just about mature enough to work this out for myself. This would definitely not have been the case when I was a child at primary or even secondary school. At these ages children do need, as VangoMan02 has said to be shown, taught and helped along the right road and not left solely to work things out for themselves. And if that means banning smartphones from the classroom to help them learn to pay attention to the teacher in authority, then I'm all for it. It's not refusing to acknowledge technology, it's learning that it has its place and that there are boundaries on when, as well as how it should be used.
------------- "Don't wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect."
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Topic: Smart phones in schools
