At my middle school, we also banned smartphones throughout the whole building. You were meant to either leave yours at home or put it in your locker when you got there. It's a lot easier to chat with people during the breaks when they're not face-down in their phone screen.

Who would have thought?

The "study" is that they asked teachers, "Hey, how's it been going?" and the teachers answered, "I feel like my students are paying attention more now."

How were they ever allowed?

I was in school from the transition from no mobiles at all to smart phones. If you got caught with one it was whipped off you.

Who better to poll than teachers for this type of study? They are the ones in the trenches and can gauge the results.

Wow, no way, I never would have thought )

What next?

Have the iPads and laptops not been collected?

Polling professionals and experts on their opinions is perfectly reasonable to publish as a preliminary study on a subject

They were always collected when not in use. We don't get personal devices, we either go to the computer room, where every screen can be seen by the teacher at once a la panopticon, or we get a trolley full of laptops that we hand in at the end of the lesson. You can also BYOD that isn't a smartphone, so long as you don't use it during lesson time when the teacher doesn't permit it.

Thank you, now it's clear. Our phones were taken away, but half the class was staring at their tablets )

Really? Slippery slope argument?

This is a good thing, take it

I am shocked they allowed them in school tbh. They were not allowed at school for millennials. Granted phones were new but all the flip phones and such were not allowed at schools.

Born on Europe on 1985. We never had a ban on phones (later "feature phones"). We couldn't use them in class, same as the game boy, a comic or a Walkman.

Now schools force Chromebooks/ewaste with laughable restrictions.

Yeah, like, if you're just gonna ask someone, they'd be the ones to ask.

It's a sensible first step.

I'm absolutely in favor of schools disallowing use of phones in class, but I'm against them being banned. If kids want to use them between classes, that's fine, as long as they don't use them in class.

As a 1998 French Zoomer, they were never allowed in class, and only allowed at recess in high school.

You shouldn't poll anyone, instead look at test results. If there is better focus, it'll improve learning outcomes like test scores, graduation rates, and reduces instances of cheating. IMO, if we poll anyone, it should be parents about how much assistance they give their kids (i.e. are they filling in the gaps in their education less?).

It's nice that teachers think kids are paying more attention, but that only matters if kids are learning more.