> the real culprit could simply be boiled down to a failure in classroom management and lack of enforcement against cell phones in class

I was a middle school and high school math and science teacher from 1994 through 2019. I watched the advent of internet in schools, then desktop computers in classrooms, and finally smartphones in students' hands.

I've lived a life of watching teachers and schools get blamed for not dealing better with society's issues. "Just teach kids how to use technology", "just ban phones", and "lock down irrelevant websites" is a pretty big ask when the entire industry is focused on getting kids to use these devices, apps, and sites as much as they possibly can.

> Ban phones from class. For real. Lock down websites that are irrelevant to the subjects being taught. These are all technically possible with the tools schools have. Even Youtube. If something is important enough to show the class, the teacher can show it on their larger screen.

My kids have had Chromebooks for years at school, and their schools have had the devices pretty much fully unlocked. My eldest, who has struggled with ADHD and other mental health issues, was spending his entire day on YouTube and Discord. Accordingly, his grades were terrible. The school's IT said they don't lock it down because, more or less, "by this age, kids should be mature enough to make appropriate decisions about how to use technology." But they did concede that my son should have his account locked down.

Why on earth schools don't start from the perspective of whitelisting YouTube videos/channels, websites, etc., instead of allowing a wholly open web is mind-boggling to me.

I fully endorse making schools entirely phone-free. Get rid of Chromebooks altogether.

> Ban phones from class. For real. Lock down websites that are irrelevant to the subjects being taught. These are all technically possible with the tools schools have. Even Youtube. If something is important enough to show the class, the teacher can show it on their larger screen.

Sure. Teachers would love to ban cellphones and punish kids who disobey. The problem is, the parents who sit on the school boards as trustees won't let them.

Adding parents to the school system has single-handedly destroyed the North American education system. Why is there no homework? Because parents complain that kids find it too hard or too much. Why is there no discipline? Because parents complain that discipline is making their kids miserable. Why is there so much emphasis on schools to teach practical skills? Because parents have abdicated their responsibility to teach these skills at home, where they belong.

Parents are no experts on education yet they get to decide what teachers do in the classrooms. The law of averages dictates that 50% were below average students themselves. Guess who sits on the school boards? It's not the over-achievers, those people are too busy being successful in their careers.

There's a global competition for talent and our children are falling behind. Now you know why.

>whiny parents who rage when their children are told they can't be playing video games in class

you have stats on that? It seems like an outlier.

>teachers who are using computer programs to teach the kids instead of actually teaching.

before laptops there were bad teachers who used books to teach the kids instead of actually teaching - as in: "read chapter 7, there will be a test!"

if after laptops there is a worse result then it seems to argue that laptops in the hands of bad teachers are worse than books in the hands of bad teachers, at least.

No teacher (or parent) has ever managed to lock down a computer that was in my possession to a level where I wouldn't get distracted by it. You could shut the power off, and I'd still be poking around the hardware. I spent hundreds of hours programming my calculator instead of paying attention in class. Informative? Yes. Distracting to myself and those around me? You bet.

I completely agree with your phone take. There is no level of administrative control that can remove the distraction from the device.

Why would you think laptops are different?

Classroom ‚management‘ and teens can not be observed at the same time and space.

The problem is that these terns have not had meaningful interactions with technology at home where there roughly a 1:1 relationship parent:kid. Now try to get meaningfulness into kids where the ratio is 1:20+ in a classroom.

This is an insane take.

We have overwhelming evidence on how addictive and distracting electronic devices are and zero evidence for wide spread use of electronic devices improving educational outcomes.

The experiments have been done and the results are in and computers in education are a failed experiment.

it's actually extremely hard to ban websites unless all students can only use chrome book, middle and high schoolers know how to install tor and free vpn to bypass all those domain blacklists in a few minutes with their laptop or phone.

You are sort of giving away the game here.

You are acknowledging that technology, specifically the smartphone, is bad for learning environments. This is a statement that extends beyond the classroom, because why would a smartphone be bad in the classroom for learning but not bad for learning when they're doing homework outside the classroom?

I'm old enough to have straddled the analog to digital transition. This likely results in a higher amount of internalized skepticism about technology than those who grew up as digital natives. With that out of the way, I think your lockdown plan is a bit misguided. We should not lockdown technology like this, we should ban it for learning. I know that may sound insane, but every interaction I have with younger people who grew up as digital natives shows they have a weaker and weaker grasp of everything from the underlying theory of whatever technical issue we are talking about to the basic ability to communicate their thoughts in writing. This is only going to get worse with AI.

There's a reality here in 5-10 years from now where there's a bunch of olds who know roughly how things work, and the following generation who has no clue and not only has no impetus to learn, but no ability. That's the difference between the prior "old man yells at cloud eras". At least in prior instances the follow-on generation could actually learn the job.

real Free Laptops has never been tried.

And what CC item can you point to for that. Teachers often have to write the actual thing they are teaching as a CC item on the board. Want people to teach tech, go to meetings and make them.

We should treat phones on kids the same we treat alchohol. "What the fuck, is that a phone? Give me that!" The only other solution involves evaporating our privacy. Fuk 'em kids. I guess they don't get to use phones, we survived, why can't they?

In fact, it is probably better for them to "struggle" and figure out by themselves how to find a way to circumvent it. Make them think instead of having thoughts feed into them.

There is a large body of research that shows it's not what you're saying it is FYI.

If we're spouting off unsubstantiated claims. I'll add teachers unions and the mandatory spend of tax money on their near monopolies versus a voucher system that allows parents to choose the best education the money can buy. (To be clear I do think we should fund educating our children, I disagree with forcing the purchase to go to a specific solution / system)