Great article over at WBUR. This from the principal Jana Mates at Lewiston (Main) Middle School:
On why Lewiston Middle School banned cellphones
Jana Mates: “Mostly in response to the overwhelming amount of negative use, social media, a lot of the office referrals, a lot of the talk in the community, all revolved around conversations that we’re having on social media — and some of them during the school day — and I just feel like it’s too much pressure for a kid. They’re here to learn, they’re here for structure, they’re here to focus on being a kid, and that wasn’t happening.”
On how the ban is going
JM: “We were pretty transparent about the change in this policy, and why we were doing it, right from the beginning. We put it right in our Lewiston Middle School policy handbook, we put it on the website. And then the first two days of school we pulled kids down into the auditorium and we just told them why. I think if kids understand where you’re coming from — and that it’s not to be mean, or to put more rules in place, but because we genuinely care about them — it’s actually been a really positive outcome. I think kids are actually getting it, and the pressure of not having to worry about what’s happening on social media during the day is almost like a weight off their shoulders that they didn’t anticipate was going to happen.”
On difficulty for teachers in getting students to give up their phones
JM: “Here, not using cellphones has always been a suggested practice. But what was happening is kids were going to the bathroom 10 times more than they should so that they could go use [their phone], or they were late to class because they were in the hall texting or on social media. And those pieces have been taken away. And so there’s been a handful of times where we’ve had to, you know, our policy is the first time it’s a warning, second time the phone gets taken away until the end of the day. Third time a parent has to pick it up, and we’ve yet to get to the point where a parent has to come pick up the phone.”
On the argument that having phones in the classroom presents an opportunity for students to learn
JM: “I think there are age limits on lots of things in life for a reason. We have computers here for students, anything that they need to go on educationally, they’re able to via MacBooks. And I don’t know, I think in our society, is it really our job to teach kids how to use Facebook? When 50 percent of our school isn’t reading on grade level?”