Rantings of a New Yorker

New York City school officials have had their phones ringing off the hook lately with parents who are angered by the enforcement of a ban on cell phones in the schools. While the cell phone ban has been in place for several years, New York City schools only started enforcing the ban last April with random searches. Parents claim the policy is “unreasonable, irresponsible, and hints at ‘thoughtless fascism.’”

While parents claim that they need to keep tabs on their children, Mayor Bloomberg and school officials claim that the phones are disruptive because they enable students to send text messages, play games and cheat on exams.

Many parents say that their number one concern is being able to contact their children should another 9/11 event take place. What they forget is that on 9/11 cell phone towers were quickly overloaded, leaving many unable to contact one another for most of the day.

“The reality is that the NYC subway system is vulnerable to terrorist attack,” said the parent of a ninth-grader. “When we have so little control over these horrific incidents, and must continue to live our lives (as Mayor Bloomberg suggests we do), something as simple and basic as cell phone contact with our children should not be up for negotiation.”

Another wrote: “She and I both feel a little less crazy knowing that if something major happens — an accident, a crisis — that she can be in touch with me. If your child went to school blocks from ground zero, you’d know what I’m talking about.”

I hate to tell this parent but the subway system has been vulnerable to terrorist attacks since it was first built. You don’t have control over when such an attack is going to happen and, when it does, if your child is unfortunately on the subway, you’re not going to be able to contact him/her anyway.

If there is an accident or crisis, there are many adults at your child’s school who are responsible for keeping your child safe. Every school classroom is also equipped with a telephone so phone calls are not a problem. There is no reason why, if a parent has an emergency, that they cannot call the school and inform them of the incident. The school needs to know this information anyway and getting it from a hysterical child is the worst way to figure out what is happening.

You would think that parents would enjoy time away from their children instead of scrutinizing their every movement. Your child is at school.  You do not need to check up on them every hour.  If you do, then there is a bigger problem than your child having the ability to have a cell phone.

School should be a time for learning, not a time for distractions that take up valuable class time because Jenny just had to tell Jimmy that Veronica slept with Peter last night.  I never had a phone in school and had to walk to and from school through the roughest neighborhood in town. I made it okay.

You also may think this rule is idiotic until you are in a classroom where the teacher is constantly interrupted, telling students to turn off their telephones, ipods, etc. The entire class is disrupted due to one person, and, when this student later fails the class, the teachers and the schools are to blame.

This rule is no different from many other jobs that ban cell phones in the workplace. Most corporations have more intrusive, yet still legal, policies to follow than these schools. If you whine and complain about not being able to have your phone with you, you are told to shut up, follow the rules or get a job elsewhere. In school, your phone is taken away from you, you’re told to sit down, shut up and get back to learning.

At my husband’s school, cell phones have been banned for several years. You may bring it to school but it must be turned off. If you are caught fiddling with the phone, for any reason, it is confiscated, taken to the principal’s office and returned to the parent, not the student, after the parent is lectured, again, as to why the ban is in place.  If a parent and student refuse to follow this policy, the phone can be taken away for the entire year.  This happened to one student last year and, since the policy is strictly enforced, there are few problems with cell phones in his school.

When you have a cell phone, everything else waits while you answer that precious call. I have been in numerous places where someone on a cell phone made me wait because they just had to tell the caller about Aunt Cindy’s colonoscopy or how funny Grandma was at little Johnny’s birthday party.

Many schools in states across the country have similar bans, though some allow the phones on school property but they must be turned off. New York City, however, felt that the phones were a big enough problem that an complete ban was warranted.  Still, they are open to discussion and the school board is encouraging debate before the final policy is put into place.

The problem is that the children that are screaming that they would never allow this to happen in their school forget that they will, most likely, be subject to this very rule when they get a job and have to live in the real world. They act, and are, spoiled children who want their way, believing that it is a God-given right to use a cell phone whenever and wherever they want. If students want to be treated like adults, then they should begin acting like adults.

Students should have a distractive-free education. School officials are there to enforce this policy. This means no blaring music from an mp3 player, no cell phones ringing in class, no text messages interrupting class time, and no video games, of any kind, in the classroom. It also means that any other kind of disruptive behavior should be banned as well and the student removed from the classroom so that others can get back to the business of learning.

If you allow all the disruptions of life to enter the school, then schools become a chaotic place where it is impossible to teach anyone anything. Students need to be taught that certain things simply are not appropriate to the learning process. Yelling in class, playing an mp3 player so everyone can hear it, talking on cell phones, text messaging, swearing at teachers, fighting, etc., have no place in a school. Without limiting some freedoms, schools cannot teach students and the United States will fall even further behind other countries than they already are.

School is there to prepare you for either college or a job. If you such little respect for yourself or others that you cannot possibly live without a cell phone or mp3 player for a few hours, then, please, don’t come to school. There are children there who genuinely want to learn and do not take pleasure in being distracted everywhere they turn during the school day.