Cellphones in School
Posted on 29. Jan, 2009 by admin in Tech
Recently I read an article about a high school in Michigan that suspended several students for either receiving or transmitting a sexually revealing photo of a fourteen year old female student. The young lady had taken pictures of her genital area and sent it to some friends who shared it with other friends and down the line the pictures went. Now I am not even going to talk about issue of how sick it is for a girl to even take pictures like this. I would like to applaud the school district for taking such a stand against this type of behavior. The battle against cell phones in schools is one I have to fight every day. Schools need to set strict standards on their use and have the message be clear to the entire student population. It requires the schools faculty and administration to be consistent in the enforcement of the policy. Students need to know the abuse of the cell phone technology is not going to be tolerated. Last year in my school we had a group of students cause two other non suspecting students to fight in order to video record the encounter with their cell phones and broadcast it to others. Incidents like this happen way too much, you can find thing like this on You Tube all day long.
So I would encourage all of us that are stakeholders in education and young people all over our country to continue supporting and encouraging our local school districts positive policies when we see them. While there will be times when you disagree with your district on certain issues, we owe it to them to praise them when they create positive policy.
Posted by Justin Foster
DJ
09. Apr, 2009
Justin pointed out the importance of being clear and consistently enforcing cellphone policies. That is vitally important. I am pleased with the written policy in our school. However, enforcement is certainly not consistent. Some teachers allow students to blatantly and repeatedly violate the policy without consequence. That creates serious problems within the school.
I urge everyone to follow your school’s cellphone policies even if you are not in agreement with them. Neglecting to do so not only creates strife, but it demonstrates our unwillingness to submit ourselves to authority.
Thanks for the post.