Phone Usage in School

By Riley Dotson

Now, before you all write this off as another desperate plea to have our cell phones out in class, text all day, and not listen to a word the teacher says, hear me out. Most Middle School students at our school have a phone, and that’s just a simple fact of life. I agree with you that they should be limited, and ignoring the teacher entirely over a simple “lol :3” is still intolerable, but I mean to say that they should be allowed at designated times.

We all own cell phones for a reason, and that reason is typically safety. I for one, with my Dad busy at work at home, and my mom working at Lewis, my brother rushing from school to home to practice, me to Football and scouts and Science Olympiad and somehow eking out enough time to practice my trumpet, as well as do my Algebra homework for Mr. List, need my phone to provide some sort of order to my incredibly hectic day. Some people need it because there won’t be anyone home after school, and they need a way to let their parents know that they are okay.

The unfortunate-and unavoidable- catch is that sometimes these scenarios can’t wait until after school, and aren’t present before school, and force people to both abandon their family members and leave them worried, or be sneaky. When I say “sneaky,” I mean when people hide their phone under the desk, or in their binders, or even go to the bathroom to text, and this isn’t an appropriate way to handle the situation either. I have a friend that goes to Kearney High School, and he received a text in class, and the teacher took his phone away. No big deal… Right? Well it turns out that the text was from his boss, and when he didn’t answer, the friend lost his job.  So, in my opinion, something should be done about it.

What I’m suggesting isn’t a free-for-all-electronic-heyday-no-rules rule, but a limited usage rule for phones, sorta like the rules about Kindle Fires and Nooks now, but a little different. The rule for eReaders is that they can be used when work is done, and may be only used for appropriate things, and it could be the same way for phones. Maybe the policy could be that they can only be used when work is done, and if it becomes a distraction, then it gets taken away. Or maybe even like the policy they have at the High School, where they can use them in the halls or at lunch. This is just to present a student’s opinion about a problem that has plagued students since the cell phone was invented, and a friendly suggestion on how it could be resolved. Thank you.