YES, mobile phones should be banned in schools but no, it won’t work.
Most classroom mobile use is not for talking but for the various social - or actually unsocial media - and that is readily available on computer devices that are usually actually needed.
Social media should be banned at home, at least until homework is done but that option has long been unsupported by parents. When talking to my own students about classroom distractions, they agreed they would learn better without phones but feared missing out if others were able to still use them.
They were not able to understand how I could have survived in the 1960s or ‘70s without a phone in the house, not a unique event then, but I did.
The reality is schools must be improved with capable teachers in all classrooms on an ongoing basis and a more industrious attitude from students - but that approach might be a distant memory from my own youth!
Dennis Fitzgerald, by email
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