A Phone In A Kid's Pocket During Class Is Not A Tool, It Is A Door Out Of The Room
I have watched this argument for years and I will say the unpopular part out loud. Every discussion about phones in classrooms ends the same way. Somebody says they are learning tools, and then the kid holding the tool is watching a video about a man building a pool in the jungle.
Discipline is not a dirty word. When I was in school the teacher took the distraction away and handed it back at the bell, and somehow we survived. Now we hand a child a slot machine, ask them to sit still for forty minutes, and act surprised when they cannot.
This is not about hating kids. It is about hating a device that is built to beat a kid's attention span every single time. Take the phone at the start of class, give it back at the bell, and let teachers teach. Go ahead and argue with me.