Students should be allowed full use of their cell phones during school hours.

At the high school where I teach, cell phones are a constant source of frustration for students and teachers alike. Our school policy requires that students' cell phones be turned off during the school day, and many students find such a long period of disconnectedness unbearable. Teachers, meanwhile, feel overwhelmed by the administration's mandate to report or confiscate any cell phones they see, when they might see a dozen of them in the halls during class change on any given day. Therefore the cell phone, which could be treated in a similar manner to any other non-weapon, non-chemical, non-pornographic object that a student might bring to school, has instead become an incredibly volatile object that frequently deepens or even creates the rifts that can so easily form between teachers and students. If that does not seem like a serious enough problem to you, consider the Public School Review's report that the City of New York's general ban on cell phones in public schools resulted in parents suing the city on the grounds of a student rights violation. No one involved in the situation is content with the status quo in schools where cell phones are prohibited, where the cell phone has become a device of divisiveness among groups of people who should be trying harder to connect with each other. If the status quo is a mess, then, how do we change it? In this debate, I will propose a nearly 180-degree turn: Students should be allowed full use of their cell phones during school hours. My value is education, which the public schools purport to be, after all, their raison d'ï¿½tre. Here is my three-point argument, which I will rebuild as necessary in the succeeding rounds: * * * Point 1 * * * The cell phone is an object that is completely legal to possess, and any school policy that treats it as especial contraband is likely to interfere more rather than less with the educational process. Yale Professor James P. Comer, M.D. summed up education most eloquently when he said, "No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship of mutual respect, teacher to student." Consider the students who struggle mightily to resist looking at their cell phones during a class period, or those who surreptitiously look at their phones under their desks or jackets—does this struggle help or hurt their relationships with the teacher, whose class is the very obstacle to their cell phone gratification? Furthermore, how much mental effort is wasted on either anxiety or trying not to get caught while secretly having the phone out? Now, consider the alternative. Students are allowed full access to their phones. Are they going to check them and talk on them all class? Not if they have a "significant relationship" with their teacher. They will have been taught, by their teachers and principals, the guidelines of respect. Therefore, they will limit their cell phone use as much as possible. What's the difference between this and a cell phone ban? Everything! First, they are being trusted to make this choice, and second, the irresistibility that colors a thing once it is made taboo is gone. Now, what about situations where my rosy predictions don't come true? When cell phones start causing distractions either to the entire class or to a single phone-immersed student? The truth is, even without a cell phone ban, teachers already have the authority to deal with any classroom disruptions that a cell phone might cause. The use of pencils, I hope, is allowed in every public school across America. Yet if two students engage in a pencil fight during a lecture, does the teacher have every right to discipline those students? Of course. Removing the cell phone ban could bring about a return of focusing on the reasons for classroom rules, rather than simple compliance with dogmatic rules of murky purpose. * * * Point 2 * * * The education that takes place in our schools must contain an element of socialization—preparing our young people to conduct themselves in a socially acceptable manner in the outside world—and barring a device that is today ubiquitous to the point of being virtually prosthetic strikes dead on arrival any possibility of teaching our students to use cell phones responsibly. Our focus on enforcing the cell phone ban diverts our finite disciplinary energies from serious problems that, if left unexamined, jeopardize some of our students' futures. For example, taking a call on your cell phone inside a grocery store might mildly irritate the person standing behind you in line, but it's not a big deal. However, running down the aisles while screaming can get you thrown out of the store or worse. In a school with a myopic cell phone ban, the situation can become exactly the opposite: having a cell phone out is scandalous, while screaming and running down the halls barely attracts notice. This is socialization of the poorest sort. Many teachers cannot go an entire school day without using their cell phones, whether to make after-work plans with friends and loved ones, to reschedule appointments, or even to check up on their own children who are in schools where cell phones are banned! Furthermore, most students know this, so an uncomfortable double standard is maintained while teachers are deprived of an opportunity to model for their students mature usage of a cell phone. Imagine the student's reaction in a school with no cell phone restrictions: "Wow—Teacher got a call while she was helping me but she just let it ring. That was really considerate of her! I want to be like that." * * * Point 3 * * * Parents use cell phones as a way to communicate with their children during the school day, and no education can take place if a student is anxious about possible changes in the family schedule or, more likely, going to the restroom during class time to text his or her parent. Furthermore, education is a much smoother endeavor if parents and teachers are working together rather than at loggerheads. In an article in NEA Today, 21-year teaching veteran and previous National Board for Professional Teaching Standards committee member Gail Washburn responds to the argument that parents communicated just fine with their children before cell phones. She emphasizes that today we have more mothers working outside the home and more fathers commuting farther away to work, which inevitably results in more scheduling uncertainty and with it the need for flexibility—and frequent communication. None of this communication needs to disrupt the classroom setting: a student can receive a text message on vibrate and text back, all in a matter seconds. SOURCES: Comer quote: http://www.education-world.com... "Should Public Schools Ban Cell Phones? Public School Review http://www.publicschoolreview.com... "Debate: Should cell phones and pagers be allowed in school?" NEA Today, Mar 2001 by Washburn, Gail and Don Mack. http://findarticles.com...