Back to school… with £3.2bn worth of tech

Schools used to be so careful about social demarcations. The personal phone has leapfrogged right over that.

In the first line of my second paragraph I should have said “granddaughter” instead of “daughter”. While the grandmother has been quite relaxed about the child taking a mobile phone to school [perhaps in anticipation of some nice conversations?], the mother has been reluctant and had not allowed her daughter to take a phone to her junior school. But for the high school’s suggestion she would not have provided a phone now and her daughter might have become a social outcast I suppose. A different Conversation that was up this morning had the problem of a mother struggling to cope with huge bills that had been run up by her 15 year old. This must be a growing concern as children get drawn into conversations and other activities on their phones oblivious to the costs if they overstep their data allowances.

As to the necessity of having a phone on the way to and from school it all depends on what value is put on social contact; there is no practical necessity, and indeed phones themselves increase the security risk. As technology makes our lives easier it makes them more complicated. And a doting grandma doesn’t always help.

I’m not sure that I would consider parents “obsessed” with making money. True, many are continually worried about the lack of it and the double income is now the only way to survive due to the self perpetuating spiral of double income, double house price, double mortgage. If parents had three personas house prices would increase to reflect this too. Obsessed implies seeking for its own sake rather than for necessity. Enough semantics, I too am grateful that I had a mum at home and were able to manage on dad’s income. How things have changed. The mobile phone obsession is obvious. It is almost a reflex action to reach for the phone. Walk down any street and observe how many children are face down and tapping away. The problem with school is that the phone (unlike the computer) is unnecessary for educational purposes. All those functions are better obtained with a larger screen and a keyboard and mouse. So the phone is purely for social interaction and for phone games. Put those in a classroom and teaching stops. Could the classroom be a signal free zone. No signal, no interaction, no temptation. There must also be a problem with phone theft in school, since these are prized possessions. Inappropriate content can be blocked so long as everyone has the same restriction. Get a whizz kid unblocking their phone or a parent who doesn’t know how to block it properly and children will receive extra curricula education that’s not on the timetable.
There was always peer pressure in school, better pen, better watch, smarter bike etc and I suppose the phone is no different.
With phones now so commonplace is doesn’t seem possible for schools to ban them, but they ought to be able to make them unusable during school time. The other problems will sort themselves out one way or another.

I doubt that there is an easy technical solution to block mobile phone use in the classroom. I’m more concerned about the adults who play with their phones when driving cars.

If tablets become so cheap that all children should have them for their school work, then surely the schools should just bulk-buy them and issue them as standard equipment.

School issued tablets could also be “locked down”, for safety and security, e.g. to prevent access to unsuitable websites and to prevent the downloading of inappropriate software.

Public telephones are becoming an endangered species, John. I’ve seen them used as a book exchange and to house defibrillator. I have read about kiosks where you can charge your phone, though perhaps a flat battery should be treated as an indicator that children and adults should get out more. 🙂

Yes, and it is only because most of the old-fashioned red kiosks are listed structures [usually described as ‘iconic’] that many survive at all, but many are being handed over to their communities for innovative purposes so they are no use in an emergency [unless they contain a defibrillator]. Nevertheless, I would hope that grandparents do educate their charges in the use of this quaint apparatus and explain that they will work even when there is no mobile phone signal. There is probably an app that will show you on your smartphone where the nearest public call box is located. I wonder if the speaking clock is still free from a phone box. Certainly 999 is.

Apps to locate phone boxes appear to exist and could be helpful if you want to see the differences between a K2 and a K6, rather than just study the history of phone boxes online to write your school essay. If the reason for finding a phone box is because your mobile has been lost or stolen, or the battery is flat, an app won’t help.

Don’t ask BT to make calls to the speaking clock free from a phone box. They would not give you the time of day.

I hope pupils are observing that their teachers are spending many hours at a stretch doing their job without making or taking any phone calls. Probably not . . . hence when they enter the world of work they are at a loss and get depressed because they cannot use their phone while working.

I read the article with interest. Is anything being done to warn parents of the potential consequences of allowing too much access to tablets at an early stage of development? And what is going to become of those children who will not receive psychological treatment? There are some disturbing implications here. It opens up some challenging ethical questions. The tablet might start as a pacifier but over time becomes the opposite.