Schools vs. Mobiles

(The conflict goes on)

By Maria Orlova
Year 6
First  City Gymnasia
Ukraine

The situation with suddenly ringing phones interrupting either a teacher or a student is familiar to all. Unfortunately, this can happen several times during lesson time. Moreover, those annoying buzzing sounds break not only the course of a lesson, but demonstrate irreverent attitude towards students and teachers around. This is not an individual case; we can speak about common practice for pupils to take their mobile phones to school.

In 2007, a decree concerning the use of mobile phones in schools was issued. The document forbade pupils and teachers to use their mobiles in schools during lessons and gave opportunities to schools to take a variety of approaches towards regulation of the mobile phones within their premises. Stanislav Nykolaenko, the former Minister of Education, explained the decision, ‘We have classes up to 32 students. So, what kind of teaching is possible when phones ring each minute? The only solution is to forbid them totally. The students using their phones will lose them.’ However, more than four years have already passed. Look around. Can you notice any changes? Amount of students with mobile phones in school have not diminished. It has dramatically increased. There might be several reasons for that.

A mobile phone is a usual thing in the 21st century. We cannot get anywhere without them. At the beginning of the mobile era, a new kind of phones allowed people to improve communication and to be not dependent on standard devices.  As a rule, encyclopaedias say that a mobile phone is a device that can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile phone operator, allowing access to the public telephone network. However, today the definition is not complete. A mobile phone is not only a mean of communication; it is a gadget with a vast spectrum of functions, such as a video- and photo-camera, a music player, a play-station, a tiny TV, a radio, to name just a few. That is why; we need to set the place of mobiles in everyday life of schoolchildren, as in school mobiles can cause many problems because they are used for playing games, cheating in the lessons or text messaging.

Nearly every pupil in school has a mobile phone. Juniors say they need their phones for being in touch with their parents, while, seniors have a different point of view on the topic.  ‘I use my phone both as a communicating device and as a calculator on Maths or as a crib sheet on Geography or the Ukrainian Language’, said Elena, Year 8. Therefore, different age groups have different opinions about the use of their phones. Besides, schoolchildren play games on phones and watch videos on the breaks instead of having a rest.

Some teachers say that students often forget to turn off their phones in class, and ringing noises or text-message alerts disrupt learning. But even set to silent, phones can still cause distraction, since text messaging has become a high-tech method of passing notes in school. Do not forget the entertainment providing by phones, which are widespread among pupils. Those facts are not the complete Cons list. Teachers usually add that phones in lesson time cause attention distraction, behavioural problems, cheating, editing profiles on social networking sites and so on.   For teachers it is difficult to keep children’s mind on the material while the majority is occupied with their mobiles.

We cannot solve the problem by simply forbidding mobiles altogether. There may be some emergency cases or situations when it is necessary to make contact with parents or to drop a line to them. It is important to have a well-clarified teacher’s classroom policy for mobile use to predict children texting and speaking in lesson. The school authorities need to set rules allowing to have phones in school, but not to use them during the lessons. Our school does not forbid phones. We are happy enough to have mobiles with us in school. Children can take their phones to school and keep them on, but start using them only at the end of the school day to let parents know where they are going or when they plan to get home. However, most pupils usually forget to turn them off when a lesson starts, furthermore, they send and receive calls and text messages during lesson time, and therefore become the roots of many problems. For teachers it is also essential not to use their phones in lessons as they break the rules and show their pupils a pattern to follow.

Those complicated relationships between schools and mobile phone use are likely to last forever.  As our recent survey shows, the problem will be solved when schoolchildren become more self-disciplined. The other solutions are self-control, awareness as for an appropriate timing to use the phones, knowing the limits and moral boundaries.

Updated at 14.03.2012