Hacker News Reader

Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

As a former student of a Minnesota district right outside Minneapolis, it's interesting to me that they were allowed at all.

When I was in school in the late 90's / early aughts we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property. We all had them of course, but if they were seen they could be confiscated - I think it was largely an empty threat but I never saw anyone push it. Some teachers would happily allow you to use them in class.

They were also VERY suspicious any time you had your graphing calculator out outside math class, and some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

Gameboy or anything of the like certainly would not have flown. I remember my friend actually getting special permission to bring his laptop in.

View on HN

>They were also VERY suspicious any time you had your graphing calculator out outside math class, and some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

That would have been a huge bummer becuase I wasn't playing games on mine, I was writing programs. It was actually the start of my professional programming career technically. I sold a copy of the program I wrote via link cable to a fellow student for $1... 8 years before apple was selling $1 mobile apps ;)

The very first thing you did is write a program that prints a pixel-perfect "memory reset successfully" message to the screen as if you had just cleared it yourself :)

yep, remember doing exactly this for the ti-84+ CE. god bless third-party TI-BASIC documentation websites.

better than making it seem like you had just done it yourself, you could use the Menu() function to simulate all the menu navigation necessary to actually get to that screen!

funnily enough, jabbing all the buttons on the calculator and having to select functions via menu listings created one of the comfiest development environments I've ever used. after a while, banging out a screensaver or fake menu became second nature.

I'm not a big BASIC fan, so I've done my stuff in C, since it was a Motorola 68k on the TI-Voyage 200. I don't remember exactly how (it's 15+ year ago), but you could mark your app as a "system app" which was not removed during a factory reset.

Add a cryptic name, blank screen on start with a short timeout to return to menu when a key combination is not pressed and nobody will ever notice.

Crazy because I started playing games on the calc and then at something in HS I got a new Ti-84 and student read the full manual and realized you could actually code programs in that thing.

I had a TI Voyage 200 in highschool and wrote programs to solve whatever new problems were assigned and that's part of the reason I'm not very good at math.

This was always a curiosity to me, too. Same in my schools, no gameboys, graphing calc use monitored and restricted to specific classes, whether cheating or distraction things weren't allowed - smart phones are all those things and more.

It didn't feel oppressive, either, it felt appropriate - like setting a tone, even when we were defying the rules lol

It was just annoying to me. They take away trading cards and game boys and at the same time this was when they were removing monkey bars and tether ball courts due to lawsuits.

What do you want students to do during recess? There's only 1 full basketball court and 2 single courts. We only had access to half the grass field for whatever reason so that limited soccer (and yeah, no full contact so Murica Football was soft banned. You could throw the pig skin and that's it).

If that's a shared experience, it's no wonder my generation is so scrutinous of authority.

I went to a tiny Catholic school that didn’t have a playground. We had a parking lot with two moveable basketball nets.

We played “touch” football on the asphalt where touch was only a strong suggestion. We went to the nurse a lot.

> we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property

Or your Tamagotchi! That was probably much more similar.

Our school wasn't too strict about walkmans and the like, because no one was really distracted by it during classes. Tamagotchis on the other hand...

Glad I didn't have to endure such an unreasonable "culture of no".

In the late 90's in California, we had an open campus (no fences) and the classrooms were freestanding buildings without enclosed halls. Some students went to lunch at businesses a few blocks away. The cool kids would enroll in one period that included floating permission, so you could basically leave campus whenever you wanted. There was far more weed and ritalin than smoking or drinking. Because of parental pressures, there weren't many students who were lazy or fuck-ups.

HP 48G(X) represent. IR beam compilers, apps, and games to each other. Also, the very powerful universal remote app that could control any TV at a long distance. No one else ever touched my calculator except to verify clear memory for placement tests.

The computer lab was full of absolute shit PS/2 25 and 30, and PCjrs, but that wasn't a problem because of the laissez-faire un-management and lack of control freaks that didn't stifle creativity and exploration.

In my estimation, 97% of my graduating class went to college. Of that cohort, most ultimately became millionaires with a few centimillionaires, and a few became moderate names in academia and professional trades. (I once made the mistake of unwittingly agreeing to a blind date with someone from my graduating class, but she (a dentist) was so embarrassingly inconsiderate, unrelatable, ill-mannered, and late that I had to cut it short. Some people are just so awful that they're entertaining clichés and good story fodder.)

https://themarkup.org/machine-learning/2023/11/30/he-wanted-...

I'm just going to leave that there.

> some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

Do you mean school-issued calculators, or personally owned ones?

I presume personally owned ones.

> But they shouldn't be allowed to control what's on a personal device.

Minor students seem to have a different standard for rights. Schools regularly have dress codes and stuff. Presumably they'd say "you can have games on your calculator if you want, you just can't bring it to school."

Personally owned, in my former school's case.

I mean I’ve definitely heard of school testing centers at least requiring graphing calcs to have their memory wiped to stop cheating. But idk if they did it themselves or forced to students to do it before entering.

If I found out a school deleted files from one of my kid's personal devices without my permission, I'd be livid.

These days, sure. But back in the 90's, your TI-83 almost certainly wasn't the preferred place to store photos or other sensitive data.

if a kid was playing banned games in my class, i'd want to do the same. why are kids' devices so special?

They aren't - in no other situation would anyone be allowed to delete random information off the device of an adult who broke some private rule. The only thing they could generally do is kick you out of wherever you are and tell you to not come back.

They aren't, but you shouldn't delete data in general off a device that isn't yours. Confiscate it like anything else and have the school provide it instead.

If the school cannot provide a necessary resource, that's a larger problem.

Imagine if you snuck out your phone to do something, and the response was forcing a factory reset.

If you're not treating kids' devices as special in a bad way, you'd never even think of making that the rule!

Teachers took like a decade to figure out that when a kid takes out his calculator in English class it is special in a bad way.

Why should a teacher or anyone besides the childs parents have any right to mess with in any way somebody elses property? Students are people not property.

Brings back great memories of my TI-83. Wrote my first program on it (text based SimCity). It’s somewhere on the 10s of 3.5 disks sitting in my closet

Delete

>she has trouble controlling her own students because I believe they themselves have realized she's inconsistent and illogical, so anything goes. They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up

This really shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Even 2 year old children can understand authority, power dynamics, and contests of will. For that matter, a 6 month old puppy will understand the same.

I pretty strongly disagree with the rest of what you said about state curriculum.

What part? That it exists as stated?

Or do you believe that every single teacher in California should be deciding how to teach what verbs are, or how dividing works, in their own way however they choose?

Is that really better than finding the best explanation, worksheets, and using that? Because right now there's a classroom in California being taught the worst possible way how to divide, out of all the other classrooms in California. Why? Because why not, freedom!

First, I object to the idea Every teacher gets to decide what they teach. There is a very prescriptive list of what the curriculum must contain, and it is assessed by standardize tests.

Second, teachers aren't fungible robots. They are humans with personalities, interests, and passions. Education works best when teachers are engaged. I think you underestimate the value provided by flexibility. you might be able to reduce variation through standardization, but that doesnt mean you improve the mean. My very best teachers went off script, teaching more valuable information, like a 5th grade teacher that decided to teach business, html, and the scientific method.

Last, it isn't exactly anarchy. Many subjects can be taught from texts, which are organized along standardized approaches.

3/4 of teacher believe in "learning styles" which we figured out was bunk science pretty much the instant it came out. It sucks that we'll probably crush the great teacher but forcing so much standardization but the simple fact is most teachers can't be trusted to actually make good decisions or teach well.

The question then is if you expect better outcomes from the same teachers you dont trust, who cant teach, and make bad decisions if you provide them a script they hate.

Do you expect better outcomes if they quit and you replace them with training videos?

Call me a skeptic, but I dont think standard lesson plans will move the needle for a shitty teacher that doesn't give a shit. They probably wont even engage with that standard lesson plan.

> The question then is if you expect better outcomes from the same teachers you dont trust, who cant teach, and make bad decisions if you provide them a script they hate.

Yes

> Do you expect better outcomes if they quit and you replace them with training videos?

You still need someone to enforce the kids are actually doing what they've been instructed to but yes I'd expect an equal or better outcome.

"the simple fact is most teachers can't be trusted to actually make good decisions or teach well"

Another simple fact is, that despite all that effort and forced curriculum and years of attending - most people don't understand even basic science. So I question, that the current system is working efficiently at all.

It's worth pointing out that different students are different people; each person has their unique background and knowledge when they first arrive in a classroom. If you've got a student who's struggling with < versus > they're going to have a real hard time with further math if you don't provide some support for them (and even then they'll still have a hard time, you'll just be helping them - it'll be similar to someone spotting you while you do bench presses near the limit of what you can handle).

There is no "best explanation, best worksheet" any more than there's a "best shoe size, best cut/style of pants".

Hire good teachers who care about their students, and let them figure out how to best address the needs of their students in that particular classroom.

Children are often hardest on their own caregivers though, so the more you look like a parent figure the more they rebel. Of course nowadays corporal punishment is 'child abuse' so the child is emboldened knowing they can do whatever they like, including violence, with absolute impunity from physical pain.

> Children are often hardest on their own caregivers

Hear hear! If your kids turn out good, they'll say you are lucky.If they don't, they'll say you messed up as a parent. Either way, the parent never gets any credit.

Reality is a mixed bag. There's lots of things about a kid that is very difficult to change. We've done a lot in the past to try to discourage certain bad behaviors once they developed but what mostly happened was they eventually grew out of it thanks to no particular tactic we employed.

So I mostly just try to model the behavior I want to see.

corporal punishment is child abuse.

It does not mean children can do whatever they like.

You might find it difficult to find alternatives, but better alternatives than violence exists.

Save your children the costs of therapy as adults, and focus on real emotional health.

do you have any repoed studies that show kids who were spanked as kids (not beaten) needed therapy as adults? AFAICT, all the parents I know that don't punish their kids have the worst kids with the most problems.

I'm not saying you should spank your kids. I'm only questioning whether it actually causes any problems. I was spanked, my sister was spanked. All my cousins etc. None of us have any issues. We love our parents and loved that they loved us enough to punish us when we were bad.

Do you normally solve interpersonal conflicts in your life with physical violence?

If the answer is no: why do you think it's appropriate to do so when dealing with children?

(If the answer is yes, then consider anger management classes, I guess)

The responsibilities and duties one has to their child vs an adult are quite different. Virtually every authority charged with last-resort solving interpersonal conflict issues (government) uses violence, as when all else fails some at least respond to that.

The reason why corporal punishment isn't used privately man to man is because we've delegated that to government, who happily sends men with guns to drag people violently in for reform. Spanking a child before they get to that point would be a favor.

Normal punishments and last resorts are nowhere near each other.

And when you say "drag people violently in" I feel like very different definitions of "violence" are getting conflated here. Forcibly moving a child is needed sometimes, and is not corporal punishment.

>Do you normally solve interpersonal conflicts in your life with physical violence?

There are tons of situations where violence is appropriate for interpersonal conflict, usually when someone won't listen to reason.

If I went into your house, ignored what you were saying, and then started smashing things or molesting your children, would you just sit there and protest politely?

When they ask about conflict, they're not talking about a scenario that is already violent. And why are you going to such an unpleasant extreme?

because they dont get to define the scenario in the most favorable conditions if they are claiming violence is never appropriate. Doubly so when they include a bunch of condescension about how anyone who thinks violence has a place should seek therapy.

> because they dont get to define the scenario in the most favorable conditions if they are claiming violence is never appropriate.

The earlier poster was arguing that corporal punishment is never appropriate. When they said "better alternatives than violence", they were speaking in the context of punishment.

A scenario about an urgent intervention can't prove them wrong, because it's not related to what they were saying.

> Doubly so when they include a bunch of condescension about how anyone who thinks violence has a place should seek therapy.

Are you actually reading their comments, or are you too busy being righteously mad at them?

They didn't ask if you think violence "has a place". They asked if it's what normally happens for your interpersonal conflicts.

Those two ideas are not at all close.

Im talking about corporal punishment too, or at least im not drawing a distinction. the commonality I was illustrating is that violence can be a solution of last resort when other methods have failed, and it is possible for other methods to fail.

>They didn't ask if you think violence "has a place". They asked if it's what normally happens for your interpersonal conflicts. Those two ideas are not at all close.

I think it was an intentionally loaded and insulting question. yeah, im sure the poster normally resorts to violence interpersonal conflicts when they cant agree on a move with their partner.

Plus, it is just a crappy argument. The parent wasn't arguing that corporal punishment should normally be the tool to resolve issues, so it is a faulty comparison.

Sometimes violence is necessary in an urgent situation. This is easy to prove.

This does not prove that violence is sometimes necessary as a punishment. Punishments are very different from urgent situations.

You very much should be drawing a distinction.

"Child abuse" is a fuzzier term than many seem to acknowledge, subject to passing conventions and fads. This isn't to say there aren't obvious examples of child abuse (beating your kids, sexual abuse, gaslighting, or all sorts of emotional and psychological manipulation or whatever), but today, giving an incorrigibly disobedient child throwing an interminable tantrum a swat on the tush to shake them out of it gets CPS involved, but teaching strange ideologies approved by the state is fine (in fact, refusing to teach them is now abuse). Even worse, grotesque "medical" procedures and treatments against which that swat pales in comparison.

Generally speaking, corporal punishment as such is not abuse, either. We've just become very sentimental, operating with a flawed understanding of human nature. It shouldn't be used lightly, but it shouldn't be demonized categorically.

> giving an incorrigibly disobedient child throwing an interminable tantrum a swat on the tush to shake them out of it gets CPS involved

It really doesn't.

> Even worse, grotesque "medical" procedures and treatments against which that swat pales in comparison.

Ahh, I see what you've got going on here...

> I'm not saying you should spank your kids. I'm only questioning whether it actually causes any problem

If you're actually interested in an answer here, it's pretty easy to find people for whom it did cause problems.

If you say it works great in your family, fine. For you to extrapolate and say it's okay for everyone is not fine.

In my own experience, my parents reached for violence instead of taking the time to connect and understand. Now I know I cannot trust them to listen or to take time to try to understand where I'm coming from.

It is super easy to find people whose lives were greatly negatively impacted by domestic violence, especially coming in the form of "loving punishment." That can fuck a person up even more, leading them to believe violence is a part of love.

Is there a mammal that doesn’t utilize corporal punishment to set boundaries?

Does every dog / chimp / giraffe that got nipped by mom for being a brat need therapy?

Are you comparing a human child with dogs, chimps and giraffes? Are you saying it's appropriate to communicate with physical violence in this context? What other human-to-human contexts are there where physical violence or the threat of physical violence is okay?

I'm genuinely curious about this worldview, because I personally cannot empathize with this. It's abhorrent to me and my values.

I would argue that basically every human context includes the possibility of physical violence, usually for sufficient transgression the boundaries of others.

If you walk out your door start groping people or try to run off someone's child, you will encounter violence pretty fast.

Those examples are not "every human context" and they don't guarantee violence, they're extrajudicial. Are you saying spanking a child is extrajudicial? a vigilante assault?

every human activity is in relation to possible violence. It holds relevance to basically every aspect of human life. It enables the status quo, and has the potential to disrupt it.

You couldnt make a post on HN if it werent for violence, or the threat of it. you have a computer to type on because if someone were to take it, they would risk beating or death. someone built the computer because threat of violence makes them work for a living instead of taking what they want. sometimes you can be minding your own business at a desert rave and violence comes for you anyways.

im saying all order, justice, and authority is based on violence. the only difference between an extrajudicial vigilante and a sanctioned enforcer, is that the enforcer is on the side generally considered more threating.

If you are sufficiently transgressive, violence is always a possible consequence, for children and adults. it is a simple fact of life.

Considering the behaviors children typically get spanked for, these are severe crimes. Do we have a higher standard of behavior for children?

I don't know what scenarios you are imagining but I think standard should be lower for children than adults, and the punishment less severe, but that doesn't preclude any violence.

I think your response captures it in a nutshell. Dog’s, chimp’s and giraffe’s primary concern is addressing the problematic behavior. Modern parenting’s primary concern is with congratulating themselves for their enlightened values.

As opposed to archaic parenting being about what exactly?

That's a bit of a naturalistic fallacy. At the same time, I think demonizing corporal punishment categorically is a mistake rooted in a false understanding of human nature. I see no problem caning violent criminals, for example.

What if the violent criminal is a child?

Nips are not intended to cause a meaningful amount of pain.

Also we let/cause lots of things to happen to animals that would likely need therapy if they were humans, so this comparison really doesn't work.

Corporal punishment is legal in the US, & practiced by many educated millennial families in my circle of acquaintance

it’s always been child abuse, just sanctioned or commonplace.

children can be raised to do the right thing without fear/pain/trauma.

> People will think poorly that I’m talking down a romantic partner

Well, yes. Relationships don’t do well when one of the partners has this much contempt for the other. There’s a difference between knowing in your own mind she’s not the best at her job, and calling her a “ditzy” “illogical” “girl” in public.

I don't call her that in public.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38524596 is a publicly accessible URL. That’s what I meant. You’re assuming it doesn’t matter because she’s not smart enough to find it and recognize herself.

Lol you're talking about having respect for someone I assume, but then you assume there's 'intelligence' in finding a random link in the world?

Let's say she was a damn genius. Do you expect her to have Google alerts setup for non official spellings of her school districts name? Is a genius supposed to be checking my browser history on my phone?

How smart would she have to be to find what I wrote?

>>>>> People will think poorly that I’m talking down a romantic partner

>>>> Well, yes. Relationships don’t do well when one of the partners has this much contempt for the other. There’s a difference between knowing in your own mind she’s not the best at her job, and calling her a “ditzy” “illogical” “girl” in public.

>>> I don't call her that in public.

>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38524596 is a publicly accessible URL. That’s what I meant. You’re assuming it doesn’t matter because she’s not smart enough to find it and recognize herself.

> Lol you're talking about having respect for someone I assume, but then you assume there's 'intelligence' in finding a random link in the world?

> Let's say she was a damn genius. Do you expect her to have Google alerts setup for non official spellings of her school districts name? Is a genius supposed to be checking my browser history on my phone?

> How smart would she have to be to find what I wrote?

How **** do you have to be to fail to realize "in public" does not mean "to her face?"

This is a public forum. Everything posted here is in public.

You're not as clever as you think you are.

1. Why did you reply to this comment and not the earlier one, and even explicitly quote the stuff that has nothing to do with the "in public" you're responding to?

2. Come on, you can figure out what they meant by "public". It's not in the broader spheres of influence that connect to her. She doesn't see this site, this site doesn't see her.

> 1. Why did you reply to this comment and not the earlier one

It should be obvious: that's the comment I was replying to.

> and even explicitly quote the stuff that has nothing to do with the "in public" you're responding to?

To preserve the context, because the original comment was deleted while the OP continued to defend it.

> 2. Come on, you can figure out what they meant by "public". It's not in the broader spheres of influence that connect to her. She doesn't see this site, this site doesn't see her.

Yeah, I did figure it out. But we're not Humpty Dumptys here, so we don't get to redefine words on a whim.

In short: that's what he meant, but that's not what "public" means.

> It should be obvious: that's the comment I was replying to.

Going by what you wrote, you were replying to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38524906

You didn't say a single word about the next two comments in the chain. So I don't see how they act as context.

> Yeah, I did figure it out. But we're not Humpty Dumptys here, so we don't get to redefine words on a whim.

> In short: that's what he meant, but that's not what "public" means.

It's close enough.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

The strongest plausible interpretation is that you would use a different word than "public", but it's a pointless quibble. Not "How **** do you have to be", "You're not as clever".

Those insults are wildly unfitting for a complaint about wording.

All she would have to do is see your handle once, idly and innocently wonder what it means, and google it. A curious, intelligent person might well do that. So either you don’t think she’s curious and intelligent, or you have such amazing opsec you’re positive she’ll never catch a glimpse of your handle. Judging from your original post, the first option seemed more likely.

You're correct that I don't go on my hobby time wasting websites when I'm spending time with my significant other. You should try it sometime.

Do guys really think talking on an anonymous forum, about any one of hundreds of employees in a company, is the same as "calling someone something in public"?

Guys, hm? Fascinating.

I don’t know why everyone got caught up telling this public forum is public. Saying that about a partner anywhere is pretty awful, public or not.

What are you guys on about? Do you think that every partner loves everything about their SO? You've never dated anyone where they had some character flaws that weren't deal breakers?

Oh. Right. We're at Hackernews.

I don’t expect you to love every part of your SO. I do expect you to have some basic respect for them

This is a public forum..

Yes, and the words "in public" have meaning. And they don't mean on a website.

For example, I don't argue with every person I meet in public. I was actually a top 0.1% salesperson for 10 years nationwide in my industry. I do great meeting women and have fun on bars. In public I'm great. On a random website, not in public, I'm different.

Downvoted again.. if I didn't know better I'd think I was drunk in public, risking a ticket. But luckily I'm just drunk at home on a website.

"They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up."

And what do you want her to do? Stop the lesson until the student respects her? Remove the student from the classroom?

basically yes, This is how it was when I attended a high performing highshool. Failure to engage got students moved to a remedial class so that they didnt drag others down. Outright disruptive behavior could escalate to expulsion.

I also attended a high-performing high school. These tactics don’t work as well with students who aren’t filtered or trained extensively to work in a rigorous academic setting. I’ve been in some typical Philadelphia school district classrooms as well, best of luck to teachers in that environment.

The tactics dont work in what sense? Are there students that learn better when there are no consequences and their peers are playing music in class or shouting over the teacher?

I'm saying basically no teaching tactic works when the kids have shitty home lives and have a real risk of getting shot on a daily basis.

Sure, then you need a means to triage and try to save who you can.

Give detention? Isn't that the go-to disciplinary action? For an immediate option, 15-30 seconds chewing out a misbehaving student isn't going to take up that much time. And for more serious actions, send them to the principal's office.

One, students that don't listen used to be removed. So, potential totally yes.

Two, I expect her to put a lot of personal effort into becoming at expert in motivation, behavior management, discipline for kids. I expect her to at least read ONE book about this. She complains for 2+ years about this that I've known her. I recommend books, she gets insulted and explains why it's not relevant.

IMO a teacher being paid $90k a year for 7 hours a day of work, 10 months a year, should be working hard to improve. But instead it's just a cushy job that no one gets fired from no matter how average (or below) they are.

Ps, I have never seen her take work home once in 2 years. So don't say the hours are long.

Tldr; I'd like her to do whatever other teachers that have better control of their classrooms do. Unless you're going to tell me there's zero variation in that amongst teachers.

IMO a teacher being paid $90k a year for 7 hours a day of work, 10 months a year, should be working hard to improve.

Teacher salaries for San Ramon (and California generally) are publicly accessible (by band, and for some counties like San Ramon by name), so I doubt very much your soon-to-be-ex girlfriend is making $90k as a sixth grade teacher. She'd have to be fairly old and well-established as a teacher, or have multiple graduate-level credentials in multiple subjects (in which case she wouldn't be teaching 6th grade).

That would be out-of-band, especially considering what you claim to be extremely subpart performance on her part.

Indeed, it sounds like you're making this up to try and claim that teachers are overpaid and underworked. They're not, and it's especially rich coming from someone who is clearly an overpaid, underworked tech employee with enough free time this afternoon to devote all of it to commenting in this thread instead of doing valuable work.

A guy above me sent a link where you can find the salaries. A long term teacher in her 30s, with masters, a few extra credentials, yada yada, will make $90k.

> IMO a teacher being paid $90k a year for 7 hours a day of work, > 10 months a year, should be working hard to improve.

I don't disagree that she should work to improve, but you are using $90K as if it were a lot of money. According to census data [1], the median household income in San Ramon is $173,519/year and the median rent is $2,557/month.

In San Ramon, you can get paid $65,000/year as an assistant manager at Starbucks without getting a 4 year degree plus teaching credentials.

Plus, how is she earning so much? The San Ramon teacher salary schedule is public: [2]

[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanramoncitycal...

[2] https://www.srvusd.net/documents/Employment/Employment-Resou...

Did you just show me a chart where over 1/3 of the numbers are around or above $90k, and then ask me how she could be earning that number?

Yes, but that 1/3rd is all high school teachers with multiple certifications or teachers who have 20+ years of teaching experience.

Based on what you've said about your soon-to-be-ex girlfriend, she isn't either of those things.

> I have never seen her take work home once in 2 years. So don't say the hours are long.

What does she teach? One of my best friends is a foreign language teacher that leaves home for work around 6AM and is never back home until around 7-8PM. Partially because they have to coach for sporting events because the paycheck for just teaching is ridiculously low; less than $50k/yr last I asked. Fairly middle class area in a suburb of Chicago, by the way.

But yes, if what you've said is halfway accurate, it sounds like her and her coworkers are fairly underqualified and/or under-driven.

She's at a public school, and she's a 6th grade teacher. I can't say any more because it's already an almost doxable situation.

That sucks your hard working teacher is only making $50k. They should move to the San Ramon area and sit around teaching the kids of middle management of SV.

Teachers don't seem to get trained on behaviors the way you'd might expect. It always surprises me how school psychs seem to have kids teachers think are intractable improving in thirty minutes just to have it wasted the second they're back in the regular classroom with someone who actively self-sabotages.

That said, school folks I know value credentials and authority toooons so recommending books without being "certified" somehow and having it eye rolled doesn't shock me.

This is a weird comment. Did you really think most schools widely police cell phone usage in the year 2023?

I am well aware that they don't police it.

What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly?

Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.

Smartphones. I like to think they snuck in as a communication device more so than pocket computer. As in, kids and parents wanted to stay connected for emergencies but the software grossly exceeded text or phone call capabilities. I had a Nokia 9930 to reach my folks and rarely used it outside of making calls.

I know what you mean, but I'd love to hear what kind of emergency communication a child needs to make to an adult, or adult to child. (That isn't accomplished the exact same way via the school staff)

I suspect part of it is overall societal changes pertaining to phone usage.

When I was an elementary school student, I carried a few coins in the event that I had to call someone on a payphone. (Which happened very rarely.)

But today, we have no payphones. Well, almost none.

So what else could you do, with no payphone? Perhaps you could find someone else who had a phone that they could let you borrow. In years past, it wouldn't have been that uncommon to walk into a store or other place of business, or walk into your school office, and politely ask if you could use the phone. They might let you, or they might not, but it was a reasonable request.

I imagine today that it would come across a lot more suspicious. Why don't you have your own phone?

Both infrastructure and ways of thinking have shifted toward assuming that all individual people who might need to make a phone call have their own personal mobile phone.

Children being assumed to have their own phone is probably more of a grey area, but even so, things have changed, and there may be no going back.

The kid can own the phone. In silent. In the backpack. Never to be seen on school grounds.

And if they need to make a call, they go to the admin building, and explain why, and use the office phone.

That's the way it used to work - communication goes through the administration. If my parents schedule changed they could call and leave a message with the office for me. If I had an emergency the admin could call them. It's certainly simpler with cell phones though.

Cool. Kids aren't paying attention most of their school day, but at least it's simpler to teach them.

I can think of half a dozen times that I personally needed to use a cellphone to contact a family member about something that was absolutely none of administrations business. I wouldnt want some judgmental old woman knowing about private health or emotional problems. This stance that the administration is responsible, respectful or helpful enough to field private communication through is ridiculous. The other side of that stance is that students deserve no privacy and any personal matters are within the rights of the administration to regulate. Either side of that stance seems ridiculous

The concept of 24/7 availability is ridiculous in it's own right. I don't buy the idea that they need them for "emergencies".

Smart phones are constant dopamine dispensers. They create a dependency and cause human brains to go into withdrawal when not present. Once the science is laid bare I believe they will become severely curtailed in K-12 environments.

So which is it? That highschoolers dont deserve to have private communication or that or that we can trust school administrators to handle private communication? Its got to be one or the other, or some other reasoning that I have yet to see?

Probably because teachers lost moral authority to police cell phones since they themselves likely use their phone during down time in class.

I think part of the answer was in your post- most students allowed the policy to continue. They used the Walkman out of sight without open defiance and unreasonable use. Once enough students tip over to "I'm going to use it and I don't care", the school can't do anything about it.

> Once enough students tip over to "I'm going to use it and I don't care", the school can't do anything about it.

The school can totally do something about that, they just have to be willing to confront the student and enforce the rules.

I don't know your background, but this definitely reads like someone who either isn't, or doesn't have a family member or friend as faculty in a public high school. You enforce the rule, and confiscate the device. You have an irate parent now emailing you constantly, coming in and demanding that their child be able to have their several hundred dollar smartphone back, to which they will hand it back to their child, give them a weak "don't do that again" at best, and likely forget the incident ever happened.

A school can't have rules if they're that afraid of one parent complaining. They're too weak.

What if the student beats other kids up, and the parent behaves similarly in response to discipline? Should the school tolerate that defiance, too?

The school obviously can't take the phone and throw it in a shredder or keep it for the year, but they can and should be able to keep it for the school day (and every other school day, if need be).

>What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop.

Where do you even start? For a kid raised on phones, asking them to stop using their phone feels like asking them to cut off their hand. I imagine that most schools do have anti-phone policies, but there's a point where it's just too hard to enforce. Like other people have also mentioned, parents often pressure their kids to have phones in high school. As someone who went to high school after smartphones became popular, my mom would get upset when I want to school (or anywhere) without a phone on me. That means that teachers have to deal with a student body that's completely unwilling to follow the rules and parents that will back them up if you ever try. I certainly wouldn't bother enforcing a phone ban if I was a teacher.

> feels like asking them to cut off their hand

It seems like this would be good reason to ban phones in school. I worry about the detrimental effects of not being able to concentrate. You could at least enforce school as a place to focus. If a student is using their phone during class, then they are not paying attention. It seems worthwhile to enforce this rather than give up on the kids.

In Northern Virginia schools, late '90s, cell-phones and pagers were banned[1] (not even allowed on campus) because they were perceived as tools for accomplishing drug-deals. I think that perception has definitely changed. We also had a half-dozen pay-phones in the school lobby for students to make calls if needed.

1: IIRC automatic suspension on first offense. Note, however, with most of the "zero tolerance" policies that were in place at the time, the offenses were significantly under-reported by the faculty.

They're far worse than a distraction, they enable everything from new forms of bullying to viewing of gore and porn.

Then there's the issue of kids having a high-value gadget that's easily damaged and at risk of theft in schools that never managed to solve old-fashioned bullying let alone whatever the kids get up to on social media these days.

If kids, or, anyone under-18 really, really needs a phone make calls, something like the original Nokia 3110 would be much more suitable than any smartphone.

I think they swung quickly because maybe aside from some families using them for communication in case of an emergency, the phones just became more of a liability to take away from a student. I haven’t been in classrooms recently, but I can imagine for high schoolers, taking away their phone == taking away their wallet.

I’ve never bought the “we need them for emergencies” argument.

Are there _that many_ emergencies happening that the school office is unable to field calls from parents who need to reach their child right now?

I don’t see the “it’s like their wallet” argument either. That the phone is expensive and it contains personal information doesn’t mean it’s not disruptive to the classroom.

What if the collected wallet/phone gets lost or stolen? That becomes the school's problem.

You don’t need to collect that which should be left at home or in the locker between periods.

You’re picturing emergencies at home. They’re picturing an emergency at school.

Neither are common though?

Emergencies generally aren’t, but emergency preparedness can still be worthwhile.

Ok, but yes, I suppose that does suggest that, for personal emergencies, the office won’t be too overloaded with personal emergencies to deal with all of them.

How often would the latency of getting to the office matter? I’m not sure.

> How often would the latency of getting to the office matter?

If the latency of getting to the office matters, the teacher is already using the intercom to tell the office to phone in paramedics, and get the school nurse in to the classroom immediately.

I can't imagine any vaguely-plausible situation where calling parents (rather than the cops and/or paramedics) is the correct thing to do IMMEDIATELY and first. (SOP is for parents to tell the school about their kid's medical issues so that if they happen during the school day, their schoolday guardians will not be caught unawares... so "calling the parents to ask them what the shit is wrong with their kid" when the kid is in the middle of some serious medical issue isn't even vaguely plausible to me.)

A walkman costs like what, $20? A cell phone is hundreds. Do you, as a teacher really want thousands and thousands of dollars of students' electronics stashed in your drawer?

Phone lockers. My kid puts his phone in before class and gets them out with each class.

because cellphones became ubiquitous and admins never felt empowered to strictly limit them in schools

>> What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly?

>> Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.

> because cellphones became ubiquitous and admins never felt empowered to strictly limit them in schools

You're missing the point.

But there was a time when they weren't ubiquitous and admins did feel empowered to strictly limit similar distracting devices. It's anachronistic thinking to cite the present-day situation as a reason for a past change, when the conditions in the past were different.

This is purely hypothetical, but I could see a process for the change where teachers and admins were ignorant of texting, so allowed phones under the mistaken belief that they would not disrupt class, because students would only use them to make voice calls to parents outside of class (because it would be far easier and cheaper for students to talk to each other in person). Then a new status quo was established. Then the school's awareness of the harms came like a frog boiling in a bot: a little bit a time, and too slowly to motivate action until it was too late.

I remember I could send texts (including selecting the contact) in my pocket without looking at the screen of my Nokia 3310 in high school. So I think the boiling pot analogy holds. Things were already pretty advanced by the time smartphones came along.

And the importance of cell phones to everyone’s lives (even children and teenagers) has massively increased since then. For schools to blanket ban them on campus or on the person of students in class would be swimming against a strong tide indeed. My guess is that the reason they don’t is that they believe that to do so would be constant war. And they aren’t paid enough for that.

Honestly I generally agree with you. I dont even want my kid to have a phone but now that I have a child I am worried about them being able to call me if there is some kind of: - natural disaster - school shooting - third type of personal issue where the school doesn't share what happened

Growing up I do not remember my parents having these fears despite there being a bomb scare (once during my schooling).

80s/90s kid here..

I remember my car breaking down and needing to walk to a rest area, to use a pay phone to call for help.

That and using pay phones generally as a convenience when I would bike miles into town, well that isn’t really available anymore.

I’ve had to knock on a door to ask a stranger to use their phone.

I’ve had to ask a store to use their phone.

A lot of this seems so strange now, like I cannot picture myself needing to rely on strangers and stores!

I read this as your peace of mind being more important than maintaining a schooling environment conducive to education. We need to protect kids, not expect our kids to protect us, which is what expecting them to be able to contact you during school is, protecting you from anxiety. This seems incredibly selfish, but not out of line for a society so incredibly narcissistic as that of American Millenials.

LMAO

Thank you riverflows. I needed that.

1. Unintentional injuries account for 30% of all deaths of teenagers

2. Within that, suicide and homicide are the top two causes

3. Pretty sure its biological not narcissism that makes me want to make sure my progeny are safe esp when in a space that continually seems to be failing children and coming up with such mindbending solutions as more guns in schools

They should but many do not. The students do not need to be on their phones during school hours. They are there to learn.

Is that such an odd thought? I know about this, but can easily imagine others being unaware of it. It seems like a reasonable thing to expect

Of course. Because they obviously need to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com