There's No Going Back

Can you really put the genie back in the bottle? The French National Assembly voted recently to ban cell phones and tablets in schools for all students 15 and under. This Guardian article points out that approximately 90% of students age 12-17 have a device in France. Yet Macron's government celebrates the idea that:

 "banning phones in schools means all children now have a legal “right to disconnect” from digital pressures during their school day."

Oh please.  What about the legal right to connect? This is just stupid. It's stupid because it doesn't help kids learn to manage devices in appropriate ways. It's stupid because we are in the midst of what some call the 4th Industrial Revolution and we are cutting kids off from the very tools that are driving this revolution.

Will it really be possible to ban technology that is even more integrated with the person? Who knows what we'll have in 2030. The tech may far outpace what we see in the video below. How long will we insist that students use only 19th century tech- the pen, paper and blackboard?

I'm reminded that it's a hard time to be a teacher. For my teachers back in the 80's, information was scarce and they were the repositories of information. Finding information required some thinking. Navigating a library's card catalog, microfiche, and stacks took some skill. Now we can just ask Google. And finding answers is easy. I know schools that kept antiquated laptops solely because they were incapable of connecting to the internet and kids couldn't cheat when typing their exams. I know it's pithy and easy to say that we should give Google-proof exams. But I'll say it anyway. Our tests should be open note and open internet. Let kids make their own meaning and play the role of expert. It's now easy to find facts. Let's stop pretending it isn't.

Look,  I know that students are distracted by tech. I know that they don't engage with each other in the the ways they used to. My classroom used to be abuzz in the morning before homeroom started with chattering kids. Now they are all on their phones. Something important and good has been lost. I do have kids put devices away upon entering homeroom, but when I do that they don't know what to do with themselves.

I know that students (and adults) who spend a lot of time on social media are more likely to be depressed. I know that technology is indeed a disruptor that threatens long established patterns.

Yet, banning phones, tablets, and connected devices teaches French students very little about how to manage technology and to use it effectively in their lives. British Luddites of the early 19th century thought that smashing machines would stop the Industrial Revolution. That's so silly in hindsight. We look back at these Luddites as noble, naive and yes, silly. This decision in France will look much the same.