Good morning, Netizens...

The decision has apparently already been made by Spokane schools to ban most cell phone use by students, with the exceptions of before and after school and their lunch breaks. Normally I would not raise an eyebrow, simply because we send our students to school to learn, not make phone calls or text messages to their friends and family. I am aghast at public education has changed since the days long ago when I went to school.

Predictably enough, this decision has not been welcomed with open arms, either by the students or, in some cases, the parents themselves.

The penalties for students ignoring or breaking this rule are what I would expect: the school will seize the cell phones, surrendering it only to the parents. Now there might be a novel way to get parents involved in their children's education. Seizure of noodkum's cell phone for breaking the rules means the parents have to show up at the school to pick up the student's cell phones. At least once.

Of course this probably will not do anything functional to increase the amount of time students spend learning in school. They will either study hard and learn or not.

Does anyone want to speculate on how students grade scores relate to whether or not they routinely carry a cell phone to school? In the country where we have more studies on how (or why) hippopotamuses mate in the dark, surely someone has performed a study of students and their cell phone use. Do straight-A honor students carry cell phones to school?

Somehow I seriously doubt it.

Dave

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