France To Trial Ban on Mobile Phones At School For Children Under 15 (theguardian.com) 81
France is to trial a ban on mobile phones at school for pupils up to the age of 15, seeking to give children a "digital pause" that, if judged successful, could be rolled out nationwide from January. From a report: Just under 200 secondary schools will take place in the experiment that will require youngsters to hand over phones on arrival at reception. It takes the prohibition on the devices further than a 2018 law that banned pupils at primary and secondary schools from using their phones on the premises but allowed them to keep possession of them.
Announcing the trial on Tuesday, the acting education minister, Nicole Belloubet, said the aim was to give youngsters a "digital pause." If the trial proves successful, the ban would be introduced in all schools from January, Belloubet said.
A commission set up by the president, Emmanuel Macron, expressed concern that the overexposure of children to screens was having a detrimental effect on their health and development. A 140-page report published in March concluded there was "a very clear consensus on the direct and indirect negative effects of digital devices on sleep, on being sedentary, a lack of physical activity and the risk of being overweight and even obese ... as well as on sight."
A commission set up by the president, Emmanuel Macron, expressed concern that the overexposure of children to screens was having a detrimental effect on their health and development. A 140-page report published in March concluded there was "a very clear consensus on the direct and indirect negative effects of digital devices on sleep, on being sedentary, a lack of physical activity and the risk of being overweight and even obese ... as well as on sight."
Re: "France to trial ban on" (surprise!) "everythi (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to mention for completeness... incidents moved to outside the school, but at least kids do not have to worry about camera's etc on the school grounds. Cheers
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Freedom of school choice here, so if you do not like that, you can go to a different school.
That is a problem though. My wife is a teacher and her school specifically chose not to implement the ban, not because they thought it was a bad idea or because they doubted it would have a great outcome on students, but because of freedom of school choice - they were worried about students influencing their parents to pick a school which didn't ban the cell phones which is a problem for the fancy school. The data from the schools which did enact bans showed that students were annoyed enough to try and go
The opposite of North Carolina. (Score:1)
But I digress - after all, there were fine people on both sides of that conflict, eh?
The French - the folk I've been taught will surrender at the drop of a hat - they're bothering to take decisive action on a perceived problem. Not the sort of thing I would expect from a cowardly folk - more like what I'd expect of the French who fought in their revolution against monarchy. Those guys were totally Billy Badass!
Modern French - near as I can tell, they're just like us, except they (being smaller) can actu
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> Modern French - near as I can tell, they're just like us, except they (being smaller) can actually govern with something like common sense.
Well, we have no prime minister since the last parliament election in June (which the President voluntarily triggered), and the President still refuses to designate as prime minister people from the leading party from that election. I don't think we can use "govern" and "common sense" together at this time.
Re: "France to trial ban on" (surprise!) "everythi (Score:2)
Ah hey at least we didn't forbid kinder eggs for ages like the "land of the free".
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Ah hey at least we didn't forbid kinder eggs for ages like the "land of the free".
Believe me, we were doing the Kinder company a huge favor with that ban. Candy with something non-food in the middle would've just been a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
Even now, they're still not unbanned, Kinder just redesigned the candies for the US market so there's no way you could accidentally eat the included toy.
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Haven't been around kids, have you? Kids have swallowed quarters [wlos.com].
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Usually when they refer to a kid swallowing something they're not supposed to as an accident, the accidental part was the lack of parental supervision. Some kids do have a tendency to put non-food objects in their mouths - on purpose. With the redesigned Kinder eggs, if you know you're going to be giving the candy to a kid that intends to wolf down everything, you can just give them the candy portion and discard the toy.
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Candy with something non-food in the middle would've just been a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
The non-food thing in the middle is purposefully sized that it can't be accidentally swallowed and is soft enough not to damage you when you bite into it. America isn't the only sue-happy nation in the world, but it is the only one who banned these.
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Why does the rest of the world not have this problem?
A Kinder egg is a cheap plastic egg with a coating of chocolate on the outside. Nobody is swallowing a whole one.
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In the US it's half a chocolate egg filled with a creamy frosting substance. The top half is a plastic shell with a toy inside. They're not really banned, they just deliver the toy slightly differently due to a long-standing regulation against encasing non-edible items in food. There are like a million consumer goods with slightly different designs in different countries due to differing regulations and consumer protection laws, but for some bizarre reason, everyone gets super hung up on this one instance.
Good (Score:2)
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That's simply not achievable at this time. I'm married to a long-time educator and have watched things change over the past 30 years, pretty much up close. After being emboldened by their parent's unconditional support for a couple of decades, students are at the top of the food chain. You cannot enforce a ban like this in a U.S. school because you're not even allowed to grab a phone out of their hand without touching the students. Students understand the power of the masses very clearly. If everyone i
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
I wish they'd do this here in the US
They have in some places. [nytimes.com] Thing is, they've been a bit more draconian with the age range here in the USA, often extending the ban all the way up to graduation. Furthermore, some of the bans even include what is ostensibly free time, such as during lunch and periods between classes.
Students certainly shouldn't have their phones out in class, because that's really not any different than any other distraction previous generations weren't allowed while in class (my generation had Gameboys, my parents had comic books). But when a school says you can't have a phone at all because we don't trust you to use it responsibly even on your own time, that's just raising kids to bow down to authoritarianism.
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The article is scant on "how" they actually do it, and I mean the physicality of it. How do you take a phone from a student who's unwilling to give it to you? It took $300,000 and a police officer to enforce it at one school. [aspenpublicradio.org] Do we really have resources like that to throw at a problem like this? Most schools have a police officer assigned to the school and that's probably the only person who's allowed to force a kid to turn a phone over.
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Students certainly shouldn't have their phones out in class, because that's really not any different than any other distraction previous generations weren't allowed while in class (my generation had Gameboys, my parents had comic books). But when a school says you can't have a phone at all because we don't trust you to use it responsibly even on your own time, that's just raising kids to bow down to authoritarianism.
It has been proven that children cannot be trusted with cell phones in school: They had them for years, and abused the privilege. So the privilege is being revoked.
Laws and rules would not be needed if people were better at behaving themselves. That is reality, not authoritarianism.
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raising kids to bow down to authoritarianism
We don't let students wear hats in school, but taking away their phones is suddenly authoritarianism?!?
Like some CA's schools, but... (Score:2)
https://www.ocregister.com/202... [ocregister.com]
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during lunch and periods between classes
Learning should occur during lunch, too. Such as, how do I live and get along with people that are different than me? How do I navigate conflict? How do I find commonalities with others? And what foods are healthy and how can I make better food choices?
My son tells me at his middle school that 75% of the kids immediately pull out their phones at lunch and spend the whole lunch time watching memes, TikToks, YouTube videos of brain rot, scrolling Instagram, etc. That's not a learning experience - it's tech c
Nobody doesn't not like Cellul-Lee (Score:2)
GRANDPARENTS: Phones in schools! That's crazy!
PARENTS: Look, it's just a way to keep in touch in an emergency.
[Later...]
PARENTS: Yeah, looks like phones in schools are crazy.
KIDS: But we love them! YOU'RE RUINING OUR LIVES!
[Later still...]
KIDS: Oh, no, wait, now are lives are ACTUALLY ruined. Ugh, yeah, please, somebody take these away from us. This whole idea was crazy.
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Re:Nobody doesn't not like Cellul-Lee (Score:4)
PARENTS: Look, it's just a way to keep in touch in an emergency.
Here's your flip-phone, kid. Explain why you need more than basic text and voice to "stay in touch".
Re: Nobody doesn't not like Cellul-Lee (Score:4, Insightful)
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a bunch of gun-armed uneducated angry Rednecks playing Cops
At Uvalde, a teacher called her husband. Who is a US Border Patrol tactical officer. He and some other border patrol officers (off duty) went to the school and they were the ones to eventually kill Ramos.
Not everyone with a gun is an uneducated redneck moron.
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It's not to call the kid during school. It's so the kid can get in touch with you when they are out and about after school. Payphones are non-existent now. I can't send my kid with a dime in her sock like my parents did with me. Phones should be off and in a locker/car or kept with the teacher during school hours.
Camera phones have been a godsend (Score:1)
As a nerd being able to whip out my phone and start recording would have changed quite a bit and I wasn't even bullied that badly.
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They almost never think about the underdogs, the marginalized, and the oppressed when they force these sort of rules upon teens. In their minds, none of the students are chatting with out-of-state peers online because everyone their real-life classmates are all inbred cretins. And here in red states like Florida, I think policymakers are downright giddy over the prospect of putting LGBTQ+ youth "back in their place." Can't have them on their phones and feeling like they're equals because the internet say
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As a nerd being able to whip out my phone and have it taken and thrown on the roof would have changed quite a bit and I wasn't even bullied that badly.
ftfy
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My flip phone has a camera and can make videos.
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For anyone facing any sort of oppression. It's amazing how well behaved racists and assholes in general become when they know they can be filmed at a moment's notice.
Yeah because we all know the middle of a classroom is a vulnerable place where one-on-one racism runs rampant without any form of witness or any adult guardian right? /s
As a nerd being able to whip out my phone and start recording would have changed quite a bit and I wasn't even bullied that badly.
No you wouldn't have recorded shit. You didn't even bother to report it or have anything done about it so you wouldn't have used your phone to save you either. Your actions have spoken more than any words ever can.
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Location services, maps. Electronic bus/subway pass. Allowance delivered through Apple pay since many places don't take cash any more.
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You're in school, kid. You haven't figured out where that is yet?
As flink mentioned in this comment [slashdot.org], location services and maps are for what transpires between the dismissal bell and when the child or teen arrives at home.
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PARENTS: Look, it's just a way to keep in touch in an emergency.
Dear Parents, then why did you get your kids $200 Iphones instead of $50 basic Talk and Text phones?
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Dear Parents, then why did you get your kids $200 Iphones instead of $50 basic Talk and Text phones?
Because it's actually a lot easier to set up parental controls on an iPhone than on some no-name flip phone POS. Also, there's really not many dumbphones available for sale these days anyway. All of the major cell networks in the US have shut down their 3G networks, so bargain-bin Chinese phones just won't even connect anymore.
I was looking at a flip phone that Metro sells just out of curiosity over why they'd even sell something so archaic in 2024, and it turns out it's really just running a neutered ver
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Yup, also, you can put money on their Apple pay so they don't need to keep track of prepaid visa card or whatever. And some metros have NFC bus/subway passes you can get. And it's nice for them to have access to GPS/maps if they get lost or whatever. 100% agree that using it during school hours should be forbidden though. I keep my daughter's locked down so she must ask to install new apps, and no social media allowed.
back in the 90's the only kids with phones where d (Score:2)
back in the 90's the only kids with phones where drug dealers
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back in the 90's the only kids with phones where drug dealers
Must've been a generational thing. When my younger brother went to school, the drug dealers all had beepers.
When I went to school, none of this stuff was anywhere close enough to being within the budget of teenagers, and I didn't hang with the "cool kids", so I just assumed drug dealers were a myth like bigfoot and the loch ness monster.
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Same, I had a pager in '93 or whatever. Even then it was ludicrously cheap, something like $5/mo. I didn't get a phone until '97 when I had a real job through the college co-op program.
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Back in the 90's every corner had a payphone and most even accepted incoming calls, so you could get at your girl or dealer through their pager, even if you didn't have a phone. Or call your parents, if that was your thing.
Since it is no longer the 90's and payphones a mostly a historical curiosity, kids have phones now, technology and society moves on.
Second phone (Score:2)
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Make the legal guardian personally come pick up any phone confiscated during school hours, that will end right quick.
Re: Second phone (Score:2)
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They will just buy a cheap phone to hand over.
Whatever prompted the first confiscation will work again. You think teachers aren't smart enough to figure out that the $50 flip phone (the type that kids wouldn't be caught dead using) is a throw-away?
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They will just buy a cheap phone to hand over.
No they won't. It would make no sense to have a burner - you're getting detention one way or the other when you're caught with a phone, regardless if it's your primary or your burner.
France isn't the first country to propose this. There are several countries in Europe who have already made these bans.
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Anyhow, even if some pupils can get away with it, the vast majority won't & it sends a clear, unequivocal message to everyone that phones in scho
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If banning stuff works, why don't they just ban using them doing the school day?
Oh. That's right. Banning stuff doesn't work
Can you give an example that might help clarify what you mean by "doesn't work"?
If you mean to say banning stuff "doesn't accomplish 100% compliance with the ban" then no shit, we don't even have 100% compliance with our ban on murder.
If you mean to say banning stuff "doesn't even accomplish a minor reduction in the thing which is banned" then here's a simple counter-example: we started banning cigarette smoking in most restaurants, I'd say the reduction in that behavior has been more than just "minor".
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I mean that anyone intent on bypassing it probably will.
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I mean that anyone intent on bypassing it probably will.
The few French folks I've met don't tend to be rabble rousers, despite Americans insisting that the French are rude and obnoxious. They can be, but uh, well, we Americans should probably hold up a mirror when discussing other people being rude. At any rate, French folks mostly seem to be fine following non-abusive rules. And I don't think their children are so spoiled that they'll think a few hours without their cellphone inside a controlled area will be considered abusive.
Just don't tell the kids they'll r
Re: If banning works... (Score:2)
Maybe those "rude" French people are the ones that don't speak much English and feel uncomfortable trying to, or they're fed-up with anglophones making no effort to speak their language? There can be lots of reasons, but I've found most French people helpful and nice.
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Maybe those "rude" French people are the ones that don't speak much English and feel uncomfortable trying to, or they're fed-up with anglophones making no effort to speak their language? There can be lots of reasons, but I've found most French people helpful and nice.
I will say that some French folks have ZERO patience for English speakers that insist if they just yell English louder native French speakers should be able to understand them. Show even a *TINY* shred of trying to speak French, and those same folks will get extremely friendly with you. Like with most people, try to show you are attempting to learn their methods, and they're good. Try to act like a blundering idiot, loudly, and not so much.
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Banning stuff doesn't work
But it does inspire creativity and ingenuity!
Already widespread in The Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)
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Happens here in The Netherlands as well. Lots of (maybe all?) lower and middle schools in The Netherlands will now be free of mobile phones, starting this school year.
All lower and middle schools will have phones banned starting ... well this week or next week depending when kids go back. But highschools have already had phones banned since the start of the year. It's been a huge success.
Why do they have phones in school? (Score:2)
How did adults of the world come to the conclusion that it was a good idea to let kids have a device that allows video game playing, tv watching, "note passing", etc...while they were in school?
The "what if someone needs to get ahold of someone" excuse is bullshit. If the kid needs to get ahold of a parent....they can go to the school office, and they can call them. If a parent needs to get ahold of a kid....they can call the office.
If there's an in-school emergency (shooter, or whatever)....being able to
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Parents had no way to contact me when I was in school, other than calling the school.
So, uh, why should things be any different now?
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We did it that way in the past, and we got you. So maybe we need something different!
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It's not for during school, and it's not (mostly) for calling your kid. It's so your kid can call you after school for a ride to check in or whatever.
Stupid (Score:2)
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Let's not teach kids how to use these wonderful supercomputers we all carry around to enhance their education or their knowledge.
You think kids need to be taught how to use the smartphones they all have with them? ... Have you ever seen a kid ... like ever?
not force kids to learn like we're still in the 1800s
Only personal cell phones are banned. Students at my wife's school are still forced to bring in their Macbooks. Banning a device that has fuck all to do with school or learning doesn't mean you're in the 1800s. Get a grip man.
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Well, yeah (Score:2)
Heck, even if they were only phones, it would make sense.
It's not like they would have let us wander the school playing with walkie talkies ...
In America, how lo (Score:2)
Re: In America, how lo (Score:2)
Eh? If we cared about the harm done to children we would have regulated firearms and ammo. But we don't care. So we will put tablets in the hands of toddlers. Let tweens bring smartphones to school. And let starbucks sell extra large sizes of coffee flavored sugar milk to students during lunch hours. Because anything else is communism!
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Particularly in America, how long is it going to be before someone holds a school liable for bad things that happen because of this?
How long before someone holds a parent and another student liable for when bad things happen because some moron was talking on the phone while everyone else was hiding.
Your lame scenario is lame. You don't need a phone to tell your mum there's a school shooting in progress, the entire world already knows before they've even flipped it out and politicians are already sending thoughts and prayers while the shooting is ongoing.
No one is having anything taken from them.
Go click the side button on your iPhone 5 times fast to see what I mean.
We all know there's no way anyone can cont
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