School Cell Phone Ban Leads to Gadget Storage Trucks

[Canadish]

Metal Detectors in Schools.....? Dear fucking Christ.

Land of the free eh?

 

[Keoul]

OT: Does the storage truck also have the words "FREE CANDY" written on the side?

These day's kids would be more lured in by a truck with FREE WIFI written on the side

But seriously are these kids stupid? They need a phone for social interactions with their friends... Don't they have friends in the school to talk to?
The world makes less and less sense. At what point did they think leaving their phones with a stranger in a van asking for a dollar was far more secure than in their homes?
I'm beginning to think kids only know how to swear and talk with their thumbs :L

 

[Smertnik]

So maybe I'm not understanding this correctly. Kids are waking up, getting ready for school, taking their cell phones on the bus to school. Then they get to school, after what, maybe 10-20 minutes at the most? Take their phone to the storage truck pay a dollar, then go into the school for 6-8 hours. Then when school is over they pick up their phones then get on the bus to go home/work/friends house?

Seriously. WTF? Is the 10 minutes having the phone worth the money to make someone else hold it for so long with the potential for theft or invasion of privacy? Please tell me I'm missing something here. Kids these days...

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. What's the point?
But then again, if there're so many kids bringing guns to school to warrant a metal detector then you probably can't apply common sense in this case.

 

[jakelly14]

I find it weird that people are surprised about metal detectors in schools, for a lot of inner city schools thats normal, and not just I the US, over here in the UK/Europe as well. its mainly for knives...i mean in london you can get four years in prison for carrying a knife with deadly intent ( if its not you're first offence and all that) and even that doesn't work...last time i checked gangs were using biros to stab people in the eye....most of them aren't even 20 yet (both the attackers and victims).....

 

[soren7550]

That's sort of...sad, really. I mean sheesh, when a teacher caught someone texting in class they just took it away for a week or so and that's that. But friggin' metal detector? What kind of police state nonsense is that?

Well their purpose in these kinds of areas is to detect things like weapons and other potentially dangerous items but now I guess they're just including cell phones as well.

Schools don't want kids using phones in school. Metal detector detects metal. Weapons and phones have metal. School takes away things they don't want in their school.

And adding more light on the metal detector thing. It's not 'police state nonsense'. It's an effort to prevent kids from killing one another. And not every school has them! The only ones that do are either in high crime rate areas, or the school is known for having such violent crimes occur. Can you imagine the shitstorm the whole Board of Ed. would go through if they didn't have one in these schools and some kids got injured or killed?

One of the schools I used to live by has metal detectors. They were installed because that school was very crime ridden. They used to advise students to travel in groups to avoid getting jumped and to not use the bathroom because the would get raped. These such crimes have gone down, but burglary is still a problem. The school I went to (which is a few blocks from a detention center and across the river from Manhattan) didn't have metal detectors because crime in the area/students trying to kill one another wasn't a problem. Were phones a problem? Of course. Did they do anything about them? Not really, since their reason was that they'd be spending far more time taking away cell phones than doing their job.

And anyway, if some kid is determined enough to bring whatever it is they want into a school, chances are, they're going to get it in anyway, preventative measures be damned.

So maybe I'm not understanding this correctly. Kids are waking up, getting ready for school, taking their cell phones on the bus to school. Then they get to school, after what, maybe 10-20 minutes at the most? Take their phone to the storage truck pay a dollar, then go into the school for 6-8 hours. Then when school is over they pick up their phones then get on the bus to go home/work/friends house?

Seriously. WTF? Is the 10 minutes having the phone worth the money to make someone else hold it for so long with the potential for theft or invasion of privacy? Please tell me I'm missing something here. Kids these days...

Many kids attending NYC school have a travel time of much longer than that. Several people I knew had a two hour travel time, and that's if the MTA (which nearly every student that went to my school depended on to get there, and for most NYC schools it's largely the same) was running OK, which more often than not, wasn't. I could usually get to school in 30-40 minutes, but it wasn't rare that it would take more than an hour. Hell, sometimes the MTA wouldn't even bring me halfway to where I needed to go.

There's also the fact that they're using their phones to cheat, entertain themselves, and communicate with friends/family outside of class.

 

[Scars Unseen]

There's no way I'd go to a school these without a phone for emergencies. Not just in case I get in a car wreck, but because of the health problems my parents have been having. If something happens to them, why should I not be told just because a bunch of techno-brats won't put their own phones down for a few hours?

I guess what I'm saying is... I can understand the school wants the students to focus, but there may be a few rare cases where they need to be in contact in case something happens at home. Why not confiscate phones from those who abuse having them, and put them on a list to have the phones put in storage before they go to class?

No. There is nothing that is going to happen to your parents that is going to going to critically worsen because someone had to call your school office and have them pull you out of class instead of calling you directly. You do not need a phone on your person at all times. You may not like to leave your phone behind, but make no mistake: it is a luxury, not a necessity.

 

[Something Amyss]

You know, Grey, I think you just found the most disturbing use for Bluetooth ever. Activating your rectally smuggled phone.

And here's boring old me hardly ever using my cellphone anyway. Aren't most of the people you would want to talk to at the school with you anyway?

Depends on whether or not your sexting that 30 year old dude you met on Myspace, I guess.

Creepiness aside, I imagine texting and browsing the web, tweeting, etc. are bigger problems than actually calling people.

 

[imperialus]

Speaking as a teacher, cell phones have never really been the problem I assumed they would be. Since the beginning of the year I can probably count the number of phones I confiscated on one hand. Even then, I'm supposed to take them down to the office and the student is supposed to sign them out at the end of the day, but I just fire them in my desk drawer until the end of class, give them back to the student and threaten to smack him/her upside the head if they do it again. Hell, I can confiscate a phone without even pausing in my lecture.

Hell, my kids who have smartphones will use them in class, for class work. If I can have them doing research on them without having to book the computer lab and herd them all down to the library it makes my day that much simpler.

 

[etherlance]

Kids these days, eh? When I was a boy, not only did I not have a cell phone, I had to walk to school every day. Uphill. Through lava.

Just through lava?

Oh walk it off you pussy, when I was a kid we walked to school through a mine field with bear traps clamped to our feet while atack dogs chased us down and devoured the slowest kids in the groups while the teachers placed bets on which of us were the fastest.......And then they beat us if we lost.

 

[redisforever]

Kids these days, eh? When I was a boy, not only did I not have a cell phone, I had to walk to school every day. Uphill. Through lava.

That's it?! Lava?! Ha! I had to march 30 miles to school, naked, on fire, in the snow, uphill, and when I got there, the teachers would make us go all the way back down, backwards! [/complaining old man]

On topic then, damn that's a really good business strategy. Here's another one, open a private school that is advertised as allowing kids to keep their phones. Or something like that. I think banning phones is too much though, I mean in my school, phones are allowed, in the halls, not in class.

 

[V8 Ninja]

I'm unsure whether to feel sad for humanity or envious at those geniuses.

 

[Lionsfan]

Wow....I mean I love my cellphone and all. But if you can't be without it for 6 hours a day, then something is seriously wrong. I didn't even get a cellphone until my senior year of high school, so just be thankful

 

[Baresark]

Damn, when I was in school, cell phones were rare, and people still got in trouble for using them on the rare occasion someone did. This does prove one very important point to society though. Punishment is not a deterrent for breaking the rules. Clearly they tried punishing kids and it didn't work at all, so they banned them. Now, if only this lesson could be established for law making bodies we can get society back on track.

 

[Jodah]

There's no way I'd go to a school these without a phone for emergencies. Not just in case I get in a car wreck, but because of the health problems my parents have been having. If something happens to them, why should I not be told just because a bunch of techno-brats won't put their own phones down for a few hours?

I guess what I'm saying is... I can understand the school wants the students to focus, but there may be a few rare cases where they need to be in contact in case something happens at home. Why not confiscate phones from those who abuse having them, and put them on a list to have the phones put in storage before they go to class?

No. There is nothing that is going to happen to your parents that is going to going to critically worsen because someone had to call your school office and have them pull you out of class instead of calling you directly. You do not need a phone on your person at all times. You may not like to leave your phone behind, but make no mistake: it is a luxury, not a necessity.

Actually there are times that it is important. I was an emergency contact for my grandmother when she was in the hospital. They had my cell phone number, not the school number. It's easy to say your parents can call the school if they need you but a hospital or emergency room doesn't have the time to go through 2 or 3 different phone numbers to figure out where you are followed by waiting for you to get to a phone. That can take 10, 15, even 30 minutes. In an emergency situation that is a lot of time.

 

[RobDaBank]

If anybody at school is the only trained paramedic in the region then fair dues, you need your phone for emergencies. If a relative falls ill or has an accident, they would call the emergency services, just because it takes you 10 minutes extra toget the news doesn't mean you can't make a difference.

Kids have too many distractions in school, which is why they will probably never succeed...

 

[Zen Toombs]

-snip-

Excellent article as ever [user]Grey Carter[/user]! Much appreciations. ^_^

Spoiler: However, a small nitpick:

I imagine there's some risks inherent in filling a small truck with thousands of dollars worth of electronics and parking it outside of a school without a high enough incidence of gun crime to warrant a metal detector.

I think you meant with instead of without.

Kids these days, eh? When I was a boy, not only did I not have a cell phone, I had to walk to school every day. Uphill. Through lava.

Just through lava?

-feh worthy discription-

Feh. I've done worse.

 

[lacktheknack]

Kids these days, eh? When I was a boy, not only did I not have a cell phone, I had to walk to school every day. Uphill. Through lava.

None of that modern day sluggish lava as well, this were proper Pompei stuff. If you still had eyebrows by the time you got to school, they'd send you back home. In your pants and vest.

Pants? What luxury! Back in my day we didn't have pants yet. You were lucky if you had a burlap sack. Most of us just had a loincloth made of leaves and bark.

Hey at least You all had schools to go to. We had to go out soon after midnight to build the damned shack first, and i tell You, it's not easy to build wooden structures on uphill flowing lava while it's snowing...

<youtube=Xe1a1wHxTyo>

OT: Uhm, why not just leave it home? They still aren't getting it into school.

 

[lacktheknack]

Even if they take away your phone or your gun you can still slap your dick into some bitches ass and she can cry rape and then you can snap her neck and put her flesh into the school lunches and photocopy your ass and stick it into the take home parents interview letters.

A. Wat?

B. How is that relevant?

 

[Scars Unseen]

There's no way I'd go to a school these without a phone for emergencies. Not just in case I get in a car wreck, but because of the health problems my parents have been having. If something happens to them, why should I not be told just because a bunch of techno-brats won't put their own phones down for a few hours?

I guess what I'm saying is... I can understand the school wants the students to focus, but there may be a few rare cases where they need to be in contact in case something happens at home. Why not confiscate phones from those who abuse having them, and put them on a list to have the phones put in storage before they go to class?

No. There is nothing that is going to happen to your parents that is going to going to critically worsen because someone had to call your school office and have them pull you out of class instead of calling you directly. You do not need a phone on your person at all times. You may not like to leave your phone behind, but make no mistake: it is a luxury, not a necessity.

Actually there are times that it is important. I was an emergency contact for my grandmother when she was in the hospital. They had my cell phone number, not the school number. It's easy to say your parents can call the school if they need you but a hospital or emergency room doesn't have the time to go through 2 or 3 different phone numbers to figure out where you are followed by waiting for you to get to a phone. That can take 10, 15, even 30 minutes. In an emergency situation that is a lot of time.

1) Minors really shouldn't be emergency contacts since in most places you can't legally make decisions for the other party in an emergency.

2) Given number 1, whether it takes 10, 15 or 30 minutes would be irrelevant since you would be unable to make any meaningful contribution to the resolution of an emergency.

Quite frankly, imperialus's suggestion that smartphones can be a positive addition to the classroom environment carries a lot more weight than any excuses I'm hearing as to why you just absolutely NEED a phone. Adults managed without portable phones for quite some time(and yes, people had emergencies back then too). I can't see why a minor can't do so for 8 hours.