Phones were banned in my highschool (~10 years ago). You didn't "give up" your phone, you just couldn't take it out. Taking your phone out during class usually resulted in having it put on the teachers desk until the end of class so it wasn't a major punishment but also you couldn't sit there scrolling facebook all day.

Not sure why HN acts like this kind of rule is impossible when its already extremely common in schools.

The whole problem is that phones are disruptive by nature, but teachers having to police students (and it’s more than one, on many days) and it’s a huge chunk and disruption to instruction time.

10 years ago you were messaging/posting; now it’s all video streams with hidden wireless headphones.

I feel like taking a phone until the end of school year might have impact, that used to be a policy when I was kid, but granted kids weren’t walking around with $1000 doodads so different economics.

The 30% who say it’s not a problem just assume the kids on their phones are a lost cause and just write them off.

Guess it depends on how unruly the school is. It never seemed that disruptive for teachers to police from my perspective, but no one argued with it. It wasn’t the end of the world to lose your phone for an hour. Phones have been banned in private schools in Australia for ages, and just recently the government put the same rules in for public schools. So it’s not exactly a radical idea to ban them today.

The problem is people's perceptions have changed markedly.

20+ years ago, you had a cell phone, maybe, for messages during the day, and that's it. Outside of some simple phone games, most had no internet access, and you weren't constantly in a group chat with people in class discussing how boring it was or something else, so how often it took your focus even if you were subverting the rules was much more limited.

Now, I have my phone in my pocket all the time, and a reputation of being difficult to reach because I often have it on silent to not interrupt my life, when apps randomly find new excuses to pop up notifications midday that have no urgency to them, and businesses expect you to not be bothered if they text you at a random time.

But most people are just on them, all the time, child and adult, so applying a new rule to that will prove challenging, because the group perception is that's unreasonable to do, and people will fight back hard on it, both for that reason and because it's an addictive serotonin drip in your pocket that a lot of people have no practice with delaying the gratification of, any more.

(e: This isn't to say we shouldn't do it, to be clear, but that's why, I think, it will be a hard sell, and because people don't immediately see the value of it, they will probably keep doing things like burner phones, and at least in the US, I think explicit cell phone jamming on your campus is a violation of rules, so limiting how much people can get away with having a secret phone for midday online access is also tricky.)

A lot of the students are not thrilled about having to go to school in the first place, and having to do homework, and having to sit in math classes, and having to do tons of stuff.

When did schools start making decisions based on what the students love?

I mean, the fundamental idea behind a school, where fundamental rights of students are taken away (their speech is heavily curtailed, their freedom of movement is heavily curtailed, etc.) is that kids under a certain age do not have the maturity and knowledge to make many decisions and that’s what the schools exist to provide them with.

I don't doubt that many are disappointed yet the displeasure of teenagers should not be a deciding factor in any important policy decisions. They are young and it is the adults job to help ensure that they are in the best environment possible for the current well being and future development. Often the children will not like this but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

I personally feel we, as in western society, have put too much emphasis on how they feel and not enough on doing the hard things that are best for them. We have seriously failed our children I fear.