Dan Abel wrote:
> In article >,
> (Steve Pope) wrote:
>
>
>>Dave Smith > wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What cell phone opponents? I don't remember anyone here being
>>>categorically opposed to cell phones.
>>
>>Cellphone opposition is more prominent in the U.K., where activists
>>routinely topple cellphone masts.
>
>
>
> Not a very nice thing to do. The masts cause no trouble, it's
> irresponsible *users* of cellphones that cause the trouble. Cellphones
> are very useful devices. My family has five, not counting the second
> one that my daughter carries. We don't "chat" on the phone. We don't
> talk at the restaurant (although we may answer long enough to say that
> we'll call after eating), and I don't talk and drive.
>
> Some time back (before text messaging), some school board member decided
> to make a rule that students couldn't have cell phones at school.
> Certainly, using a cell phone during class is very disruptive. Typical
> of schools, they just banned them entirely. One day there was a natural
> disaster, and power and phone service died at the school. The kids and
> their parents were naturally panicked, since they all knew something was
> wrong but they couldn't communicate. Well, some of the kids had snuck
> cell phones in, and so the parents and kids could assure each other that
> everything was OK and it was just a local thing. At the next school
> board meeting, the rule was amended so that students couldn't use cell
> phones during class, but could bring them.
>
> My nephew, age 15, has a cell phone and takes it to school, despite the
> fact that they aren't allowed. He says that the teachers pay no
> attention to the rule as long as it is used during free time.
I substitute teach in our local school district. Use and/or display of
"electronic devices" is prohibited district wide although enforcement
varies from school to school. I personally have no objections to the
use of IPODs and the like assuming I'm not actually testing, lecturing
or explaining assignments at the time.
In my experience, when an assignment for in-class work has been given,
allowing the use of MP3 players cuts the noise level in the room by
about 85%. The players, splitters and headphones come out and the kids
arrange themselves in various congenial configurations, casually
juggling computing power and memory that dwarf the machines used to
guide the first rockets to the moon.
I'm well aware of the presence of cell phones, including my own. My
only stipulation is that they be turned to silent mode. During a recent
middle school assignment I took part in a lock-down drill. In the case
of an armed intruder in the building we were to lock the door to the
classroom from the inside and slide a piece of paper under the door to
the hallway. Green if everything was hunky-dory, red if the bad guy was
in there with us.
Only they didn't give me the key to the room. So the secretary in the
office tells me, via the intercom, "Have the kids hide along the wall
next to the door so the bad guy can't see you through the hallway window".
The classroom para and I looked at each other and I told him, "If this
was the real thing and we had no way to lock this room you and the two
biggest boys would be out that window over there and I'd be dropping the
kids down to you, and me right behind them."