Ball Caps and Cell Phones
I know I am old school having taught in many educational settings for almost 45 years. I have seen many changes and watched various systems evolve and devolve over time in the myriad of phases that come and go in and out of popularity. Open Concepts schooling was once all the rage and the answer to pedagogical prayers until the walls and barriers started going back up and collectively we realized that maybe it was not such a good idea after all. Report card evaluation based on summative marks to one decimal places, or formative anecdotal comments in lieu of marks as a basis for evaluation. I’ve seen it go both ways and back again.
Special education with special classes, versus student removal to a special ed room, or integration of all abilities within one classroom where one teacher does all. Merit in each approach. It has gone both ways. Now it is more differentiated instruction within the classroom because for one thing it is truly cost effective, but as an over all teaching strategy difficult for a new teacher to accomplish. there are always cut offs between the alternatives. Educational instruction, never perfect, ever changing.
My point is that styles of instruction are always in flux. Some change is good if the educational systems collectively and individually move forward. Certainly technology has changed so significantly in a short span of time. Almost comically I can remember the days when the overhead projector was new technology and was hoped to radically change the delivery system of information to students and the very nature of how teachers instructed. Comparatively, in the age of computers and pads we have come a great distance. Now some students are just as smart as they can google and overhead projectors are obsolete. Are students learning more or less?
While working in Jinhua, China as a principal in an English school using the Ontario curriculum we did have impressive computer labs. This was a school for wealthy Chinese and the status symbol then as now was to own a smart phone. I did not allow students to have their cell phones in class, especially no where near an exam room. In one conspiracy of communication 28 of our students were caught cheating using cell phones during a major exam.
I literally stood guard at the gate and announced both prior to, and while as students entered the exam room that no cell phones were allowed. If caught they would fail the exam and there were no exceptions. I would literally say, “Please check the phones with me as you enter if you have not left them in your room.”
I know as a teacher the battle over student cell phones rages on and in some quarters it has been lost and students text onward. To me it is a distraction, although I have seen classes where the cell phone, as a computer, can be integrated into class work. That if done systematically can be effective and also cost effective in that the school is no longer providing costly computer labs.
Recently, we hosted a German exchange student in our home. She attended a high school in Waterloo. After her first week I was disturbed to hear her stories of the classroom. She mentioned how during the middle of a class students were allowed to leave the classroom, go to the cafeteria and bring food back to the class and eat during class time. She told me this with incredulity, expressing how this would never be allowed in a German classroom, or at least not one in Potsdam. Texting and the use of cell phones in the classroom was also permitted. During class discussion there are those students who google, stream and text. I’m not sure how I could teach in a coherent fashion if even a portion of my students were other wise distracted by food, drink and electronics. To me where is the rigour, the structure necessary for learning in such a relaxed atmosphere.
Our German student did say she thought it was cool. She also thought it was unacceptable, that from the mouth of a grade nine girl from Germany who values her education.
It is not an easy battle, but one that as educators we gradually get worn down by and give into the constant erosion by students, and often parents. Perhaps the bigger right is one to a better education. Perhaps this is natural change, just like allowing boys to wear ball caps in class, or either gender to wear clothing of any sort once considered inappropriate.
It is a new generation I think a pivotal difference between the generations is the role of the parent. They have gone from the point of view that the teacher is always right (which is also wrong) to student entitlement. We have bridged that distance in a very short time. Students are often cocky about their rights and parents too enabling.
I came from a system in which the strap was still administered. I got it twice in elementary school for throwing snowballs after the bell rang outside of the snowball zone. It was a frightening and painful experience which I remember in every vivid detail. I’m glad we have shifted that paradigm, but as educational systems drift between phases of what is acceptable and what is not, and what is progressive and what is just counter productive I hope the pendulum stops where students learn at an optimum level, in a liberal classroom, based on trust, respect and open analytical discussion.
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