HayU Blog

I love reading and talking about school bans on smartphones. Deliciously controversial and inevitably messy, this issue isn’t going anywhere.

My latest learning moment arrived in a school gymnasium, at a back-to-school parent night I’ll never forget.

Our school’s cell phone ban had already been announced in writing and tech restrictions were rolling out in quietly aggressive stages reminiscent of a cold war (humans versus machines, of course). 

In some grade levels, the phones were going into Yondr bags for quality time-outs. If said phones were discovered in use at all during the school day, we would be asked to come pick them up (the phones, not the children).

“Does anyone have any questions?” one of my favorite school administrators asked us.

Pin-dropping silence from the crowd.  

In frozen moments like this, I typically turn to study the faces of others. Perhaps it’s wrong to steal a quick, furtive look, but this time I couldn’t resist. 

Taking the crowd’s vitals this time, however, yielded nothing. Perhaps we were experiencing a collective cognitive and emotional flatline of sorts.

I considered standing up to clap, imagining other parents joining me until a great, cinematic slow clap wave of parental gratitude filled the gym with a standing ovation. Thank you for saving our children! We owe you our sanity!

I didn’t stand. I didn’t even make a sound, trapped in that deafening community silence, increasingly fascinated by what it all might mean.

In the wake of the climatically anticlimactic school announcement, I tapped the shoulders of many parents, students, teachers, and administrators for unsolicited feedback. 

What was the vibe on campus? Might there be wind of an underground student resistance? Were the phones themselves plotting anything concerning?

Meanwhile, the school has been getting an unprecedented number of social media views about their publicized decision to be bold.

Here’s what we now know about schools and smartphones:

Teachers all agree the dreaded phones are interfering massively with learning during school. I’m talking about serious, exponential interference with learning losses galore to prove it. 

No one disputes something significant has to be done. We just don’t agree on the How. We can watch it play out differently in the Not All That United States.

Parents do agree across state lines that their children’s phones, and by extension their children themselves, are nearly impossible to regulate when those devilish devices are in their hot little hands.

And what of the students? Are they acutely miserable, trembling and feverish from an enforced tech comedown?

Not so much, it turns out.  

I recently infiltrated a sleeper cell of student truth tellers who admitted the following to me in sacred anonymity–wildly unpopular opinions they’ll hotly deny if questioned again:

1. Many don’t really care that their phones aren’t accessible during school.
2. While they invariably miss their beloved screens at times like lunch, the relief is very real.
3. They dread managing their phones and the impossible burden they impart the rest of the day and night.

Remember: you didn’t hear any of this from me. Our phones are listening and who knows what unsolicited ads will come for us otherwise.

The tech war rages on, and the unexpected Battle of Schools vs. Smartphones has just begun. I believe our schools can and will ultimately win, but not without our support.  

So don’t forget to clap, at least on the inside, when the ban comes to your school next.

~Matthew Hayutin, M.Ed.

Founder & Partner at Hayutin