Do Cell Phones Belong in the Classroom?

Mobile devices are ubiquitous in American high schools, and their use is harder to regulate than old-fashioned note passing. But here’s why teachers should be paying closer attention.

By Robert Earl

If you were to drop in on most any American high school these days, what would you see? Cell phones. Lots of them. Virtually all students have one, and it’s typical to see them tapping away or listening to music through their ear buds -- not just in the hallways during the five minutes between classes, but also in the classroom, at every opportunity the teacher gives them.

In some cases, schools have actually embraced cell phones and incorporated them into their teaching. The educational benefits of cell phones have been argued as follows by various education writers:

- They give students a chance to collaborate with each other, or connect with peers in other countries. (Marc Prensky)

- They can be used for high-tech alternatives to boring classroom lectures, letting kids take part in interactive assignments like classroom polls. (Kevin Thomas)

- They can serve as notepads or as an alarm for setting study reminders. (Lisa Nielsen)

- They can be recording devices, letting students record impressions during field trips and create audio podcasts and blog posts. (Liz Kolb)

However, none of these supposed advantages can overcome one very basic disadvantage: Cell phones distract students from schoolwork and class activities.

So what’s the solution? Do teachers simply need to crack down harder, to impose harsher penalties against extracurricular texting and Internet surfing? Or are the cell phones themselves a symptom of a larger problem?

The incessant cell phone use going on in our classrooms must serve as a challenge, forcing us to remember what education is really about. The teacher’s goal must be to instill an insatiable desire to learn. Because both inside and outside the classroom, there’s so much to do and so little time.

(Adapted from: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/do-cell-phones-belong-in-theclassroom/ 257325)