Yeah, i dont know, sounds like you have classroom experience so you probably have the edge here I just think we'd get better results treating kids how we wanna be treated I dont have an answer for general apathy or a will to disengage from learning, i just know how i treat my kids seems to work
I agree with your approach in theory, it just doesn't work in a group context. Like, you can't let every kid on a field trip see exactly what they want, because letting them all wander off would be bad, and there's also usually a desired learning outcome everyone in the group should achieve.
Thats fair Probably alot of my stance is because of comparing my autonomy as a child to my own kids now Uniforms, shittier funding, now no phones Just seems like another blanket unfair restrictive thing I get distraction being a problem though I want my kids to have a better life than i have
With phones, the problem is that anytime a student is disengaged at all, they're sorely tempted to look at their phone. Disengagement is just a natural part of group learning, students can't keep 100% focus at all times and the teacher can't personally focus on all of them at once.
It just feels like a slippery slope to me
To me, it just feels like schools banning a new distraction. I grew up right in the middle of the transition to smartphones, and there were plenty of 'mean' teachers who'd have personal policies of confiscating yours if you had it out. Looking back, those teachers did some of the best jobs.
I think at some point it starts to feel like overreach/subjugation And the psychological effect of that deepening in kids from such an early age scares me for the future Teachers dont have the support they need to remove kids who are distractive More emphasis on personal responsibility/consequences
But with phones, that dynamic suddenly becomes amplified. The instant a student looks at their phone, they're no longer just disengaged, their focus has completely shifted to something else. They aren't even vaguely aware of what the teacher is doing anymore, so they don't re-engage naturally.