Tenured prof with a totally serious question: Why do students feel the need to bring their phones to class? Why not leave them in the dorm room or car? They know I’m going to chastise them severely for having a phone out, and yet they bring it anyway. They don’t even stow it in a backpack—just let it sit on the table in front of them, tempting them into behavior they know can only lead to trouble. Why do they do this? It’s baffling to me.
Boomer here with a question for you kids
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This is 2019. People bring their phones everywhere. Where is yours during class?
At home in a drawer. Perhaps my bafflement is not due to my advanced age, but instead from being one of the few people not addicted to a phone. But still, if addiction mandates bringing the phone, why place it on the desk instead of a purse or backpack? They know I’m going to throw them out the second they pick it up; why tempt yourself?
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So you spent x years in graduate school and x years earning tenure just so you can play phone cop to a bunch of teenagers?
This is 2019. People bring their phones everywhere. Where is yours during class?
At home in a drawer. Perhaps my bafflement is not due to my advanced age, but instead from being one of the few people not addicted to a phone. But still, if addiction mandates bringing the phone, why place it on the desk instead of a purse or backpack? They know I�m going to throw them out the second they pick it up; why tempt yourself? -
So you spent x years in graduate school and x years earning tenure just so you can play phone cop to a bunch of teenagers?
Yeah, it's ridiculous, I agree. I've tried all kinds of things to deal with it but nothing works. I actually don't care if they tune out during lectures, but I need them to be present and mindful for discussions or it doesn't work. I also need them to keep the phones stowed during tests to comply with our college honor code, and they can't even do that. It's a rare semester that I don't send at least one student to Honor Court.
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State clearly in your syllabus that phones are not permitted in the classroom. The first day of class tell everybody this policy. Kick the first person out of the room that uses their phone to demonstrate you are serious. The problem will be taken care of.
Believe me, I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work with the students I get.
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Can't tell if this is a troll or not... Are boomers really that out of touch??
Apparently so. I don’t understand why you need to carry your phone to class, and even worse—leave it out on the desk instead of stowing it. Is there an explanation? So far I’ve only gotten “everyone does it” and “you’re out of touch”. You’d think sociologists could do better than that when it comes to explaining human behavior.
My hypothesis is that being hopelessly addicted to your phone has become normalized. You got anything better?
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State clearly in your syllabus that phones are not permitted in the classroom. The first day of class tell everybody this policy. Kick the first person out of the room that uses their phone to demonstrate you are serious. The problem will be taken care of.
Believe me, I�ve tried that. It doesn�t work with the students I get.How does it not work? Make it crystal that if they do it again they will be unenrolled from the course. I don't understand why professors don't make use of the academic environment clause in their syllabus. As long as you're not being a d!ck to your students and actually provide a course that is engaging and otherwise interesting you will still get excellent evaluations in spite of this policy. You just have to make it the hill you're willing to die on.
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When there's an active shooter at your school, you'll be thanking the universe that students ignored your admonition and carried their phone, and put it where they could see if there was something they needed to see.
I'm a boomer. I used to tell people to keep phones off. Then I took some time to think about it and realized that though any tool will be abused by some (i.e., the person doodling with a pencil and ignoring your wisdom), 1)some people have to be available 24/7 for possible family reasons and 2)if there is an active shooter our only source of info might be cellphones. Until we secure the door to the room, turned on and visible cellphones are our friend.
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When there's an active shooter at your school, you'll be thanking the universe that students ignored your admonition and carried their phone, and put it where they could see if there was something they needed to see.
I'm a boomer. I used to tell people to keep phones off. Then I took some time to think about it and realized that though any tool will be abused by some (i.e., the person doodling with a pencil and ignoring your wisdom), 1)some people have to be available 24/7 for possible family reasons and 2)if there is an active shooter our only source of info might be cellphones. Until we secure the door to the room, turned on and visible cellphones are our friend.You're basing your classroom policy around potential events that are not only unlikely but astronomically improbable. I'm not making a statement either way on whether phones should be allowed in classrooms (this is a matter of the educator's teaching style and preference), but making that determination on basis of such extremely rare phenomena is irrational. It would be analogous to another professor arguing that phones should not be allowed in classrooms because sometimes phones malfunction and explode and therefore are a safety hazard dangerous for everyone in the room. Gun violence is a very serious problem in the United States, but the vast majority of gun homicides are not mass shootings, and the majority of mass shootings are not random or targeting spaces like schools. Are you equally concerned about being struck by lightning or an asteroid?
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When there's an active shooter at your school, you'll be thanking the universe that students ignored your admonition and carried their phone, and put it where they could see if there was something they needed to see.
I'm a boomer. I used to tell people to keep phones off. Then I took some time to think about it and realized that though any tool will be abused by some (i.e., the person doodling with a pencil and ignoring your wisdom), 1)some people have to be available 24/7 for possible family reasons and 2)if there is an active shooter our only source of info might be cellphones. Until we secure the door to the room, turned on and visible cellphones are our friend.
You're basing your classroom policy around potential events that are not only unlikely but astronomically improbable. I'm not making a statement either way on whether phones should be allowed in classrooms (this is a matter of the educator's teaching style and preference), but making that determination on basis of such extremely rare phenomena is irrational. It would be analogous to another professor arguing that phones should not be allowed in classrooms because sometimes phones malfunction and explode and therefore are a safety hazard dangerous for everyone in the room. Gun violence is a very serious problem in the United States, but the vast majority of gun homicides are not mass shootings, and the majority of mass shootings are not random or targeting spaces like schools. Are you equally concerned about being struck by lightning or an asteroid?Thank you for your condescending dismisiveness.
Schools in:
Rational calculations consider four "global" factors:
1)Probability of an event
2)Gain/Loss if the event were to occur
3)Ability to do something about the event's probability or associated loss.
4)Cost of doing #3In the case of an active shooter, I cannot affect 1. I can affect 2 (because 3 is true). The cost of letting people have their phones is zero. There is no equally convenient, low cost way for ME to avoid asteroids. The equally low cost ways to avoid lightening strikes are well-known and widely practiced (e.g., don't stand in an empty field during a thunderstorm). There is no equally low cost way for ME to avoid exploding phones--we will not have metal detectors at the door to the classroom, and that would be the only way to assure students do not have phones. Turned off phones also explode. And so on.
The relevant calculations compare:
Loss0 = Prob(Active Shooter)*Prob(We lack info==>are ambushed==>Die)
vs
Loss1 = Prob(Active Shooter)*Prob(We have info==>are NOT ambushed==>Die)If Loss1 < Loss0, then keep the phones on. (As you can see, the probability of "active shooter" ends up dropping out of the analysis BECAUSE the cost of keeping the phones on is zero (and, in fact, getting the phones turned off is probably >0, as the OPs note already suggests). Thus, our chance of DYING is lower if we keep the phones on. Thus, keeping the phones on is rational--as is avoiding standing out in an empty field during a thunderstorm, no matter how many uninformed patronizers claim it is irrational to stay out of the empty field in the storm.
Here endeth the lesson.
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We have had multiple mass shooter threats in the years that I have been at my institution. One was a stupid joke and the other was a costly cyberterrorist attack. Shootings are a common U.S. problem and it is tone deaf and dismissive to lecture people on how unlikely they are.