Big Debate on Whether Dutch Kids Should Have Cellphones in Class

Why would anyone think it is a good idea for kids to have cellphones in class?

I can’t even understand the concept.

RT:

A majority of teachers in the Netherlands’ General Education Union (AOb) support banning mobile phones from the classroom, a recent poll conducted by the organization has revealed.

While more than half of primary and trade school teachers – 54% and 57%, respectively – supported keeping phones out of classrooms, 73% of secondary school teachers voted in favor of a government-imposed ban, AOb found.

“It’s an obvious result,” Jelmer Evers, AOb’s official for secondary education, said in a press release last week. “Our members are saying the mobile phones are having a detrimental effect on pupils’ ability to concentrate. And that, in turn, affects the effectiveness of the teaching.”

Another 21% of the 8,400 teachers surveyed said they wanted schools to make their own decisions on phone use, while 6% volunteered to decide for themselves what students could bring into class.

Younger teachers – who were more likely to have grown up with cell phones themselves – were slightly more likely than their older counterparts to vote in favor of keeping the devices out of the classroom, with 69% of AOb members under the age of 31 approving of the ban compared to 62% of those older than 51.

While the vast majority of teachers agreed that smartphones could be severely distracting in a classroom setting, some stopped short of supporting a ban because phones can be used in schoolwork and are sometimes needed to access school networks.

This is really one of those “how is it even possible that we are having this conversation” situations.

But we have a lot of those situations now.

Most situations, in fact, fit into this category.

It really just makes you wish everyone was dead.