Danihan

And the curriculum is determined by the government, correct?

And the intent of banning smartphones is to force all students to pay more attention to that curriculum, correct?

And yet, filling my head up with over a decade of information from a public school education was essentially useless to me.

Studying programming on my own (not offered in my schools) was vastly more important.

These are government schools, are they not? Paid for by tax dollars?

You could use the same logic to ban all sorts of things for adults. And many governments do, to everyone's detriment. Alcohol prohibition says hello.

It's exactly this type of generalized authoritarian philosophy that keeps the War on Drugs going strong.

Welp, you asked for my opinion. My opinion is that if you literally can't think of a valid use for the entire internet in a classroom setting, then you aren't trying very hard. It's tantamount to having a library at your fingertips.

* How about using an app to record the lecture, so a student can verify their notes later?

* How about taking a picture of the notes on the board, when they can't copy things down quickly enough?

* How about checking up on a sick relative using SMS, so they aren't feeling anxious about it all class?

I'm not even trying really -- there are dozens of valid use-cases that respect the preset curriculum. Let alone all of the uses that fall outside of respecting it, if and when the curriculum is too facile for the student.

Couldn't I have been learning programming during the time my high school English class was tackling "A Catcher in the Rye" one chapter per week, after I read the entire book within the first few hours we had it? Apparently not, because cell phones aren't allowed, and they can only used for Candy Crush.

>My question is how many kids are actually going to do that?

Not very many, and that's why most people will justify smartphones being taken away from all students. Which will primarily hurt the ones who were using them for more interesting purposes. Typical crab bucket mentality.

>And what justifies them to be the judge of whether what the teacher is discussing is relevant to them or not, given they are 10 years old.

I never said anything about whether the lessons were relevant, nor were ages brought up.

Do you think instead of teaching English we should be banning books, because some students read trashy novellas in class and distract themselves?

I get your point, but space exploration and robots everywhere aren't the only types of "wildly different" futures. People just have latched onto those two things as facile benchmarks.

Because you could have the answer to nearly any question at your fingertips, and yet it's arbitrarily taken away?

How is it not a punishment?

Completely agree. I also think, "disingenuous" since it's the most obvious fake answer, and also "uncreative" since they couldn't come up with anything better.

I always just say I'm impatient. Which is true and interviewers never seem to mind it.

I'm not sure why all students should be punished just because because some cannot use a new tool well.

Socialism at its worst, in my opinion. The irresponsible drag down those with more potential.

You're an example of not orienting your perspective properly.. ;)

The internet, a global communications network that everyone carries with them in their pocket on a mini touchscreen PC, is fucking incredible.

Even prisoners who go away for 10-15 years have been blown away by the advancements in cell phone technology and adoption when they get out.

Could you name a few of these that you're referring to? I'd love to read more.