To serve or distract?
With the majority of students owning smartphones, schools and teachers are left to wrestle with how to regulate their use
It’s 1 p.m. at a private high school in Santa Fe, and nearly 10 of the 24 students are fiddling with their phones under their desks during a fourthperiod class lecture.
Meanwhile, at a charter high school on the south side of town, no such phones are in sight, as the school’s administrators continue to enforce a ban that was implemented some 20 months ago.
The two contrasting situations speak to a continuing debate brewing in schools, the boardroom and even at home: Do cellphones help or hurt the educational process?
According to a 2017 Huffington Post article, more than 70 percent of teenagers owned smartphones that year, an increase from 37 percent in 2012. As smartphones have worked their way into the pockets of most teenagers, inevitably, they have worked their way into the classroom. A study published in the Journal of Media of Education said that students, on average, check their phones and other digital devices in class at least 11 times a day. So how exactly is this affecting their learning?
Derek Buschman, a teacher at Santa Fe High School, sees cellphones as an obstacle in the learning process. “For some students, cellphones are an addiction, as well as a constant source of distraction,” he said. “For these students, the constant use of cellphones diminishes attention spans and creates a need for instant gratification. This makes it difficult for students to concentrate and makes them adverse to putting in the effort to understand a concept or solve a problem. For these students, if understanding isn’t immediate and easy, there is a greater tendency to give up.”
Other educators see cellphones as an easy way to cheat. “I never allow phones to be out during tests [because] I’m sure that [cheating] can be a huge problem,” said Daisy Barnard, a teacher at the Santa Fe Waldorf School. The possibility that a cellphone can hold all of your test answers and provide easy access to them can be difficult to bypass.
Beyond that, experts and educators say, students who put too much time into looking at their devices during class or while doing homework often have to spend more time studying the material on their own in order to pass the class. “My peers aren’t on their phones a lot,” said Santa Fe High School sophomore Kendall Moffet. “But there are a select few in each class … that pay attention to their phone more than the teacher.”
Teachers in Santa Fe have their own views on cellphones, and many teachers enforce policies within their classrooms that regulate their use. “My policy is that I don’t want to see cellphones out during class unless and until all work has been completed to my satisfaction,” Buschman said. “I provide a ‘Phone Zone’ just outside the door to my classroom where students may use their phones [to contact parents if needed].” If he catches students on their phones without his permission, the price they pay is high, he said: “The consequence is an automatic failing grade for their weekly class participation.”
Some schools in Santa Fe and New Mexico also have policies that either limit cellphone use or ban it entirely. Monte del Sol Charter School in Santa Fe cracked down on student smartphone use last school year by banning all cellphones. Head Learner Robert Jessen said teachers and parents have supported the plan.
“We are trying to establish an atmosphere that allows students to focus and be free of distraction, not just in the classroom, but between classes and during lunch,” he said. “Social media rarely, if ever, helps a student to focus and concentrate.”
Embracing the use of cellphones in the school, he said, “is the same as saying we should allow students to watch their favorite TV shows while the teacher is trying to implement a focused lesson plan.”
Monte del Sol students who violate the ban once have their phones taken away for a month. The second violation leads to the phone being taken away for the remainder of the school year. “Parents have thanked us for the month of cellphone-free home life at the end of the 30 days,” Jessen said.
Los Alamos High School Principal Carter Payne said that district’s policy, put in place in 2010, is, “Cellphones shouldn’t be seen or heard in the classroom unless a student has explicit permission to have it out.”
On the other hand, there are times, advocates argue, when cellphones can be a very useful tool for learning, and many teachers embrace them as a way to integrate technology within their teaching. For example, the online trivia game Kahoot has become a very popular tool for students that teachers use to teach a certain subject or to study what they have been taught.
“There are times when a smartphone comes in handy,” Barnard said. “One would be taking pictures of the blackboard. For students with visual processing difficulties, it can be very cumbersome to transfer information from the chalkboard to their notes. Taking a picture with a phone obviates that difficulty.”
And in times of crisis, everyone wants a cellphone handy, as evidenced by the recent school shooting in Florida, during which students texted family members to let them know they were safe and to stay informed as to where the shooter was located.
Some teens agree that cellphones in the classroom can be a problem. “I feel a cellphone could be very distracting if a teacher doesn’t care enough to enforce rules,” said Faye Heneghan, a sophomore at Santa Fe Prep. But, she added, “I believe that the cellphone is a positive learning resource because of all the information that is at one’s fingertips.”
Most teens believe the effectiveness of smartphones as a learning tool and as a form of communication probably outweigh the distraction or potential for mischief that they might cause.
“Phones can definitely distract and disrupt learning, but my education would not be more beneficial if I lived in an era without them,” Moffett said. “Technology has advanced communication so much, and communication is such an important part of my learning ability. I wouldn’t want to be without that.”