Dear Anti-Cell Phone Teacher,
Okay. The truth. We don’t hate phones. We have them too. What we don’t like is competing with phones or all the games that come with them, and I’m not talking about Candy Crush.
I’m talking about the great “Sneak Attack.” Do they really think we are that dumb? Listen, if you smile at your hands under your desk for no apparent reason, you have bigger problems than a cell phone addiction. Also, we know it does not take seven minutes to find a pencil in your backpack. Last but not least, when you go to the bathroom, please leave your cell phone in your backpack or on your desk.
“What? You don’t need to go anymore?” “It’s a urinary miracle.” “Fine.” “Pout.”
I became a teacher when Nokia was still the hot commodity, which means nobody brought one to class. Who could hide a monstrosity like that? Then, I taught when the mere visibility of a phone was grounds for suspension. Kids will always find a way to break the rules, but it didn’t happen often because they hated the punishment of the required parental pick up of the device. Then school shootings became a thing, and now if you even look in the immediate direction of a kid’s phone or God forbid ask him to place it on your desk, get ready to have your teaching license revoked.
I have fought and fought this battle just like you have, but ultimately, I have lost the war. The loss stings not because it is a blow to my pride, but rather because I know I am now engaged in a competition. If I want to get kids’ attention or help them learn, I now have to be shinier, flashier, more engaging than the IPhone 57. Heck, I have to be a neon- 1,000 watt flashing billboard for them to even turn an eye my way.
But not all learning is fun. In fact, a good portion of deep learning is slow, methodical, frustrating, and sometimes downright boring. And when it is, there is always a flashy object sitting within arm’s reach tempting an under developed brain to “pick me…pick me.”
And often, they do, and that frightens me because I want young people to be armed with weapons to combat boredom. I want them to know how to fight through frustration with a difficult concept and become a victor. But above all, I want them to be shielded with armor that protects them from being dehumanized. I want them to feel the warmth of a human hug, to taste the sweetness of a summer rain as it pelts down on steaming asphalt, to see the delight of an actual book growing smaller as they near the conclusion while quietly begging it not to end. I want them to hear the satisfying sound of real human hands clapping because they stole second or took a bow when the curtain closes on a performance they will trace over in their minds as grown adults.
Like most educators, I could go on for days regarding the topic of cell phones, but by and large, I do not hate them. In a world that shut down in a very eerie fashion almost a year ago to date, I can tell you I was never more grateful for a cell phone. I could order a pizza, Zoom with friends, and show family live videos of my newborn nephew, but I also can’t help but think if cell phones were enough, why did we even need to come back to school?
Last year, I spent eight months of the year fighting kids tooth and nail to stay off their phones and be present/in the moment with us at school. Then I spent all of April and May talking to kids behind the very screens I had fought them over for the better part of the year. During pandemic, they had their phones 24/7 and yet, behind every message was a desperate cry to come back to school, to be fully present, to engage, to see people, to laugh, to learn. Yes, I am grateful for technology. I am, but it isn’t the same as an authentic learning or living experience. It simply isn’t.
But why is it that we never truly realize what we love most until it is stripped from us?
-CDB
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