L&T Publisher Earl Watt
If cell phones were around when I went to school, chances are I would not have the opportunities I have had thanks to receiving a quality education.
Mrs. Sprague confiscated my Frogger watch in seventh grade English, and that was advanced for the day. We had distractive devices. They just weren’t allowed.
There was a reason.
I wasn’t attending school to develop relationships with educators or for hugs and butterflies.
I was there to work.
As were generations before me.
Some believe whenever someone talks about the way education used to be is someone who is anti-technology or unable to adapt to the new way of doing things.
That’s simply not true. It takes a person with a little know how to look at a process that met expectations and a process that isn’t and realize change is needed.
Allowing cell phones in the classrooms has not improved education.
According to a study by the National Governor’s Association directed by Angela Duckworth, Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor of psychology in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton School, and a team of leading economists, cell phones have been a detriment to education and to classroom behavior.
“So far two patterns stand out: The stricter the policy, the happier the teacher and the less likely students are to be using their phones when they aren’t supposed to,” Duckworth said. “For example, ‘bell-to-bell’ (also called ‘away for the day’) policies are linked to more focused classrooms. We’re also finding that focus on academics is higher in schools that do not permit students to keep their phones nearby, including in their backpacks or back pockets. Our team looks forward to diving deeper and, in longitudinal analyses, establishing how changes in policies over time predict changes in outcomes like attendance and academic performance.”
If cell phones are so detrimental to classroom behavior, teacher happiness and academic performance, why haven’t they been removed just like my Frogger watch was removed in 1984?
Why is it that the Mississippi Miracle, which saw dramatic improvement on lower income and at-risk students by focusing on reading and setting a threshold for academic success before being allowed to advance past the third grade, the model for the entire nation?
Academic success has waned dramatically since the inclusion of the cell phone and other electronic devices in the classroom.
At the same time, dependence on federal programs and a focus on lower-end jobs required to provide “living wage” paychecks have increased.
Why?
If I didn’t know any better, I would say the effort to dumb down the nation has been intentional.
Why else would we continue to allow distractive devices in the hands of virtually every student?
As long as students are reading text messages and surfing the Web, they aren’t focused on core academic skills needed to create productive members of society.
And who governs these policies in the classroom.
For the most part it is the liberal establishment who advocates for bigger government and social activism rather than responsible citizenship.
The new devices and access to the Internet has led to massive academic fraud. Why write your own paper when AI can do it for you?
Why learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide when calculators can do it for you?
Calculators were not allowed until we reached upper level match like trigonometry or calculus. We had to learn the process of mathematics, not just regurgitate an answer.
It’s much harder to cheat on writing an essay when it has to be done with a pencil on paper. And even if cheating occurs, studies have shown retention of writing vs. typing is much higher, so even the process of writing down research done by someone else leads to some academic benefit. Printing out someone else’s work does nothing for the student who clicked the print button.
Out students are being intentionally prevented form receiving the skills they need to become independent. The State will have to think for them.
And that seems to be why we are allowing massive absenteeism, distractive devices and students making straight As who can’t even read at grade level.
It’s not accidental. It’s intentional.
If someone learns to think for themselves, they are a danger to the State. That student would understand that socialism has never succeeded, capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any system in the history of mankind, and that learning leads to earning.
Why would we want young people to know their rights? Why would we want them to seek to better themselves? That goes against the concept of collectivism.
Education naturally leads to empowerment of the individual. The more you can rely on yourself, the less you need government programs. The more you know, the more confident you become in your own ability to care and provide for your family.
Withholding that knowledge makes the next generation unable to be the individuals they were meant to be, and they will need public assistance just to exist. And that means redistributing wealth from those who were willing to find academic success to give to those who were denied the opportunity to become self supportive.
Discipline leads to success, and that’s why our schools have none. If we taught students self control leads to higher earning, they wouldn’t need the State. Which is also why lax law enforcement is a goal of the left as well.
Until we gain control and attention in our classes, freedom dies with this generation.
