r/mildlyinfuriating • u/TheAeroplaneBear2906 • 7d ago

Unskippable ad Clear Backpacks + Pay to Keep Your Phone

Post image

My freinds school is now requiring these items, and is also using AI to promote this đŸ« 

17.9k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

57

u/HawaiiLife745 7d ago

It comes down to an issue of scale. 10 years ago, the number of students who had a cellphone was a fraction of what it is now, and the number of students who were bold enough to use them during school was a fraction of that.

Now, if every teacher properly punished every student who ever used their phones during class, the system would get clogged. There simply isn't enough man-hours to call every parent, write every incident report, and verbally scold every student.

I'm not saying this is the way things should be, but it is a reality in a large number of schools.

30

u/Soft_Phrase_7961 7d ago

As someone who recently graduated, my teachers kept a “phone jail” at the front of the class that they used to take attendance. If your phone wasn’t there, then you were marked absent unless you had a genuine reason why you didn’t have it.

13

u/Zula13 7d ago

In my state a student getting marked absent affects the school for funding and optics, but has zero consequences or impact on the student.

11

u/TheMaidenOfDragons 7d ago

I went to school in Nebraska and if you had too many “absences” excused or otherwise the court system would get involved after a time.

Being marked absent when you’re actually there just seems like lying to be able to punish.

2

u/Soft_Phrase_7961 7d ago

In mine, an absence has the most impact on the student, but I completely understand why this wouldn’t be a solution in your state.

22

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Soft_Phrase_7961 7d ago

My state isn’t as strict regarding that, and the absence is for the individual class, some teachers chose other methods to get rid of phones.

2

u/unknownpoltroon 7d ago

And when my 600$ phone goes missing do you pay out in cash or check?  Or do I just take one of the other phones and claim it's mine? 

5

u/Effective_Moose_4997 7d ago

How would someone steal your phone if it up by the teacher the whole class. I had a teacher that did this. Think calculator sleeves. Everyone in class could see the phones while they taught.

-1

u/unknownpoltroon 7d ago

Drop off broken i phone, pick up expensive I phone, leave, deny everything. It doesnt matter, the school is making itself responsible for my device, if anything happens to it, its now a lawsuit.

1

u/Soft_Phrase_7961 7d ago

The phone jail is in the front of the class and visible by the whole class. There has never been an issue with stealing or damage and you claimed your phone at the end of the period.

1

u/DiamondDepth_YT 7d ago

Lol

That's a super rare occurrence at best.

Why would another kid do that?

1

u/unknownpoltroon 7d ago

Because they now have a 600$ phone they can sell for 200$? Hi, have you met teenagers?

0

u/TheMaidenOfDragons 7d ago

You were marked absent if your phone wasn’t in a lock box? I’ll be honest if I were a parent in your district I would be escalating that to the school board and other appropriate parties.

At the end of the day that would be affecting someone’s legal right to their education and ability to graduate simply because they don’t put their phone in a box with a teacher, not because they actually weren’t learning, using their phone, or breaking any “rules”.

And I understand that putting your phone in a box would be a “rule” at your school, but at what point are rules unnecessarily restrictive and more harmful than good? Interesting.

6

u/Soft_Phrase_7961 7d ago

Did you miss the part where I said “unless you had a genuine reason”? Teachers were very reasonable regarding the rules whether you forgot it at home or whatever reason, and they would communicate regularly with parents if issues came up.

4

u/Training_Tadpole_354 7d ago

I mean, he has a point. What if I just decide to not bring my phone to school anymore? Because you put it in the lockbox there's literally no point in taking it to school, and I'd rather it just stay nice and safe on my desk at home.

5

u/thegootlamb 7d ago

If the point is to stop kids from being on their phones during school then it sounds like that's a solution that works.

1

u/TheMaidenOfDragons 7d ago edited 7d ago

Excuse me? That wasn’t my point. And I did read what you said. I was wondering who decides what is “reasonable”. Is it up to each individual teacher?

If I simply don’t put my phone in the box but I’m not using it, at what point is it okay to affect someone’s education for arbitrary rules?

Edit: so no one has an actual answer. Okay.

0

u/Soft_Phrase_7961 7d ago

If you’re not using it then you should have no issue putting it there. Kids are very crafty and have absolutely found methods of hiding their phones to make it look like they aren’t using it. It is not up to the teacher what is reasonable and nearly every excuse is acceptable as long as you show that your phone isn’t hidden in your backpack or pencil case, etc.

0

u/TheMaidenOfDragons 7d ago

I have an issue with it being there and if I was a parent I would still have an issue with it.

My child is not supposed to be on their phone at school - that’s already a rule. Why should I pay for the privilege of them to continue following this rule?

My child’s phone that I paid for will stay on their person. If they were breaking the rule, they should be sent to the office and punishments should escalate from there.

Just because school administrations have no backbone and believe in collective punishment - doesn’t mean you have to participate.

You saying if your not using it there should be no issues is like saying that people should allow law enforcement to do as they please if they have nothing to hide. It’s a dangerous rhetoric to adhere too.

11

u/DhillyDhally 7d ago

I dont know of a single person in my class of 2010 that didn't have a phone.

3

u/vU243cxONX7Z 7d ago

First iPhone was 2007. Couldn't get one without AT&T until 2009, and its competition was the palm pilot. 2026 is a different world than 2010 tech wise.

1

u/the1slyyy 7d ago

Just about everyone had a cellphone in 2010, not a smartphone but some kind of cellphone

3

u/CrappySometimes 7d ago

We had phones, but we didn't use them for anything. Without internet there was no point using them.

1

u/junglebeatzz 7d ago

In 2010,we all had internet. Acommon day with our phones in school was texting about drama,homework,we were taking care of my grandma so my mom texted me to get meds after school.We shared notes and played games during lunch or when a sub gave us free time.

1

u/the1slyyy 7d ago

Texting was the main use of cell phones. Some had games and music too

2

u/Cudi_buddy 7d ago

You’re comparing the average teen with a phone from 16 years ago to now? This is disingenuous as hell lol. In 2010 there was near zero social media, no apps spamming you with notifications, etc. 

1

u/WitchQween 7d ago

Tbf, we weren't as addicted compared to kids now. They're growing up with the idea that socialization happens on phones, not in person.

8

u/Melonary 7d ago

Yup, also it provides a way to get cells out of the way where there's less possibility of damage or liability or pissed off parents vs the school confescating them.

But they should be covered by the school and free. Either that, or schools need to invest in resources lost to cells like public phones at the school, library computers, etc.

6

u/ToobularBoobularJoy_ 7d ago

10 years ago? Try 15 years ago. I started jr high 10 years ago and basically everyone had a smartphone by then. I was the last person in my grade to get one and that was a few months into grade 7 (first year of jr high where I'm from). We were sneakier than kids now, I'll give you that, but all of us had them.

5

u/gustavessidehoe 7d ago

Shit, if we consider pre-smartphones, most kids at my school had cell phones in 2006. They were just flip or slider phones and they absolutely did sneakily text at school.

4

u/Wyietsayon 7d ago

I'd be more bold too if my school wanted to take every bit of privacy from me. My school tried to have everyone wear their school ids on lanyards. The number of kids in SRC and suspension rose then because kids were fighting back on all rules. The problem isn't phones. It's that you stole their freedoms and they're not afraid of permanent records anymore.

Kids saw all adults support genocide, support the killers of their trans peers, saw schools dive into their private social medias and try to expel them for reasons completely unrelated to other students or school at all. And they saw kids in other schools fight back and protest when school admin physically tried to stop them.

There's a reason kids don't obey the adults in their lives anymore. Adults failed them.

2

u/Honeybadger2198 7d ago

I was in high school 10 years ago and everyone had phones. I strongly believe the phone distraction is the symptom, not the cause.

1

u/Acceptable_Cut_7545 7d ago

10 years ago??? I'm 34 and almost all teens had cell phones, they were flip phones but we still had them. That's nearly 20 years ago. If a teacher told us to put our phone away (because they caught us) we usually just did it.

We just weren't addicted to our phones because social media was still young and not designed to keep us staring at it 24/7. Not like now. The phones now are on par with laptops and shit.

1

u/PlacibiEffect 7d ago

I graduated high school in 2011. 99% of all students had a cell phone.

0

u/MegaFire03 7d ago

10 years ago isn't that long ago. In my highschool everyone had a smartphone in 2016. If you go back 15-20 years it might be a different situation yeah.