Adults 1, children 0. This is the score in the argument about children, cellphones, and school. State legislation and policymaking are banning children from accessing cellphones in school. In Wisconsin school boards must have a policy restricting child access to cellphones during instructional time. This may be a good decision based upon good intentions with assumed positive outcomes. However, nature abhors a vacuum. If children are banned from looking at cellphones, what will replace their attentive focus? Assumptions abound.
What do we know?
Nature abhors a vacuum. It is an immutable law. We learn about this in science class. When we pour water out of a glass, its vacant volume fills with air. There is a balanced equilibrium that sustains itself. Leave a garden untended and preferred plants will be overrun by surrounding nature. We call them weeds but they really are survival plants seeking a place to grow. When a political leader retires, others fight to fill the void. This is real.
This immutable rule applies to human behavior. To stop smoking, a person replaces the habit with another, like chewing gum. Try keeping silent with a group of people; someone will start speaking, humming, or whistling. Telling someone they cannot do something often strengthens their resolve to do it.
Let us apply other equally valid adages.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No matter one’s good motives, there always are unintended consequences to every decision. Plastic in the 1960s was the miracle material of the future. Today we cannot rid the planet of plastic waste. Every new medicine carries with it a list of “side effects.” Cigarettes were handed to WW2 service men like candy leading to a generation of cancer victims. Few good intentions go totally unpunished.
A third rule is hypocrisy knows no bounds. Adults are addicted to cellphones like their children. Workplaces are just as disrupted by employees looking at their phones as classrooms are by children looking at theirs. Yet adults make the rules, and most rule makers make rules for other people.
So how do these three pearls apply to our educational landscape?
Adults are upset that too many children in school prefer to look at their cellphones rather than pay attention to their teacher or engage in what their teacher is teaching. In nation-wide surveys, teachers report that classroom behavior is increasingly worsening in the post-pandemic years. “An increasing percentage of educators reported worsening student behavior, from 66% in 2021, to 70% in 2023, to 72% in 2024.” Surveyed teachers “… frequently blamed (cellphones) for student misbehaviors and distractions.”
EdWeek – post-pandemic increase in classroom misbehavior
In connecting classroom behavior with cellphones, hypocrisy arises. If classroom teaching were engaging and meaningful, would children blatantly look at their cellphones instead of their teachers or their classroom assignments? The connection between teachers, teaching, and children is innate and if the lesson is compelling, children will give it their attention, and the number of cellphone users will diminish. The hypocrisy is in blaming cellphones for a lack of student attention when the lack of compelling teaching and teacher-child relationships are equally at fault.
Given the hypocrisy, the rules of unintended consequences must be accounted for. Children in a classroom, like the natural environment, abhor a vacuum. We know this by their behavior when we gather them together without something to do. They find their own things to do. When we take away the cellphone and students still are not engaged by their teacher, students will find something else for their attention. We do not know what their next “something else” is, but we soon will.
Best solutions.
Strengthen teacher-child relations. For some teachers, this is just usual practice as they prioritize their connections with all children in their classroom every day. But this is not the case universally. An EdWeek 2024 survey shows “A majority of high school students – 57 percent – say the adults in their school care about them at least a moderate amount, but 1 in 5 students say the adults care little or not at all about their well-being and success.” Reverse that perception to 43 percent do not say their school adults care about them at least a moderate amount!
EdWeek – Do Teachers Care about Students
Just as “teach the best, ignore the rest” is a worst practice, so is “care about some, disregard the rest.” There will be tipping points when the no care factor will be what fills the vacuum in the no cellphone era. If teachers do not care, why should children?
In another EdWeek survey of how teachers can improve classroom behavior, “building strong relationships with students seemed to win by a landslide” with 59% of the vote. “Maintaining consistent rules” earned 28% of the votes.
EdWeek – How to improve classroom behavior
What to do?
If you do not want unintended consequences, rely on best practices.
- Build positive connections with all children. There are invisible children who attend class every day, never volunteer, and seldom are called on by the teacher. They are seldom absent, are not discipline problems, and do not draw attention to themselves. Consequently, they get little attention and easily disengage from classwork. Give all children your attention every class period. Let no child go unnoticed.
An EdWeek surveyed student said, “When there is a teacher that I have a relationship with, I 100% try harder in class. Even if I got no sleep the night before, I will stay up (to study) for first period because I like the teacher.”
One of the easiest ways to connect with a child is proximity. Every time a teacher kneels at an elementary student’s desk to see how the child is doing or sits at a table with secondary students during their group work, proximity is a positive relationship force. When a teacher stands at the front of the classroom or behind her desk and never gets close to children, the lack of proximity disengages children.
- Learn and use motivational theories. Madeline Hunter taught us six concepts that will motivate children to engage in their learning. She taught us to raise their level of concern (positive anxiety), create a positive feeling tone about learning new things, show how successful learning begets more successful learning, give students immediate feedback on their learning, personalize learning to increase student self-interest, and gradually move them from their extrinsic motivation to their own intrinsic motivation. Motivation takes work and using tested theories makes the work make sense.
The EdWeek survey on student engagement reinforces this. “The vast majority of students, 83 percent, say there are not enough opportunities at school for them to be curious.” Classwork by itself does not raise curiosity; it is just an assignment to do. The ability to raise curiosity is an art form in a teacher’s toolbox of skills. Creating curiosity is how a new topic is introduced or inserted strategically as children advance in a lesson. Strategic use of curiosity motivates children to be engaged.
- The care factor is multidimensional. Know the children you teach. Greet them at the classroom door every day. Acknowledge their other school activities. Applaud their efforts in school activities, arts, and athletics does not demean academics. Integrate the diverse languages and cultures of your students into the classroom. Recognition enhances a child’s realization that her teacher really knows her and raises a mutual care factor.
The Big Duh!
Banning student access to cellphones during instructional time is not simply a rule change. It is a transaction that demands teacher attention to the question of “what now?” If teachers think banning cellphones alone will improve classroom behavior and student attention, they are in for very rude future. Acknowledge the vacuum created without cellphone access. Recognize the essential need for positive teacher/child relations. Rely on high quality teaching using motivational theories to engage the recently disengaged and sustain children who were not cellphone users. Make everyone in the new no cellphone era a winner.