Mason Jones (Reporter)
LONG gone are the days of passing notes under the desks.
Today’s teachers are faced with up to 30 mobile phones in their classrooms, and they are often powerless to do anything about it.
In the UK, some teachers have had students film them as they try and keep order in the class, waving their mobiles in the air as the footage is played back to them.
Some have even found their class uploaded to the internet for the world to see.
With the new generation of smartphones, kids are unlimited in what they can watch during class time.
According to Leonie Hodge, founder of Teen Boundaries, an anti-cyber-bullying charity that works with children in schools, one of the main subjects is pornography.
She insists: “The women on these sites are often violently assaulted and raped. It’s warping youngsters, especially boys, and making healthy relationships very difficult.”
But teachers have limited tools to cope with this class nuisance.
It’s a brave teacher who is willing to run the gauntlet of angry parents who insist their children be contactable at all hours of the day and night.
When one teacher confiscated a phone in class in the UK recently, she was met by an angry father after school.
When the teacher explained that his daughter had accepted two calls during class, rather than apologising for her behaviour, the irate father threatened the teacher with an official complaint and branded her a thief.
Unsurprisingly many UK teachers are now applauding the announcement by the UK’s Chief Inspector of Schools, that pupils are to be banned from having mobile phones in school as part of a new Ofsted crackdown on discipline.
Schools will be penalised for failing to tackle persistent low-level disruption in lessons under a tough new inspection regime being introduced from next month.
Pupils will no longer be allowed to send text messages, take or make calls or surf the net during classes.
Luckily here in Spain it seems to be less of a problem.
Students know that if their mobiles are seen they will be confiscated for several days before being returned.
The policy is administered on an ad-hoc basis, with directors deciding how to implement the rules for their school.
Strange article, nothing to do with Spain and yet turned into having some Spanish relevance by adding the line “Luckily here in Spain it seems to be less of a problem.”. One could make a lot of articles this way, very clever lol.
“Pupils will no longer be allowed to send text messages, take or make calls or surf the net during classes”.
Not actually banning them from having the phones in class. The phones should be surrendered on entering school and only returned at the end of the day.
As for parents threatening teachers this is the result of the lawless society the UK has become and another reminder of why I left.