It's Not Just Rude, It's Ruining Your Brain

[liberalhistorian]

28. I grew up with teachers and I've been

subbing for four years now (I have a B.A., but not a teaching degree. I'm almost fifty, so I think I'm pretty much too old to get one even though in my state, South Dakota, they are desperate for teachers and twenty percent of openings went unfilled this year). I just started subbing for the schools in the new reservation town where we recently moved and what a difference from the other schools in the former reservation town we moved from. In the other school, students' personal phones and tablets WERE NOT ALLOWED during the school day, period. No exceptions. If an emergency happened during the day, notifications were done the old-fashioned way, by calling the school office.

However, in the news schools, they ARE allowed and it's an absolute chaotic mess and nightmare, I don't know how the regular teachers deal with it. All the kids wanted to do was be on their phones, I spent most of the time taking away their phones or ipads instead of doing the academic work the teacher had left. It was like whack-a-mole, take away one and another one would pop up. And the office didn't even seem to give a shit, frankly. Disgusting and dismaying. No wonder this district isn't doing too well. I talked with some of the other teachers during the very brief lunch period and they all agreed it drove them crazy that the district allowed personal phones and ipads and they'd tried repeatedly to change that, to no avail.