this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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I give my children unfettered access to technology. It is very much a last resort for them, only picking up a device when they have exhausted all other visible opportunity to do something more interesting. Suggesting that they do almost anything else is met with "Yeah! Let's do that!"
If a student is reaching for their phone in class, the problem is with something about the class. Being old, cell phones came in giant bags when I was a student, but we played with our calculators, doodled, or anything else to stave off the same boredom when we had a horrible teacher who had no clue as to what they were doing. The phone is just a more modern version of the exact same quest for distraction.
I think the point is that we need to question why we are wasting our students' time in classes which are not providing value. There is a lot of sentimental attachment to school, but ultimately there is no need for make work projects. The focus needs to be on delivering value and where that is not being delivered a rethink is necessary.
Phone use, or any such distraction, is a symptom telling us that there is a problem in value delivery. Suppressing a symptom does not cure the illness.
You don't have to look very far to know your n of 1 isn't representative.
And adding more distraction opportunities doesn't help.
Distractions don't help, but they also don't hinder, so long as value is being delivered. What would even compel one to reach for their phone if greater value is derived by not using it?
Of course, if you have attended school before you know full well that value is not consistently delivered. A lot of teachers don't know how to approach a class, period. Even when they do, not all students can be approached the same way. When the stars align value can be provided, but it is a highly imperfect system.
Nothing in life is perfect, and knowing that, why shove the clearly imperfect parts down students' throats unnecessarily? They are not deriving value from it. Again, I understand the sentimental attachment, but that is not a good reason.
Lol yes they do practically by definition. A distraction provides no value pretty much by definition.
Nothing in life is perfect, so why are we adding even more distractions in class. Nothing in life is perfect, so why don't we help the situation by removing phones from class. Improve the situation by getting good teachers, and we can add even more by not having them compete with the insanely engineered to be addictive tiktok during class time. These work together.
A distraction, by definition, must provide some amount of value. The amount is likely low, but must offer more than what it is in competition with. Certainly when a class is offering no value, the value of a distraction need not be high to be able to offer more value.
We agree that students not deriving value are a distraction to the teacher. Send them on their way to find something that is providing them value/more value than TikTok. While we have primarily focused on the wasting of student time, we have also touched on it being a waste of teacher time. As before, we don't need make work projects.
The focus must be on value delivery. When value is not being delivered, there needs to be a rethink. Suppressing a symptom does not cure the illness and sentimental attachment is not good reason to hang on to an illness.
Lol no a distraction does not provide value, by itself. And no it does not offer more value than an actual class. That's not what a distraction is.
Value is being delivered in class, and the distraction is distracting from that value. And removing phone helps remove that distraction. This is not one or the other, you add things that help and you take away things that hurt. It's not a binary. You do things together.
You're so twisted around on terms and trying to twist the result means, and then trying to put it as a binary one thing or the other. Factors work together. I'm not replying further.
A distraction must provide value and it must provide more value than the alternative. Humans always seek to maximize available value, so if there is no value proposition then the behaviour will not take place.
The dopamine hit of TikTok can be pretty decent value, all things considered. An un-engaging teacher droning on is of decidedly low value. If the teacher cannot rise above TikTok, TikTok is going to win every time.
Decent value is not high value, though. It is not that hard to provide value that exceeds that of TikTok. You only have to step outside to see kids doing all kinds of interesting things without phones in their faces. Again, you only see the phones come out when the alternative is of depressingly low value.
I get the feeling you are trying to push what you find valuable onto others. Life doesn't work that way. Value is determined by each individual for themselves.