Wanderings – Meaningless crackdown on school phone use

With great fanfare and furious bluster, the Ontario government thumped their collective chests and proudly proclaimed that students will no longer be distracted by those annoying cell phones and other devices when they start back in class this fall.

“Our government is introducing the toughest policy in Canada to tackle this issue by cracking down on cellphone usage during class time,” said then-Education Minister Stephen Lecce at the end of April when he announced his government’s “get tough on distractions” plan.

The “quick facts” in the ministry’s media release hit all the right notes: a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization report that found a link between device use and academic performance; a Centre for Addiction and Mental Health study that said more than a third of Ontario students spend more than five hours a day on a device in their free time; plus a self-congratulatory point that they are the first province to ban social media on school networks in the country. Two reports and a kudos – a government policy trifecta.

According to the Policy Memorandum, school boards are required to restrict access to all social media platforms on school networks and school devices, and social media can only be used by students in class for educational purposes as directed by a teacher.

Responding to questions at the time, the Ministry clarified that teachers and other staff of a school, including its administration, could not use social media on school wifi at large, unless there was a work-related use for it, or an emergency exemption.

Lastly, the ministry said that “a strengthened personal mobile devices policy with clear responsibilities broken down amongst staff and a requirement for best practices to be developed and shared with staff. Social media sites will be banned on all school networks and devices.” There are requirements that educators and staff model behaviour and not use personal mobile devices during class “for non-work related reasons.”

That “toughest policy in Canada” looked a lot more watered down than when Lecce stood at the podium making the announcement. Fast forward a few months to late-August.

In a series of reminder announcements akin to the “Danger, Will Robinson!” line from Lost in Space, Ontario students and families were reminded again of this toughest policy ever on digital devices. Those announcements had the same phrase peppered into it, “unless explicitly allowed by a teacher.”

So teachers do get a say after all? Teachers are in control of what happens in their class? Who knew?

There are many issues with this PC device “crackdown.”

The bluster of Lecce’s announcement has turned into a watered-down re-emphasis of policies and rules that were already in place. Other than self-congratulatory platitudes, there is little different from previous standard operating procedures. Social media networks were already banned from school networks. It is clear that the political brain trust at Queen’s Park have never heard of data plans. Most cell phones have one, even on students’ cell phones. A simple tap of the screen on a student’s cell phone renders the block on wifi useless. It is reminiscent of how to solve the problem of having a 50 foot wall blocking your way – build a 51 foot ladder.

Teachers already had the power to limit use of devices in the classroom, and discipline students when they refused to put it away. In 1986, I brought a Q-Bert handheld game to school to play during class because I was bored. My Grade 5 teacher, Mrs. Andress, took the device away from me, scolded me, made me stay in at recess, and returned the device at the end of the day. She also told me not to bring it back. When I returned with it the next day, I went to the principal’s office. Teachers didn’t lose this power in the last 40-ish years!

There is a hypocrisy to this faux-ban, and that is with those who run the school boards and schools. Many of Ontario’s 4,800 schools use social media to promote what they are doing in their school and the classrooms therein. Boards use social media to self-promote as the four publicly-funded education systems continue to compete against each other for the same students. By doing this, and saying that students cannot use these same networks, it is a case of “do as I say, not as I do.”

Instead of enforcing existing acceptable use policies for devices, and modelling good use habits for devices, technology, and social media – showing students the right way, Ford and his government have decided to treat students as the kids they believe they are. That’s why this policy bluster will fail and next year we’ll see yet another set of meaningless measures.