Use of Cell Phones at High School

Use of Cell Phones at High School

HomeBlogUse Of Cell Phones At High School

query_builder June 26, 2019

A cell phone is a gadget used to make and receive calls. The utilization of mobile phones has expanded over the globe; consequently, it has turned into the best-known method of correspondence. Mobile phone utilization has changed over time, and modern advanced phones have many applications, such as web access, which are valuable to everybody in terms of training, exploration, and learning. Pupils at secondary school have been denied utilization of mobile phones in class and in school at large. As a result, their personal rights, privacy as well as effective communication have greatly been affected. Students in schools can use cell phones for various activities such as helping them in their educational development, but only at a specified time that is break time. However, much controversy emerges because teachers and educators discourage the use of mobile devices during classroom activities for the reason that it distracts students from the learning process. At the same time, confiscation of mobile phones in schools violates student’s personal rights and privacy issues. Students should therefore adhere to the rules and regulation set that mobile phones should only be used during break time. Cell phones were invented to assist in connecting families and pals all around the world instantly. This is why allowing students to carry mobile phones at schools and use them during break time should be allowed so that the students can stay connected with their loved ones.

Improper control over the use of cell phones can lead to problems such as distraction in class, but allowing mobile phones during break time assists in solving some problems since students are assured that they will access the phones once they go for a break. Teachers, however, should not use this opportunity to confiscate students’ cell phones during the learning session while it infringes students’ rights to privacy and hinders them from efficient and essential communication. Training sessions should, therefore, be done at schools to educate students on the advantages of using cell phones during break time and also train teachers on the importance of encouraging students to use of cell phones during the breaks. Although the use of cell phones is forbidden during classes, high school students should still be allowed to use them during break time due to personal rights, privacy issues as well as effective and essential communication.

Cell Phone Use during the Break Time

Students should be allowed to use cell phones during break time to cut the cost incurred for their phone storage. After closely analyzing interaction between students, their parents, teachers, and members of staffs in Norman Thomas High School in New York City, it was discovered that they allow students to take cell phones to school, yet they only use them during break time. The primary source is a photograph depicting student’s struggle to pay for the storage of their phones during classes so as to be able to use them at break time. The picture shows a van with an advertising slogan on its body that reads ‘Electronic Devices Storage’. The van is parked in front of Norman Thomas high school, and students are paying for the storage of their phones. In the picture there is a crowd of students scrambling to pay for the storage of their phones, which denotes that they incur cost for leaving their phones in the van. The photograph of Richard Drew shows that students pay for the storage of their mobile phones and other electronic gadgets since they are not allowed to go with them to school. Allowing students to use mobile phones during break time will enable them to reach out to their parents without incurring any cost for storage. The information on the website where the photo is presented is very reliable since Karen Matthews is its reporter, and the website rights are reserved under NBC media.

Most schools do not permit students to bring mobile phones to school. Therefore, it implies that schoolchildren are compelled to search for approaches to store their mobile phones outside the school premises. According to a survey, students’ guardians, instructors, and a few other members of school staff think that students should be permitted to come to school with mobile phones, but their use should be limited to the break time in order to avoid distraction in class. Schools have over time banned the use of cell phones, which have caused concern among people since in the modern society the mobile phone is a fundamental necessity. Therefore, allowing the use of mobile phones during the break time at school will make students feel like a part of society.

Cell Phones and Personal Rights

Mobile phone should be allowed in school during the break because prohibiting the use mobile phones violates students’ personal rights. Schools usually prohibit the use of cell phones by students for various reasons such as students’ distraction during learning hours as a result of their use. Different discussions have been raised to support the idea that students in the current world cannot be banned from using these technological tools since it would be violation of their rights. Nevertheless, most schools do not want to embrace fully the idea of the use of cell phones, stressing the cons of using cell phones at school. When students are allowed to use cell phones at school during break time, they tend to be independent in their personal life. According to Auter, there is a positive correlation between cell phone usage and interpersonal communication. Therefore, teachers and school administration should respect the way students spend their leisure time at school and not interfere with their personal life in order to avoid violation of their rights. Moreover, personal identity improves through communication skills. When teachers restrict the use of cell phones in class and during break time, students are negatively affected since they have no freedom of communication, which seriously infringes personal rights.

Although cell phones may be disruptive to the educational environment if not used responsibly, allowing cell phones at schools during break time can increase the value of education without violating personal rights. Thus, it is believed that cell phones bring students many advantages. What is more, schoolchildren using mobile phones at high school are believed to be happier if they are allowed to carry mobile phones to school, even if they use them only during break time. By allowing the use of cell phones at break time, it will be possible both to prevent violation of personal rights and students’ search of electronics will stop. In addition, sometimes cell phones can be used even in classes. Thus, the use of cell phones for research on the topics that are taught in class is necessary for improving students’ understanding. This supports students’ need to use cell phones during breaks to do their research on the upcoming learning sessions.

The government has expressed its views regarding this issue and encouraged the use of cell phones in high schools during break time since they create an excellent communication avenue for students and their relatives, friends, and teachers. Parents have also shown concern because their children ask for too much money since banning of cell phones use at high schools made students pay for their electronic device storage. Therefore, students’ personal rights will be enhanced by allowing them to have their phones in bags and limiting the time of using them to school breaks. In a period when many folks need access to their youngsters and students who live in advanced social settings, banning phones at schools is seen as counterproductive. Educators argue that small computers that students may carry in their bags can be important apparatuses for instructive purposes of utilizing break time. Therefore, prohibiting students’ utilization of telephones at schools during break time violates their personal rights. Students ought to be permitted to bring mobile phones with them and use them at breaks for their comfort purposes. Furthermore, students should communicate only with a trusted person without uncovering their personal issues to the world. This will permit parents and guardians to be proficient about their youngsters’ whereabouts, issues and advance notwithstanding when at school. This is helpful since even in case of emergencies, the issues arising are handled more accurately and faster since the students can communicate with their parents at any time without following lengthy procedures that were used before, including administration protocol.

Students should be allowed to use a cell phone during break time since it can enhance their learning. Students occupy the largest population that has embraced the use of technology and innovations in their day-to-day activities. It means that students in an institution of learning have become technologically-conscious. Primary analysis has been made to identify the benefits and challenges of using cell phones at schools during break time. Thus, the advantages include the fact that the use of cell phones would significantly assist students in their learning. Particularly, high schools and colleges students have adopted e-learning mode, which is the use of technological gadgets such as smart phones and laptops. Therefore, teachers should encourage students to make use of gadgets during break time and not to engage in crimes. Teachers and instructors should also encourage students to use cell phones for practical points, such as enhancing their educational background, especially during break time. They should as well refrain from searching the students since it violates their personal rights. This can be done to help students use cell phones for educational purposes during breaks and at home to improve their understanding.

Cell Phones and Privacy Issues

Cell phones should be allowed in school during break time because they help students in learning without violating their privacy rights. Students’ privacy should be adhered to all the time since they also deserve respect. According to Baker, Lusk, and Neuhauser, confiscation of cell phones during classroom sessions violates students’ privacy issues and rights. The school administration as well as teachers does not have the right to confiscate cell phones unless they have the underpinnings for reasonable suspicion and search for their intentions. Students are always suspects of bad behavior such as drug abuse and criminal activities. In this case, teachers believe that students use cell phone avenues such as instant messages to hide unlawful information about drugs, alcohol consumption or other criminal activities. However, they should also realize that mobile phones contain personal information about students, which should not be revealed to the third party because it violates their private rights. Everyone has a right to respect of private data and details, which should not be infringed even for students. Instead of confiscating cell phones, teachers should find new ways of encouraging students to use mobile phones for educational purposes, such as searching for information via mobile Internet or doing calculations.

Privacy concerns should be addressed in schools, and school administration should have a search warrant in order to make any searches of a student’s cell phone. This procedure should be followed unless further circumstances force impromptu searches of the students’ belongings. According to Cooke, the administrators should, in this case, adhere to the constitutional rules, which state that they are not allowed to conduct warrantless searches because they violate various rules and regulations. Given the fact that cell phones do not pose any threat and contain private data, the school officials should gain permission before they can confiscate mobile devices. School officials are only allowed by the law to make inspections only for pocketbooks, backpacks and other issues of personal property with a certain degree of suspicion. The rules and regulations applied in this case involve those in the Fourth Amendment, which states that anyone who wants to make search of private content must have a search warrant. According to the Fourth Amendment, individuals have a privilege to be secure in their houses and papers. It also protects them from outlandish quests and seizures, which should not be damaged and no warrants might issue, but rather on the basis of reasonable justification bolstered by promise or confirmation. There is a majority of cases where students are searched without authorization; in such cases, they lack enough ground for search, which leads to the violation of the right against unreasonable search. It is worth noting that there are laws that protect students’ private lives as well as their personal rights. For instance, a teacher may assume that there are no valid reasons for students to use a mobile phone. In such as case, teachers assume that confiscating student’s mobile phone is not a violation of student’s personal rights. This assumption is due to ignorance and misinterpretation of the fact that students use mobile phones during break time for private purposes.

Cell Phones as an Effective as well as Essential Means of Communication

Cell phones should be allowed at school during break time because they lead to effective and essential communication. Cell phone use has positive implications for improving students’ communication skills as well as the level of understanding. Studies on the Internet design and communication theories indicate that the use of cell phones enhances communication as well as students’ achievements in education. Cell phone use at schools during break time helps improve communication between students and teachers. Restricted use of cell phones can have a negative influence on students’ communication skills as well as on their willingness to communicate. Improvement of communication channels, in this case by using cell phones, contributes to greater interaction and active socialization, which also fosters information exchange. Teachers, on the other hand, should engage in discourses with social context to understand how mobile phones can effectively improve communication when allowed at schools and used during break time. According to Pachler, Bachmair, and Cook, mobile learning as well as the media gives a better demonstration of how mobile phones can be reconsidered in an educational setting to balance between the protection of students’ personal rights and disagreement of teachers regarding the use of mobile phones during break time and not in class.

Mobile technology and the use of devices at school during break time have received claims that account for its use to help educational institutions admit that this device could contribute to e-learning process. This way, schools should allow students to use media tools to engage with various hobbies and ideas, which will help them become more engaged and thus prevent their participation in malicious activities that most teenagers are prone to. When idle, students tend to engage themselves in various activities that are not acceptable to the society. Encouraging students to get involved in competitive games and puzzles in their cell phones will be a great way of combating crimes and harmful activities at schools, especially break time when they have free time. In this respect, the media convergence could become the major issue of using data from mobile cell phones for the personal education as well as for socially engagement and activity. Use of cell phones should be encouraged for practical reasons provided that students use them for learning and communication relevant activities. It will also help change teachers’ negative attitude to cell phones. This shows that introducing the nature of mobile learning and media as well as demonstrating how mobile devices could be reconsidered in an educational setting, especially during break time, will help strike the balance between teachers’ disagreement regarding the cell phone use and protection of students’ personal rights. This way, the use of mobile tools during break time and after the learning process can motivate students to be more enthusiastic and enhance their learning.

Counterarguments

The use of cell phones in class can enhance connection of students. Therefore, parents are less worried because they have access to their children at will. Moreover, students can contact their parents in case of an emergency. Cell phone use promotes collaborative learning, hence students can share notes through mobile phones. For instance, in case a student did not attend any lesson, a friend can record the lesson for him or her using the phone. Learning can become fun and more interactive where students document lessons by taking videos and pictures to boost attention. This is achieved by using cell phones as memory aids. Apart from that, cell phones can be used instead of a paper and a pen, while they enable students to take notes and make reminder saving. Mostly, teenagers who suffer from attention disorder that is caused by not paying enough attention to their work at school can be assisted by recording lessons using cell phones and listening to them at their free time. Since cell phones provide access to a pool of information, students can browse through their phones to find information that they are interested in. In case a teacher was not clear when putting across a certain point, they can browse the Internet from their mobile phones for clarification. Cell phones dictionaries can also be utilized in class, so students will not need to carry dictionaries.

In terms of using cell phones in school, various improvements have been established at different schools, which benefited students since their privacy has been improved as well as an effective and essential means of communication was implemented. Schools are trying out various policies that allow having cell phones at schools with some permitting students to use their phones only during breaks or at lunchtime. Other schools are encouraging students to have cell phones at school in order to enhance educational process, the main purpose of which is to improve understanding in the classroom. This is helpful in various ways since it provides suitable platforms for enhancing educational understanding. Other policies that were implemented allow students to carry cell phones to school and use them after classes and at breaks. The phones should be kept in lockers or backpacks during classes. This is unlike the policy of some schools that allow phones and encourage students to carry them to school and use them in class for their educational advantage.

Cell phones use in high school during break times should, therefore, be allowed because of a personal right, privacy issues and effective and essential communication. The use of cell phones during breaks prevents students from losing attention in class and allows them to maintain necessary communications with their parents as well as provides them with the advantages of e-learning tools. Allowing students to use cell phones at school gives students the right to personal life and privacy. In addition, cell phones enhance research and improve students’ understanding since they have more access to information that is available on the Internet.