Looking around a room full of my peers, I notice something very disturbing — no one is showing any interest in what is happening anywhere other than their cellphone screens.
There are many varying degrees of cellphone use in the classroom, including the kid in the front row with the screen face down on the desk as a comfort item. Then there’s someone discreetly snapchatting in the back of class, and don’t forget that one person whose phone is a gold mine of gossip and test answers at any time. The absolute worst of these instances occurs when someone dares challenge the teacher by clearly paying no mind to the rules, or not showing a shred of respect for someone whose only job is to teach inconsiderate youth.
To put this in perspective, imagine a scenario where someone asks a person for directions. Remember, the person being asked doesn’t have to be nice and help them, but they find some type of wisdom within them and think of the perfect directions. They muster up the courage to help this person, and suddenly, as they are almost done giving the directions the realization hits that… the person they’re trying to help has had headphones in the entire time.
Do they care that there was a possibility that this person wasn’t listening to anything and maybe could hear a slightly muffled version of what they were saying? No. What they do care about is the fact that their time was wasted and now, because the inconsiderate person wasn’t paying attention, they might get lost along the way, end up in a bad part of town and die.
This is the intensity LHS teacher, Golden Steele, uses to deliver his anti-phone lessons. Some students may not like being called out for in class cellular communication but teachers such as Steele are important in teaching teens that the rules apply to everyone, and it’s better to just pay attention in class than to get called out in front of peers.
Perhaps this scenario is a bit exaggerated but the thing to consider is how disrespectful it can be to be glued to a cell phone at any time. Why would so many people rather stare at pictures of other people and read worthless gossip when there is so much happening right in front of them?
According to growingwireless.com, 33 percent of teenagers, ages 13 to 17, list texting as their favorite form of communicating with their friends and a typical teen sends and receives 30 texts per day. A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Michigan in 2010 found that in schools that permitted students to have cell phones, 71 percent of students sent or received text messages on their cell phones in class.
It may not seem possible to miss much in a classroom, but knowledge is much more important than clever captions and high trivial scores, and the small things happening in the world around you could put a smile on your face for the rest of the day. Wouldn’t that make a nice Snapchat story?