Dear administration,
I’m begging you: let me use my cell phone during passing periods and lunch. As soon as the bell rings for my next class, I promise to put it away and ignore it for the next 40 minutes.
All I want is the freedom to check Twitter when I’m walking across the quad.
At Shawnee Mission East, students are allowed to use cell phones during passing period. And I know they aren’t the only school. Now I realize that this a private school, but with all the technology we have today, it really doesn’t make sense to ban cell phones during lunch or the five minutes that I have to get to my next class.
As technology becomes more prominent at STA, it just makes the cell phone ban even more unpractical and unrealistic. Our netbooks are as good a distraction as any. There is no difference between reading a news website and checking my Facebook news feed, or sending a moodle and sending a text. My netbook gives me almost as much freedom as my cell phone would. It allows me to freely communicate with my friends through moodle, play games, and surf the internet. So why aren’t students given the freedom to access these things through cell phones during our free time?
I know our cell phones are banned to prevent us from social networking or cheating during class, but let’s be honest. It happens anyway. The fact that phones are banned entirely only tempts students to use them during class more. If a literature lesson is boring, I’m sure many students can admit to pulling out their phone to text a friend or check Twitter. If we could use our cell phones during passing periods, I can guarantee that there will be less cell phone use during class, simply because there is no need. If there is a designated time during the school day when students can use their phones, it would be less of a problem.
Passing periods should be a time to let my mind relax. There’s no harm in letting students check Facebook or respond to a text while walking to their next class. If this was allowed, students would be less tempted to use them during the time that should be spent learning. Administration needs to realize that as our technological world is changing, so do the rules regarding cell phones.
Graduate2 • Aug 17, 2012 at 5:26 pm
I agree the administration should let students use their cell phone during break.
Graduate • May 23, 2012 at 11:03 am
Dear Tortured Student,
How dare they. Your indignation is justified. Your parents shell out $10,000 a year so that you can ignore that pesky trigonometry class with angry birds and Twitter. Naturally, it’s not as though they want you to learn. But you’ve heard these arguments before. You’re rolling your eyes, wondering “Who is this grandma?” I am not your grandmother. I am a graduate who is informing you of your incredibly flawed argument.
1. SME gets to use their phones: So what? It doesn’t make sense to ban phones during passing periods- but why? There is nothing to back up this statement.
2. “There is no difference between reading a news website and checking my Facebook news feed, or sending a moodle and sending a text. My netbook gives me almost as much freedom as my cell phone would.” – I would like to point out that this sentence negates your entire argument. If your Netbooks give you the same freedom as a cell phone as you have so eloquently stated then there is no need for a cell phone. In a formalized debate you would have lost here. But I will continue.
3. “…if we could use our cell phones during passing periods, I can guarantee that there will be less cell phone use during class” – Okay… but in the sentence before you said that the reason girls use their cell phone is for boring lectures. You don’t fix that problem. You have established that the need for your cell phone is a distraction from dull classes, so using it in the passing period doesn’t logically reduce cell phone usage out of boredom.
Sorry ’bout it.