Some schools go “old school” when it comes to cellphones in the classroom

By Paul Drewes

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    HONOLULU (KITV) — Many Hawaii students head to class with books, pencils AND cellphones.

But that’s changing for some island students.

At Iolani School, students return to the classroom with a change in the schools cellphone policy.

“In our lower school, you couldn’t bring your phone to school. This year we’ve extended that to grades seven through nine.

So you can’t use your cell phone on campus during the school day. And we’re spending the year talking to the 10 through 12th graders about how we might do something similar for them moving forward,” said Timothy Cottrell, the Head of Iolani School.

This change comes as a number of schools, cities and even states across the country have banned phones from the classroom.

Hawaii’s public schools leave the decision over cellphones up to individual schools and teachers.

“Our school has taken the stance for more than a decade that we will not allow students to use cell phones as soon as they’re on campus,” stated Aaron Kubo, a teacher at Hilo Intermediate.

He’s seen the difference in learning between schools where cellphones are allowed and where they are not, like in his 8th grade social studies class.

“Students can actually focus on their learning, which is their main goal. They can socialize which will help their social emotional learning. Everyone can actually interact with each other on face to face basis instead of screen and face,” added Kubo.

Students focused on apps and messaging instead of a teacher can be a disruption to learning, but it is the personal interaction disruption that prompted the change at Iolani School.

“If you spend a lot of time on your phone, there’s something else you’re not doing. And you know, the research and all schools believe kids connecting with each other is a really important part of growing up,” said Cottrell.

The school does make medical exceptions for students that use phones to help monitor their health. What about parents worried about reaching their kids?

“We all went to school. If we needed to get in touch with parents, we know how. If the parents need to get in touch with their student, we know how. So it’s just falling back a little bit to the way schools used to operate,” added Cottrell.

So what is new at school, is more of them are going “old school” when it comes to learning in the classroom WITHOUT cellphones.

“Students would actually be able to make face to face contact, which would enable them to actually grow, develop and use more of those critical thinking skills that we desperately need them to have. Not instantly try to Google something, but actually start to think about it and make connections. Whether it’s a emotional connection, whether it’s connection through reading we just need a lot more of that. I think when they disengage from the cell phone, they’ll be able to engage more in everything else,” added Kubo.

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