I don't understand the problem. Of course kids should have their phones at school! But that doesn't mean that they should be allowed to use them during class.
If kids are using their phone during class then you either confiscate the phone or kick the student out of the class. If they do it during a test you mark them down as cheating and fail them.
>How do we expect kids to pay attention or be productive with a smartphone in their pocket?
I think this is setting them up for the future, because in the future they are going to have a smartphone in their pocket at all times. They're going to have to learn to handle that eventually.
But in the pocket doesn't mean in hand.
Outside of class time though? It's nobody else's business what they do.
In the future those kids are also going to have the ability to buy alcohol, tobacco, junk food, weapons, motorcycles, fireworks, etc.
It's looking more and more like we should be putting phones into a similar category. Children should likely be more protected against the harms of phones until they have developed more to have a greater ability to use them safely.
>alcohol, tobacco, junk food, weapons, motorcycles, fireworks, etc.
All of these, except junk food, are banned in some place or another by power-tripping governments. Although they are working on the junk food part. Is the implication to get phones banned altogether?
>Children should likely be more protected against the harms of phones until they have developed more to have a greater ability to use them safely.
It's funny that nobody seems to be able to point out what this unsafe thing is that they're being protected from. All you get are social science studies during the replication crisis in one of the sloppiest sciences we have and it's protected by moralizing. I don't see anything concrete in the harm that people are talking about that rivals things like traffic accidents (kids play outside more = more victims of traffic), general injuries (swimming, falls etc) etc.
This all just sounds like the old "don't sit too close to the TV, it will ruin your eyes" or "d&d is satanic" that we were scared with as kids.
If kids are using their phone during class then you either confiscate the phone or kick the student out of the class. If they do it during a test you mark them down as cheating and fail them.
>How do we expect kids to pay attention or be productive with a smartphone in their pocket?
I think this is setting them up for the future, because in the future they are going to have a smartphone in their pocket at all times. They're going to have to learn to handle that eventually.
But in the pocket doesn't mean in hand.
Outside of class time though? It's nobody else's business what they do.