Chin Up, Eyes Open
After assisting with an event for her classmates, one of my students recently expressed frustration over the fact that so many of her fellow students couldn’t, or wouldn’t, follow instructions. “They couldn’t even figure out how to form a line!” she complained. She was only echoing a sentiment that my colleagues and I had also expressed. It seems that, for all the more access and opportunity that younger generations have in comparison to those that came before them, they are less and less capable of self-awareness and social courtesies.
As a high school teacher, I find myself having to teach behaviors and expectations that I used to be able to expect of students. For example, one of my greatest classroom management challenges in the past few years has centered around students talking. I don’t expect my classroom to be quiet all of the time. In fact, I do a lot of group work, and my classroom is often loud because my students are collaborating, but I do expect students to be respectful of the learning environment when it needs to be quiet. I expect them to listen when I or one of their peers is talking, and I expect them to remain quiet when an assessment is taking place. In recent years, however, this is an expectation I now have to teach, even to juniors and seniors in high school. It often feels like my students are only worried about themselves. If they are finished with their assessment, they will talk, regardless of how many other students are still testing. If they have something to say, they say it to their neighbors, even if another student is answering a question or presenting to the class. If I am trying to get everyone’s attention for instructions or clarification, they will finish their conversation before turning their attention to me. It’s not all of my students, but it’s enough of them to be a point of frustration. Maybe the worst part about it is that I honestly don’t think that any of these behaviors are intentional disrespect. I genuinely think that, for most of my students, there is a lack of understanding about the impact their behavior can have on others.
There are plenty of psychologists and sociologists trying to figure out the multi-faceted and complex causes and long-term impacts of these behavioral changes, but certainly one of the causes is cell phones. The students I now teach have never known life without cellphones and tablets, and often from too young of an age, they have shifted their attention from the world around them to the world they can hold in their hands. Unfortunately, observation and interaction with the world are essential to learning. If people, not just kids, are spending all of their time looking down at their phones, they are not observing what’s happening around them. They only focus on their individual needs instead of observing how others behave in social situations. It’s so bad that, even when they don’t have a device with them, they don’t know how to pay attention to the people and things that surround them. They don’t instinctively form a line because they just know that they need to get a ticket from the table and don’t realize that everyone else does too. They don’t remain respectfully quiet at their seats while others finish testing because they just know that they’ve finished and want to move on to something else. While sometimes these behaviors are just the actions of selfish people, too often I think they reflect a lack of self-awareness that is usually developed by watching and reacting to one’s surroundings.
Despite my student’s frustration about her peers’ inability to form a line, I will admit in the first few weeks of this school year, I have noticed a subtle change. Thanks to the new law about cell phones in classrooms, my students are less distracted. Very few students have struggled to abide by the strictly enforced policies because they understand the consequences. Even if their reason for following the rules now, when they disregarded them in the past, is because they don’t want to lose their phones and be unable to access them outside of school, the law is having a positive impact. Collectively, students seem less angry, less anxious, more engaged in their classes, and more respectful of others.
I hope that not being able to access their phones during the school day will ultimately act as a detox for school-aged children. I hope that they will get used to not having to check their phones constantly. I hope they lose the sense of anxiety that comes with constant access. I hope that, over time, they won’t feel so tethered to their devices and can figure out who they are as people beyond the virtual identity they’ve created for themselves online. And most importantly, I hope that even when they can have access to their phone, rather than allowing their screens to suck them back in, they’ll keep their chins up and their eyes open to the world they’ve been missing out on.
