http://www.courts.state.nh.us/student/contest.htm

I'm currently discussing any and all things tangentially related to this site with another Jew. How about the rest of you scalliwags weigh in?

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A portion of my response to the person, btw, just to give some of my personal opinion:

Quote:But to bring it back to the original discussion, I absolutely do not believe a student needs a cell phone to be out during class, any more than I need mine out during my job, and I would expect some sort of discipline in either case for breaking the rules. But I draw the line at the idea that they should be confiscated (my brother has a cell phone because my mother is a single parent and he has a sports schedule - were it to be confiscated because he accidentally flashed it, he would have no way to get a hold of my mother - they have removed all of the payphones) or completely banned. I have a very dim view of the link you gave and its reasons for disliking cell phones - all of those things could be accomplished with or without a phone. It’s something on the order of property rights, I think, and less to do with free speech. No one’s limiting a students right to say what they want to say by taking their cell phone or banning it, but they are confiscating private property by doing so.

Off the top of my head
No school has the right to "confiscate property"

Students have the right to behave in a suitably polite and ethically balanced manner when taking classes at 'school'
meh

Exactly where does the constitution address cell phones?

Right after the bit about the ethics behind selling things on eBay

I'd agree with you, Summer. The school has every right to say it can't be out or used during class as it is definitely a distraction and kids are already distracted enough. But, to confiscate it when it's personal property, no, that would be wrong. But, there should be some type of punishment if the cell phone usage is banned and the student does attempt to use it... maybe the principal's office or detention but it should not be taken away.

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(September 27, 2011 at 12:42 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Exactly where does the constitution address cell phones?

I think this is what they were referring to:

"Parents, concerned about safety, brought a court case and argued that the ban violated their constitutional right "to provide for the care, custody and control of their children" under the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, one of the oldest "fundamental liberty interests" recognized by the US Supreme Court. "

http://www.courts.state.nh.us/student/contest.htm

Schools should have students keep their cell phones in their lockers. If there is an emergency, a parent can call the school. If it's important, but not an emergency, the student can check their phone/call between classes.

The only constitutional issue here is property rights, and yes: they absolutely are beyond their jurisdiction unless the cell phone in question is being used as a weapon... and they probably need a warrant to do anything about it engaging in illegal trading.

But not like that matters. Schooling where you are not interested in the material is schooling that is not helping you. Taking the cell phone is irrelevant to teaching. There is only one class I remember anything from in high school, and I certainly didn't have a cell phone to deal with my boredom... and I was there but 2-3 years ago. The class in question was Russian, and the reason I retained anything from it is that the teacher had an entertaining teaching style that made me (and most everyone in the class) actually interested in the subject material. You didn't chat with your friends in his class... not because of anything he did (he was lax about every rule under the sun)... but because you wanted to pay attention to the class.

Honestly: You cannot force learning... and trying to do so will only cause resentment, irritation, frustration, and other fun things that not only don't assist the learning process as intended... but actively forestalls your ability to teach someone anything.

(September 27, 2011 at 10:17 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: Well, I'm not. I'm arguing with an old codger about education and whether cell phones should be confiscated in schools or not. I'll make a new thread.

They shouldn't be.

Elemetary-middle-high schools are places you are made to come to for the purpose of learning. You will almost never retain something if you don't care about it. If you find your cell phone more interesting than your classes: the school has failed to make you care about it, and all that taking your cell phone away will do is to cause (further) resentment towards authority and to detach you even more from the material.

College is on your own head... a teacher might find it pointless (as do I) to text-chat in the middle of a class, but even then there would be nothing good accomplished by a(n) (extremely out of jurisdiction) removal of their cell phones.

The legal term here, Heather, is "in loco parentis," defined as:

Quote:The term in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent" or "instead of a parent,"[1] refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent.

As Shell said, if a parent needs to contact their kid during the day they can call the school and say so. I can see a need for the schools to regulate this issue. How would you like to be teaching a class where every other kid is talking or texting? How would you be certain who they are talking or texting with?

Frankly, kids today need to be told "no" once in a while. It builds character.

for the record, I agree - I just don't think they have the right to confiscate it. Give the kid detention.

Depends on what they mean by "confiscate." If it means that the kid has to leave the phone in the Assistant Principal's office until the end of school that's one thing.

If they mean the school takes it and throws it in the shitter that's something completely different.