At Last, Some Sanity

…even if it’s coming from the French, surely one of the loopiest nations on Earth.

Smartphones and tablets have been banned from all French schools ahead of the academic year, after a new law was voted through Parliament yesterday.  The phone ban will apply to all pupils in France up to the age of 15, as of the start of the new term in September.

I’ve always thought that giving kids smartphones was a recipe for disaster — similar to letting them go play all day and night in a mall, unsupervised.  And I don’t want to hear whines of “What about their securityyyy?” either.  If that’s so important to Mumsy (or actually, Madamesy), she can buy little Francine or Jacques a flip (dumb) phone.  Calls and texts only (and only a few of those, too).

Perhaps — and I know this is a radical thought — the schools can actually keep a closer eye on the little dears for a change.

And if the kids go all whiney at the indignity and the oppressive injustice of it all, we can call it a cheap life lesson.

7 comments

  1. Don’t need phones. I think the proper way to handle this is to put wifi cameras in the schools. Two to each classroom, on behind the teacher focused on the students, and one behind the students, focused on the teacher. Give only parents the passwords to access. I suspect a lot of bad behavior on the part of both students AND teachers would evaporate. Of course, the teacher’s unions would never stand for it.

    1. Can you say “trainwreck of insecurity and general badness because government did it”?

      There’s a really good solution here, that oddly doesn’t involve banning anything or big brother in the classroom: Grade on performance, both ways. Crap teachers go away, crap students flunk. You know, how education used to work.

  2. Our daughter has a smart phone because we didn’t *buy* her a phone, she got mum’s phone when I upgraded and wife got mine.

    She has a phone because we don’t have a POTS line to the house.

    We also removed all of the games (except Pokemon Go, which she can only play while running around outside), and do not allow her to take *any* electronics into her room, especially at night.

    And when she starts school this month (we’ve been home schooling for the last several years) she’s not taking it to school.

    I’ve always felt that “nerd dildos” as one of my acquaintances calls them, are a very mixed “blessing”.

    1. “I’ve always felt that “nerd dildos” as one of my acquaintances calls them, are a very mixed “blessing”.”
      Like quite a few things (guns, knives, cars, explosives & power tools) being used in a responsible manner is a prerequisite.

  3. One advantage of giving your kid a dumb phone is that when (not “if”) they lose it, it’s much cheaper to replace.

    Darlin’ Daughter got one in Jr High, for OUR convenience. The lack of payphones or other accessible phones to call to be picked up from various activities made it easier on us even back then.

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