马萨诸塞州学校严厉打击课堂使用手机行为，这让老师和学生产生了矛盾

【中美创新时报2024 年 8 月 28 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周三学生返回伊普斯威奇高中时，他们必须交出手机和其他个人设备，包括笔记本电脑，这些设备将在整个上课期间被锁起来。这项新政策代表了学校教育工作者在对抗学生强迫性地拿出手机（违反课堂规则）查看社交媒体、玩游戏甚至看电影方面取得的重大胜利。更让老师们担心的是学生之间因发帖和网络欺凌而爆发的争吵。《波士顿环球报》记者通讯员James Vaznis、Auzzy Byrdsell 和 Steph Ware 对此作了下述详细报道。

伊普斯威奇高中是马萨诸塞州越来越多禁止使用手机和其他个人设备的公立学校之一，目的是重新控制课堂，让学生专注于学习，改善他们的整体心理健康。梅休因、福尔里弗、桑威奇和先锋谷地区等学区的学生将受到更严格的限制。

波士顿也在加强手机禁令，今年早些时候与 Yondr 签订了一份为期三年、价值 843,000 美元的合同，该公司生产个人磁锁袋，学生可以把手机放进去。

小学和中学教育部在过去一年向 77 个学区提供了近 130 万美元的拨款，以减少学生的手机使用量。大约四分之三的学区使用资金购买了袋子、储物柜、充电站等。

美国国家教育统计中心报告称，在 2021-22 学年，全国约四分之三的学区禁止在校期间使用手机进行非学术活动。

但学生经常无视规则，或者执行不力。教师在试图与分心的学生沟通时变得越来越沮丧。去年 5 月，在伊普斯威奇高中，一份要求强制禁令的请愿书迅速获得了教育工作者的近乎一致的支持，迫使管理人员做出回应。

“我们筋疲力尽，”英语教师、伊普斯威奇教育者协会主席贝基·斯劳森说。“我们不想再打这场仗了。我们想教我们的孩子，与他们建立关系，培养他们，帮助他们学会以健康和有益的方式相互交流。要做到这一点，他们需要放下手机。”

伊普斯威奇高中的新政策延续了过去限制使用手机的努力，包括将手机放在像鞋子一样的口袋里，或者由各个老师自行决定是否允许使用手机。但问题仍然存在。

一些老师甚至尝试将手机作为学习工具融入课堂作业中，但 Instagram、TikTok、游戏和其他社交渠道的应用程序对学生来说太诱人了。

学校管理部门在收到请愿书后，成立了一个由教育工作者组成的委员会来探讨禁令的选项，最终决定使用可以存放在现有的带锁柜子中的收集箱。（伊普斯威奇高中没有获得国家对其项目的资助。）

校长乔纳森·米切尔 (Jonathan Mitchell) 表示，将禁令扩大到其他个人设备是有道理的，因为它们通常带有与手机相同的应用程序。相反，学生将需要依赖学校发放的笔记本电脑，这会限制访问。

这一变化引起了一些争议。 6 月份，一名学生在 Change.org 上发起请愿，呼吁废除新的手机政策，该请愿书已收到 250 多个签名。请愿书中列举了广泛的担忧，例如阻止学生在紧急情况下联系父母。

“更有争议的是，在学校做作业和考试比在学校使用手机更让人焦虑，”请愿书中写道。

其他学校也出现了反对禁令的声音，例如洛厄尔高中、新贝德福德高中和福尔里弗的几所学校。

越来越多的研究表明社交媒体对青少年心理健康有害，手机在课堂上会分散注意力，因此颁布了禁令。

全国各地的学校官员也报告称，学生使用手机访问社交媒体、引发争吵并煽动他们在社交媒体上挑战破坏学校财产的行为导致的扰乱事件激增。佛罗里达州和印第安纳州等州已通过法律，禁止学生在课堂上使用手机。

今年早些时候，一项关于挪威 400 所中学智能手机禁令的研究发现，女孩的学业成绩和心理健康显著改善，男孩和女孩之间的网络欺凌减少。作者表示，女孩受益更多，因为她们往往更多地使用手机。

马萨诸塞州禁止使用个人设备的学校的领导也发现，学业成绩有所提高，纪律问题减少。许多取得最大成功的学校都在使用可锁的磁性 Yondr 袋。

据学校委员会的报告称，牛顿的 F.A. Day 中学在去年要求学生将手机放在袋子里后，立即取得了成效。六个月内，手机违规事件下降到不到二十起，而上一学年的六个月内发生了 363 起。网络欺凌和破坏浴室、走廊和其他公共区域的事件也有所减少。

波士顿北端 Eliot K-8 创新学校的校长 Traci Walker Griffith 表示，从 2022 年开始使用手机袋的高年级学生彼此之间建立了更牢固的联系，破坏性行为有所减少。她说，同样重要的是，当学生违反政策时，要从根本上解决问题，而不是仅仅依靠惩罚措施，这可以发现学生可能遇到的问题。

“是什么让你如此想拿出手机，以至于毁掉了手机袋？”她说。

根据社交媒体视频，学生可以用各种方式打开手机袋，例如将它们摔在桌子上。

Jennifer Catella 的女儿即将进入弗雷明翰 Christa McAuliffe 特许学校八年级，她说她的女儿发现手机袋的使用改变了学校的文化。

“上课时不会有其他学生偷看手机或接电话的干扰，”卡特拉说，她指出，学生们在课间休息时更加社交，上课时也更加专注。

伊普斯威奇高中即将升入二年级的学生约西亚·布莱克说，他认为禁令会改善他的教育。

“这对我们的心理健康有好处，”布莱克说。“我们的手机有点毁了学校。人们总是拿着手机，不互相交谈。”

即将升入二年级的学生斯特拉·惠滕说，她认为禁令可能会帮助学生专注于学业。

“有时这是一种干扰，”她说。“我认为这可能有助于我的心理健康，因为当我使用手机时，我会感到内疚。”

《波士顿环球报》特约撰稿人丹·格劳恩对本报道亦有贡献。

题图：今年秋天，学校手机禁令激增，各学区使用不同的方法在上课期间存放手机。Rick Bowmer/美联社

附原英文报道：

Mass. schools are cracking down on cellphones in class. It’s putting teachers and students at odds.

By James Vaznis, Auzzy Byrdsell and Steph Ware Globe Staff  and Globe Correspondent,Updated August 27, 2024

IPSWICH — When students return to Ipswich High School on Wednesday, they will have to hand over their cellphones and other personal devices, including laptops, which will be locked up throughout the school day.

The new policy represents a major victory among the school’s educators in fighting their students’ compulsive need to take out the phones — in defiance of classroom rules — to check social media, play games, or even watch movies. More concerning to teachers were the arguments that erupted between students over postings and cyberbullying.

Ipswich High is among a growing number of Massachusetts public schools banning cellphones and other personal devices to regain control over classrooms, and to keep students focused on learning and improve their overall mental well-being. Tighter restrictions will greet students in such districts as Methuen, Fall River, Sandwich, and Pioneer Valley Regional.

Boston also is ramping up its cellphone ban, awarding a three-year, $843,000 contract earlier this year to Yondr, a company that makes individual magnetic locked pouches that students can put their phones in.

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which awarded nearly $1.3 million in grants to 77 districts over the past year to reduce cellphone usage among students. About three-quarters of districts used funding to purchase pouches, lockers, charging stations, and the like.

The National Center for Education Statistics reported about three-quarters of the nation’s districts prohibited the non-academic use of cellphones during the school day for the 2021-22 school year.

But students often ignore the rules or enforcement is lax. Teachers have become increasingly frustrated as they try to get through to distracted students. At Ipswich High, a petition calling for a mandatory ban last May quickly garnered near-unanimous support among educators, pressuring administrators to respond.

“We’re exhausted,” said Becky Slawson, an English teacher and president of the Ipswich Educators’ Association. “We don’t want to fight this battle anymore. We want to teach our kids, build relationships with them, build them up, and help them learn how to interact with each other in a healthy and rewarding way. To do that, they need to get off their phones.”

Ipswich High’s new policy follows past efforts to curb cellphone use, which included students placing cellphones in shoe-like pockets or leaving the decision whether to allow cellphones to the discretion of individual teachers. But problems persisted.

Some teachers even tried integrating cellphones into class assignments as learning tools, but apps for Instagram, TikTok, games, and other social outlets proved too tempting for students.

School administration, after receiving the petition, formed a committee of educators to explore options for the ban, settling on collection bins that can be stored in preexisting locked cabinets. (Ipswich High didn’t receive state funding for its program.)

Jonathan Mitchell, the principal, said extending the ban to other personal devices made sense since they often carry the same apps as phones. Instead, students will need to rely on their school-issued laptops, which restrict access.

The change proved somewhat controversial. A student launched a petition on Change.org in June, calling for scrapping the new cellphone policy, which received more than 250 signatures. The petition cited wide-ranging concerns, such as preventing students from contacting parents in an emergency.

“It’s much more arguable that there is a greater amount of anxiety that comes from homework and tests at school rather than use of phones at school,” the petition said.

Opposition to bans has emerged at other schools, such as Lowell High, New Bedford High, and several in Fall River.

The bans come amid growing research documenting harmful effects of social media on youth mental health and distractions that phones cause in classrooms.

School officials around the nation also have reported spikes in disruptions caused by students accessing social media on their phones, sparking fights and goading them into social media challenges to vandalize school property. States, such as Florida and Indiana, have passed laws banning student cellphones in class.

A study earlier this year on smartphone bans at 400 middle schools in Norway found notable improvements in academic performance and mental health among girls and a decrease in cyberbullying among girls and boys. The authors said girls benefited more because they tend to use cellphones more.

Leaders of Massachusetts schools that have banned personal devices also have found increased academic achievement and fewer disciplinary issues. Many schools with the greatest successes are using the locked, magnetic Yondr pouches.

F.A. Day Middle School in Newton saw immediate results after requiring students last school year to place their cellphones in the pouches, according to a School Committee presentation. Cellphone violations dropped to less than two dozen over six months, compared to 363 incidents for six months of the previous school year. Cyberbullying and vandalism of bathrooms, hallways, and other common areas also declined.

Traci Walker Griffith, principal of the Eliot K-8 Innovation School in Boston’s North End, said students in the upper grades, which began using the pouches in 2022, are forging stronger bonds with one another and disruptive behavior has decreased. Just as important, she said, is getting at root causes when students violate the policy rather than relying only on punitive measures, which can uncover problems students might be having.

“What is it that’s making you want to get your phone out so much that you’re destroying a pouch?” she said.

Students can break open the pouches in a variety of ways, such as slamming them on a table, according to social media videos.

Jennifer Catella, whose daughter is going into the eighth grade at the Christa McAuliffe Charter School in Framingham, said her daughter found the use of the pouches changed the school’s culture.

“There weren’t those distractions in class when another student was trying to sneak looking at their phone or received a phone call,” said Catella, noting students were more social at recess and more focused in class..

Ipswich High School rising sophomore Josiah Black said he thought the ban will better his education.

“It is better for our mental health,” Black said. “Our phones are kind of ruining school. People are always on their phones and not talking with [each other].”

Rising sophomore Stella Whitten said she thought the ban could potentially help students focus on schoolwork.

“Sometimes it is a distraction,” she said. “I think it could help my mental health because when I’m on my phone I feel guilty.”

Globe staff writer Dan Glaun contributed to this report.