The 2024-25 school year has come with many adjustments for OHS students, the greatest of all being the reinforcement against personal cell phones. The culmination of years of air pod listeners, social media distractions, and more thumbs texting than ears listening, has led to the administrative implementation of cell phone pockets in every classroom.
Taking up wall space in every classroom, the cell phone pockets allow for designated cell phone resignation to the relief of many teachers across campus.
“I think teachers will have one less thing they have to worry about; I know for myself personally to not have to constantly be on the lookout for kids to be on their phones allows me to focus a lot more on teaching, which means my students are getting a better education than they were prior,” said Richard Weyker, Government and Economics teacher.
From easing teachers’ stress to providing a better learning environment for students, OHS has high hopes for the initial goal of the policy.
“Collectively as an administrative team, we were listening to teachers’ voices, and even through our admin walkthroughs we saw a lot of students on their cell phones, not paying attention to instruction, not communicating between each other, and so our greatest goal is for students to be engaged in classroom instruction, and protect our learning environment,” said Dr. Julia Spurgeon, Assistant Principal.
While the difficulty of breaking old and adapting new habits this school year is no surprise, only time will tell the true necessity of the policy and the reform it will initiate.
“For most kids, the biggest adjustment is not having that immediate access to their phone and being forced to focus in classes,” said Jaya Amoako-Agyei, senior.
Between instant gratification and digital addition, personal technology has a grasp on the modern generation through readily available handheld devices, altering the culture of classrooms.
“While it’s not so much these things are making us dumber, by fracturing our attention it’s making it harder to learn and absorb what we’re supposed to be doing, and I think students are going to realize they’re performing better in school as a result,” Weyker said.
The administrative perspective of technology within the classrooms is not obsolete, and students themselves admit honestly the benefits the new policy provides.
“Compared to my last three years here, I honestly don’t think it has been too much of a dramatic adjustment for me. I think it always depends on the person, but now that I am forced to focus in my classes more, I think it has been beneficial, and I think it’s something you just have to adjust to,” Amoako-Agyei said.
Between the administration, the teachers, and the students, this change demands an all ‘hands-on’ effort, as well as the constant enforcement of protocol to produce effective results from the policy in its entirety.
“If a student should not be on their cell phone then we kindly coach the teacher, and just say that our expectations and goals for learning is for students to have their cell phones in the pouches or in their bags, so the learning environment is protected,” Spurgeon said.
As attention spans are undoubtedly growing, the apprehension against technology can be wearisome in a generation that has adopted it so fluently.
“We shouldn’t be running away from technology, we should be embracing it, so it’s a hard balance to find between utilizing technology while seeing its drawbacks,” Weyker said.
The true initiative of the cell phone policy is not to hinder the abundance of technology, but to rather solidify a healthy balance within the education system.
“One, we are not preaching they can’t have it all, that’s not realistic. Two, we’re saying be attentive when you’re supposed to be attentive, and that’s no different than us in our administrative meetings, or a staff meeting, or a district conference, or any other professional place we go, there are definite expectations for how adults use cell phones,” Spurgeon said.
The new cell phone policy has been implemented to not only promote productive learning environments, but to also engrain skills of self control and interactive communication into the betterment of OHS students; Lead, learn, contribute, and detach from your cell phones.
“As we coach our high school students, from high school, to post secondary, into life, these are all great skills that kids must have in order to be engaged citizens,” Spurgeon said.
