Middle school removes bathroom mirrors to stop kids from making TikToks::Southern Alamance Middle School in Graham, North Carolina has taken drastic steps to reduce the time kids spend outside of class.
Yep this will stop them making tiktoks alright
Why not just ban smartphones in school? There’s ample research now that they’re harmful to teen mental health
Because no one wants to deal with parents.
You can’t take them, because the district is worried they’ll get sued if one breaks. Your option is to tell the parent, and the parent will 80% come up with some bullshit excuse or accuse you of targeting their child. I worked one district that had a form we could fill out - after getting caught three times they were supposed to turn the phone in. Never happened.
Please. Do. Not. Send. Your. Child. To. School. With. A. Smartphone. DONT.
They are addicted. We’ve given them tech that adults can’t even manage to responsibly use. They don’t know how to be bored or curious. The behavior is just strange - when I’ve been fuck it and just taken a phone - they regress. 15 year olds babbling and throwing tantrums like toddlers.
Id feel safer sending my kid to school without a smartphone if I wasn’t scared there would be a school shooting or some other reason my kid would need to call me for help. I get the sense a lot of other parents feel that way too.
My kids are still too young for that but when they are in high school and maybe depending on the middle school I’ll probably start thinking about a phone of some kind.
Also my kids are bored all the time haha. Taking away their tablet or games is the best punishment most of the time when they argue. We are big on drawing over here though. Hard to stop a kid from drawing lol.
In a school shooting situation, cell phones could make things much worse. During my active shooter training, we were told to ask students to turn them off if we were in a shooting. The noise is an obvious danger, but the lines need to be kept clear for communication with emergency response personnel. There would be structured ways that the school would want to communicate with you - they don’t want the chaos of parents showing up to an active scene. I think it would be better to rely on things like the Rave app.
In other situations, the front office is there. That is the function that they have served for generations. Give the office aides something to do.
There’s just little reason for students to have smart phones in school. They cannot control themselves. We are asking them to have more self restraint than most adults do. It is not developmentally appropriate and it is harmful.
Is there research consensus on when children should be given phones? I would personally be very conservative about it, honestly.
I agree! There’s a campaign pushing to avoid giving kids phones until 8th grade, but I think even that seems a bit too young
Good luck with that, the highschool I went to had a hard enough time getting students to stop vaping at school and during class, smartphones would be a much bigger battle. I graduated in 2019 and I still remember when they would try to crack down on cell phone use, never really affected me that much cause I only ever used my phone during class if I was done with everything but I still saw it go the same way every time. It would always only ever last for a month or two before the teachers just gave up because in the end if someone doesn’t wanna pay attention during class taking away their distraction isn’t gonna make them. They’ll just find some other distraction like talking to people or just zoning out. The problem is school just isn’t engaging and sure you can blame cell phones and social media for making it harder for people to pay attention to things that they don’t wanna do. But that doesn’t mean the solution is to not allow them during school, cause I’ve seen from experience that doesn’t help even if you manage to take away the phones, which already is really hard without impacting students who are following the rules negatively.
Man I remember being in school and a cellphone or pager was instant suspension.
If I had a kid I’d straight up tell them do not listen to anyone who tells you you cant keep your phone on you, get in trouble if you must and I’ll take care of the rest. If it becomes a distraction Ill deal with it as a parent, but the last thing I want is a kid caught in any kind of emergency without even a chance to phone help.
“But the teacher has a phone”
Okay I dont care. What if the teacher becomes the emergency? What if the teacher steps outside to see what that noise is and doesn’t come back? Not leaving the safety of someone im responsible for in someone elses hands.
I can teach a kid anything they miss in elementary school. I can’t re-alive the dead.
I said “smartphones” not all phones. If I had a kid, I’d get them a flip phone so they could call or text me, but one without internet capabilities
Wouldn’t make a mite of difference to me unless they’ve already prooven they’re not responsible enough for a smart phone. Can’t expect them to learn to stay focused if you eliminate all possible distractions, your just setting them up to fail for once they get old enough to make and buy their own distractions.
Is your kid going to save the day with a cell phone? Do you think in that situation there is not going to be another adult who can call 911?
When you tell your child “just get in trouble and I’ll take care of the rest” you are telling the child that they don’t have to respect school rules. And having dealt with parents like you, your children turn out to be absolute terrors. (“Im texting my mom!” as you hear the fucking Rizzler song for the sixth time)
As part of my teaching training, I was in a program where I was not allowed to have my cell phone on me at all. 6 am to 9 pm, for almost two weeks. I survived.
Is your kid going to save the day with a cell phone? Do you think in that situation there is not going to be another adult who can call 911?
Yes and yes. Not every emergency effects every room or even every person.
I work in a developmental capacity with people and kids with disabilities. I’ve had clients in classes with their phones in pocket without issue. The Social Workers, Clinicians, Doctors, and other mental health professionals I work with daily prettymuch all do the same for their children, which came up when that wierd ‘national school shooting day’ tiktok trend or whatever happend encouraging it. All of this is coming from a professional place from people who actually have kids of varying ability, who get on just fine like that.
And I’m not sorry that upsets you. I am sorry you got a class of shitty kids, but if you think that ends if cell phones are in back packs I’d say think back to when you were in school, I don’t imagine there was a lack of horrible kids then either.
The cell phones do not stay in the backpack. They don’t. Sorry, a fourteen year old does not have the capacity to ignore the absolute barrage of notifications they get.
Also - every class room I have ever taught in had a phone. The classroom next door has a phone. The lab cabinet has a phone. If it’s really that important that you have 24/7 access, get a dumb phone. They’re cheaper anyway.
That’s great that you work with kids, but a classroom Is an entirely separate context. I invite you to go substitute in a classroom to get a better understanding about how my job differs from your job.
Few if any of the classrooms I’ve been in have landlines, from my schooling to today, speaking of, I do work in classroom setting frequently with my school age clients, and none of that changes the opinion of other professionals who I interact with and what they do for their kids.
So now they need to pull their phones out to see themselves. That’s totally logical.
It’s funny how this repeats every generation.
20 years back, my school removed mirrors in both the men’s and women’s washrooms, girls kept leaving lipstick on the mirrors, and the guys kept drawing on them with Sharpies.
They even removed toilet paper and hand towels because kids kept soaking it in water and throwing it up on the ceiling.
After that they even removed all the doors to the stalls in the men’s because kids kept leaving black marker “doodles” on them (ie. graffiti).
On my third year they ended up painting everything a very dark green colour. This included the walls, stalls and the ceiling to cover up all the black marker. The green made it almost impossible to make our any new graffiti added in black marker.
Was anyone else here brave enough to shit without a stall door? I had so much anxiety as a kid, but when u gotta go u gotta go.
Some kids tried to bully me and I was just like… I’m taking a shit, we all do it so fuck off. Still nerve wracking tho
I did it a couple times when I really had to go. I usually waited as along as I could after class started so no one was randomly in the bathroom in between classes.
If I were a school bully, I’d be concerned about the readily-available projectile that could emerge in this scenario. Only one type of asshole should be doing its job in there.
Most buildings or schools will have a barrier free washroom. If you find the school you are in removed the doors in the men’s and women’s the barrier free washrooms may be a good stop gap for privacy. Or try and find the faculty washrooms if you can sneak in. Another option is the gym/athletic change rooms, most times these get overlooked.
Edit: seems people do not know what a barrier free washroom is and assume it’s a washroom with no door.
Ie. Barrier free is a wheelchair accessible washroom commonly referred to as a handicapped washroom. This is a large single room washrooms usually located between the men’s and women’s washroom or off to the side. The washroom is self contained with a door toilet and sink. These washroom are unisex.
Hard disagree, we had similar issues at our high school and they removed the stall doors, and I was so petrified of my school bullies coming in while I was doing my business that I either used the faculty toilet or would just not go all day.
Back in my day they removed mirrors so we wouldn’t summon Bloody Mary.
Given that mirrors have never been an issue before TikTok, maybe, just maybe, the problem is elsewhere?
15-18 years ago when camera phones became commonly available for teenagers, but before front-facing cameras were built-in, we took selfies in the mirrors all day, most often to then upload them on our local pre-fb social media site for young people… I refuse to believe we were the only ones doing that.
However, I agree, that doesn’t mean the mirrors are the “problem”. Rather, there seem to be misaligned interests between the kids (some more interested in socializing, attention-seeking, being popular etc.) and the State-owned public schools (probably more interested in turning the kids into obedient “valuable citizens”). I think it’s better to reform the system than trying to deform the kids, but removing the mirrors doesn’t seem like the needed change…
A good move by the school.
