When I was about 12, I had my first taste of alcohol. I guess my parents were breaking the law by allowing a minor to consume booze, but one Christmas when our extended family got together to celebrate at our house, my mother and father made a point of giving me a wine glass for what amounted to a couple of sips of the stuff.
“Merry Christmas!” we all toasted, and like the adults around the table, I was invited to clink my glass with theirs and enjoyed that first taste of alcohol.
From then on, it turned out, if I wanted a bit of wine with our family dinners, my parents always set the glass out for me. The same held true for my younger sister when she was about the same age. We were both underage. But clearly there was method to my parents’ apparent madness. Their theory was if there’s no taboo associated with something – a.k.a. access to alcohol – it was a pretty safe bet neither my sister nor I would crave it, steal it, or drink it behind our parents’ backs. Their theory proved to be pretty practical.
I thought about that sip of wine this week as I watched news footage of Education Minister Stephen Lecce announcing the provincial government’s ban on cellphone use in Ontario schools. The legislation means that cellphones are banned in elementary schools throughout the day, and during classes at the middle school and high school levels: Students in Grades 7 to 12 may only use their phones between classes and over lunch.
Lecce announced the penalties too: If students violate the new rules, their phones will have to be “immediately surrendered.” Exceptions are allowed for learning purposes. “We need rigour in our schools,” the minister said.
One would have thought that was the objective when the Ford government established limits on cellphone use in schools five years ago, in 2019. At the media conference – held rather oddly on Sunday – the minister added, “at the end of the day, we’re talking about behavioural and addiction issues.”
In a way, he’s echoing the initiative of Ontario school boards suing social media giants TikTok, Snapchat and Meta (the owner of Instagram and Facebook) for allowing their content and users to deliberately damage students’ mental health and interfere with their learning.
I checked the Technology Acceptable Use Policy (TAUP) prescribed by the Durham Public School Board. Its Clause 3040 outlines that “today’s 21st century classrooms must use technology in order to achieve … academic goals for its students (with such devices as) computers, interactive whiteboards, mobile devices, websites, networks, servers, the Internet, phones, copiers, facsimile machines, televisions, email accounts and licensed softwear.”
The clause further states that failure to comply could result in revocation of privileges, suspension or dismissal. Then, the policy outlines 14 lengthy guidelines. TAUP was adopted by Durham in 1996 and last updated in 2012. That’s a dozen years ago. Since then, I suggest, what were minor disciplinary problems in schools have become epidemic.
I taught at the college level for nearly 20 years (until 2017) just as cellphone use became ubiquitous. As a journalism and broadcasting instructor, I tried in vain to incorporate my students’ device use to internet data gathering, source searching, and wireless transfer of their photos and stories. Inevitably, all the other stuff they could find on their phones got in the way.
My students continually texted in class. They group chatted all the time or YouTube surfed. Frankly, the horse is long out of the barn on intrusive phone use. What’s more, teachers have enough to deal with in class without becoming cellphone use cops. It’s a culture that needs addressing not with a ban, but with government funding to improve students’ habits and mental health.
Nearly all students interviewed on the streets the past few days have called the government’s actions “too authoritative,” “an invasion of privacy” and “impossible to implement.” Tristan Kim, president of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, told the Toronto Star that taking students’ cellphones away is like “handing over a wallet.”
Yes, rules are sometimes difficult to swallow, but I echo one parent’s poignant reminder on CBC Radio, “Cellphones are a privilege, not a right,” she said.
And there might be the heart of the problem. The Ford government can introduce legislation to ban all it likes and claim, as the premier did, “It’s not that complicated.” But I believe unless parents and grandparents deal with cellphone use at a child’s homework desk, around the kitchen table and in the family car first, bans in classes won’t likely work.
Perhaps a sip of permissiveness may avoid a whole vat of penalty.