Ontario’s New Phone Ban Laws

Ontario’s New Phone Ban Laws

By: Claire Celia Mae Tennant

Throughout the year, you may have heard of Ontario's new phone ban laws in classrooms all over the province. This proposed policy has been created with the intent to lessen distraction and eliminate cell phone use in classrooms. The purpose is to allow students to focus on their learning. Ontario will be restricting the use of cell phones in class starting November 2019. The movement for a cell phone ban gained momentum during the last provincial election. Premiere Ford highlighted classroom cell phone bans in his election platform.

     Those who support the ban list reasons such as cellphones being a distraction from class time caused by social media such as Instagram and Snapchat. By checking notifications, many students miss out on class time.  In addition, students who have their day monopolized by screen time on their phone miss out on social interaction. Cell phone overuse has also been known to limit concentration and time-management skills. Learning how to use the cellphone as a helpful tool takes practice. As teenagers, we have been born with cellphones and have become very used to them in every environment.  This can sometimes make it difficult to distinguish the negatives and positives of phone use. Teens are more likely to let the amount of time on their cell phone take up a large percent of their day. This prevents them from focusing on time management and the tasks at hand. And these negative consequences of cell phone use are likely what is driving the attempts to restrict phone use in educational settings such as public schools.  However, an overly strict complete ban on cell phone use, does not appear to be the best solution to addressing this problem.

A more beneficial solution would be providing students with education on the times that it is best to turn your phone off and put it away. Students should learn this as an independent skill without relying on teachers to monitor their use for them.  Teachers should be able to teach without telling students to put their phones away. A ban removes cell phone use from classrooms but does not teach students anything about cell phone etiquette. Cell phone etiquette dictates that there are many times that it is required that you put your phone away.  In society this occurs when watching a movie in a public movie theatre, when at a friend’s house for a party, when flying on airplanes, and when we are eating dinner at the family dinner table. At school, this occurs when the teacher is teaching, during group work, gym, and assemblies to name a few.  However, there are also times when it is perfectly acceptable, and even necessary to have your cellphone on. Because, as we know, our cell phones are excellent tools for finding sources in class. Having a cell phone gives you quick access to online projects, such as Google Classroom, Google docs and your Email which are often used by teachers. It's quick and easy to write down homework that needs to be completed or, to use for research. Cell phones are a valuable learning tool when used correctly, so does this mean a complete ban is necessary? A ban is an oversimplified answer to a complex situation.

This situation deserves much more consideration than a simple ban. This ban only addresses negatives of cellphone use, but cellphones aren't going anywhere in our future. Far better that we learn how to best use the technology while minimising distractions. Students have been growing up with phones all their lives; they are used everyday for a multitude of purposes. For this reason, determining phone use in classrooms should be made on a case by case decision. For instance if a teacher is delivering new information, that would likely be a time when phones should be off and away. However if it's a research period, phone use can be extremely beneficial to students. Shouldn’t it be the teacher's decision regarding phone use in their own class? Cell phones in classrooms can have positive and negative impacts depending on how they’re used. Labeling cell phones as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ does not teach us how to use them in an appropriate and socially acceptable manner. Developing a helpful protocol to advise best use of cell phones in an educational setting would be far more beneficial than a simplistic ban.