Meanwhile, over the pond, it seems as if British teachers dislike cell phones in the hands of kids even more than many educators in this country.
One of the teaching unions wants the devices to be classified as “potentially offensive weapons”.
NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said the way pupils misused them to bully their teachers meant they should be banned from school premises.
She has sent evidence of more than 100 cases of teachers being abused and bullied by phone, e-mail and online.
Since Keates also lists social networking sites like Bebo and RateMyTeacher as tools for abuse, it sounds as if she also wants the internet removed from the hands of kids.
She said: “These sites are fed by pupils’ misuse of mobile phones. The time has come for mobiles in schools to be placed in the category of a potentially offensive weapon and action taken to prevent their use by pupils while on school premises.
Yes, of course. The technology is at fault and if we just get rid of the phones the kids will suddenly become model citizens and love their teachers.
I totally agree with you. Students have “bullied” teachers since time immemorial. So now they’ve graduated from spitballs, notes, and silly little rhymes to movies and webpages – which is worse. However the key to reversing this trend is not slapping on more rules for students to break. — Since we all know that rules are *meant* to be broken.– Students need to be taught about the ethical and legal issues involved in such internet use.