A few weeks ago, we were sitting outside the library at the end of the day and saw a student on his phone. He was sitting with his friend watching something when suddenly a faculty member walked by and snatched his phone. Instead of greeting the student, the faculty member simply said, “You can pick it up at 3:15 in the high school office,” and walked away.
Head of School Russell Shaw and High School Principal Yom Fox sent out an email over the summer announcing a new phone policy, banning phones on campus from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Shaw and Fox argued that a phone ban would help students “prioritize mental and emotional health by setting healthy technology boundaries.” However, the reality of the policy’s impact is different from what it intended to accomplish: It has complicated the relationships between teachers and students that are vital to the traditionally supportive and communicative GDS culture.
The administration has consistently told us, whether it be in all-high school assemblies or class meetings, that teachers are here to support students academically but also more generally in our lives. However, the phone ban forces teachers to act in strictly authoritative roles. Instead of supporting students, teachers are now enforcers of a controlling policy; students have started to view them as figures eager to take our phones and punish us for disobeying the phone policy.
In their email, Shaw and Fox added that this ban would help students “forge deeper connections with peers and teachers, enhancing community bonds.” However, regardless of the positive intentions behind the ban, it has created an environment where teacher’s compliance with the phone ban is valued over connection between students and teachers.
Often, students use their phones during school hours for legitimate reasons like calling their parents or filming videos for school purposes. Since the phone policy doesn’t have many exceptions, teachers are unable to address situations where kids use their phones during school hours with the right amount of empathy because they must abide by the rule. Teachers rarely give students the opportunity to explain why they are on their phones before taking them.
It is important for faculty to follow the rules set by the administration, and students should respect the teachers’ authority. But sometimes teachers cross a line when they take our phones without giving us an opportunity to explain ourselves. Often, it seems like teachers are excited to take our phones—some even smile or laugh when they do it. One of our teachers took a student’s phone right before class started and laughed as she left the room to bring it to the high school office.
“It never felt like teachers had a higher power than students—it felt like everyone was together,” senior Daniel Reilly said. “And recently it feels like there has been a shift to a teacher hierarchy.”
We have seen many teachers take students’ phones all over the school—in the Forum, in classrooms and in the hallways. In a lot of those situations, the teachers are actively searching for students using their phones. Some teachers even take phones when students are walking into the school as they’re putting their IDs into their phone cases to store them. Others take students’ phones one or two minutes before 3:15 p.m. right before the phone ban is lifted. We have also heard many stories of teachers taking phones when students are using them for important things that may not fall under the list of exceptions of the policy (which generally consist of health-related exceptions) but are still necessary.
“I think students and teachers need to be on the same page that taking students’ phones is not supposed to be authoritative, but following rules for the betterment of our community,” associate director of community engagement and experiential learning Michelle McKeever said.
We agree with McKeever’s sentiment—teachers and students should be on the same page about the phone ban. Having dialogue between the administration, students and teachers is crucial for the three parties to find common ground.
We suggest that the administration encourage and welcome student feedback about the policy. If students had more say in the phone ban and the way it’s implemented, teachers wouldn’t have to take so many kids’ phones because there would be more student buy-in to the rule. We hope that teachers will start to repair the GDS culture of trust by being nicer to students when they take our phones and giving us the opportunity to explain why we were using the phones in the first place; maybe if students have a valid reason for using a phone—like a family emergency or a school-related activity—teachers wouldn’t take the phone immediately. Students would feel much more comfortable and supported if teachers emphasized the benefits of less screen use when they take our phones instead of seemingly enjoying taking them and therefore straining their relationships with students.