By Jackson Haines
Managing Editor
Recent events have Neshaminy administrators flirting with the idea of a cell phone ban. First, on Tuesday, Oct.28 and Wednesday Oct.29, Neshaminy joined a long list of schools to fall victim to “Yik Yak.” Yik Yak is a location based, anonymous-poster social media app which can unfortunately double as an cyber-bullying forum. At Neshaminy, it proved to be just that– with inappropriate and insulting messages running rampant.
To handle the situation, a temporary, more stringent cell phone policy was enacted– but for only a day. On Friday, Oct. 31, Neshaminy was rocked by a sexting scandal, which allegedly involved a large number of people across the student body. The school was made aware of the situation after a student saw a classmate with inappropriate images on his or her phone.
Now, the school has gone back to the status quo on cell phones, although many community members believe that cell phones should be banned altogether.
In this context, it is the view of the editorial board that the banning of cell phones should not be undertaken. Though these past few weeks may have convinced some that cell phones and school simply do not go together, the problems apparently caused by cell phones have alternative methods of fixing, that do not require the banning of phones. Phones and technology will have an important role in the future of ecuation, and to the ban them would be counter-intuitive. Rather, solutions like the “geofence” on Yik Yak, and an emphasis on the negative effetcts of sexting could solve our problems.
If Neshaminy is proactive in doing this, and they take a lead in encouraging productive and appropriate phone use, we as a school can only benefit.
Yet some sentiment still leans to a cell phone ban, which, in any case, wouldn’t help. Bans at Neshaminy are historically ill-enforced, and this one is impossible to enforce. Neshaminy cannot enforce a cell phone ban, because they cannot monitor the bathrooms, or confiscate all the phones that will surely be out during a locker.
But that doesn’t rule out the ban as a choice altogether. This does: A ban on cell phones will put Neshaminy back in a developing, high-tech world. Technology is the future of education; other schools use phones for a productive purpose– phones can be used to access educational apps, ones like CollaborizeClassroom.org, Edmodo, and WikiSpaces– in classes where laptops are unavailable. Not everybody has a cell phone of this capability, so their use can’t be instutionalized– banning them, however, would be an imprudent move.
The problems that have plagued Neshaminy these past few weeks are not inherently caused by cell phones either. With the introduction of the “geofence,” the Yik-Yak problem has been solved at Neshaminy. The sexting problem can be solved through education, If students are taught in school of the dangers of texting– of the possible and foreseeable disciplinary and legal action that comes with it– than they will be less likely to do it. This problems can be solved without a blanket ban of electronic devices.
Technology is the future of education. To prohibit the use of technology is to miss an opportunity to improve a Neshaminy education. If administration attacks the problems themselves (which they have so far been successful in doing) and not the medium on which they developed, than this situation would be handled properly. The administration has done just that, although the situation is still developing.
