Teachers take their students’ phones up in order to remove distractions, but many students feel that it is against their rights for a teacher to confiscate their phones without permission. Many are also worried about their phones being stolen this way.

Many teachers do not think it is wrong for phones to be taken up, but many also understand and do not want to be responsible for anyone who takes someone else’s phone. At the same time, teachers know that cell phones can be a distraction and don’t want their students to be on their phones when they should be paying attention. 

After a year and a half of quarantine, a lot of teachers know that we’ve all been able to get on our phones whenever we wanted and that it was going to be an issue now. There is also a lot of concern about safety with COVID-19 and phones. It’s not a good idea to have everyone in a class’ phones in a box or hanging on a wall together during these times.

Phones being a distraction is the student’s responsibility, not the teacher’s. A student should be able to stay off their phone when they need to and if they can’t they don’t learn. This is why teachers have been making phones for so long. This can also be up to the student though, if they don’t want to pay attention and stay off of their phone then they are choosing not to learn the content being taught.

High school students are becoming adults and need to learn how to manage their distractions and responsibilities on their own. A student choosing whether or not to use their phone during class is good practice for this.

 It’s very rude to be on your phone during a lecture or something similar to that but if the student does that then they’re just choosing to not learn anything and I think they should have that choice.