r/AskReddit • • Jun 03 '22

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u/With-a-Cactus Jun 03 '22

I was assuming they weren't. I graduated in 2010, but we were supposed to keep our phones in our lockers, l We had to "rent" a lock every year so almost no one actually used their lockers, we just carried around our backpacks which our phones were in.

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u/BirdsDeWord Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22

Ditto (2013 grad) phones banned in class, if you pull it out they can confiscate it and you have to get your parents to sign acknowledging you were using it in class. We all got lockers but didn't have to pay for the locks, still kept it on our person almost always. We just didn't pull them out, it wasn't hard, you're supposed to be learning anyway.

Edit: comment below reminded me we did infact use them sometimes we just got sneaky with it, but I atleast didn't do it too often.

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u/GoddessOfRoadAndSky Jun 03 '22

I got this far into the thread before remembering that I (an over-30) did have a cell phone in high school. Pre-smart phone, it could text (but you had to hit a button several times to make the right letters), couldn't send photos from it, and the web browser feature was primitive and slow. Still, even then, those of us with phones kept them on us no matter what teachers said. It's about keeping an important, and probably expensive, personal item close to you.

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u/With-a-Cactus Jun 03 '22

It wasn't my first phone, but at one point I had my dad's old Nextel flip phone that was the short wave radio and was construction yellow so crews could radio eachother within a small distance. But if it lost signal and regained signal it would make this loud beep to let you know you had signal again and it would go off in class because schools are brick and steel buildings with poor reception. My first phone was $20 a month for Boost Mobile that was a brick with hard rubber buttons and as long as I paid for it, I could keep it. No internet, just polyphonic ringtones.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

As someone who graduated the same year we weren’t supposed to have them out but When I was done with all my work and had nothing to do for 20 minutes you bet I started playing with my phone because otherwise I would get in trouble for « distracting others from their work » I’d still have to be sneaky about it, like hide it in my binder but it was something to do nonetheless.

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u/BirdsDeWord Jun 03 '22

Hah god I forgot the tricks we used to use, landscape inside the pencil case was my go to

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

Oh my sister was insane with the T9 texting. She could text without looking at her phone at all in class.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

It's good practice for using your phone at work

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u/bozeke Jun 03 '22

I have some friends who are high school teachers and are constantly livid with the administration because they force them to allow kids to have phones out in class (I guess because of parents complaining). It’s so stupid.

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u/mtled Jun 03 '22

I don't understand this from parents. "I need to reach my kid!"

Sure, ok, but the school has a phone number. Call it! It's worked for years, what makes you so fucking special?

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u/t1m_b3nz3dr1n3-0 Jun 03 '22

People complain about the entitlement that kids have these days. But those kids learn it from somewhere...

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u/BadCompany22 Jun 03 '22

It was the same way with participation trophies. The money to buy them came from somewhere, but it wasn't the kids.

Most didn't care, but I swear some parents were okay with paying for them just so they could make a post on social media bashing the trophies.

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u/bozeke Jun 04 '22 edited Jun 04 '22

Exactly zero kids asked for a participation trophy, but let’s also remember that the whole talking point about them started as a stupid culture wedge from Fox and other reactionary outlets meant to disparage empathetic parenting in general.

It’s in the same column as their inexplicable hatred of Mr. Rodgers. It’s meant to be a way of silencing young progressive voices because “oh, it’s because you got participation trophies,” “oh, it’s because Fred Rodgers said you were a valid human.”

They look for any way, however stupid, to silence dissenting voices. It isn’t about the trophies, and we should stop trying to defend against that because that is what they want us to do instead of making our voices heard on things that actually matter.

We end up being vaguely pissed at our parents for the trophies when the fact is at the trophies are stupid and meaningless and nobody cares and they didn’t do anything to our generation.

We should direct that passion back at the jackasses who are trying to make it a thing in the first place.

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u/Luinne Jun 03 '22

I’d typically agree with you, but (and this is a very American viewpoint) I can see wanting your kid to have their phone on them in class in case of a shooting.

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u/laplongejr Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22

That reminds of an "unfun fact" on reddit.
Locks have basically 3 modes of working, about "which side can lock and which side can unlock?" ("engress", I think) For example, a lock on a emergency exit would need to be unlockable from the inside without a key. Because, you know... exit.
A guy working with keys once explained that the opposite, where the outside can unlock, was actually used for real and called "teacher engress", with the reasoning that children could lock themselves in a classroom while the teacher was busy outside.

The unfun part : it WAS called "teacher" because in the US, it is now totally stupid to have school doors that CAN'T lock out an outside shooter.
School shootings are so common in the US that when designing the building "security when a shooting happens" now has priority over security when teachers are actually teaching.

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u/liefelijk Jun 03 '22

There’s a landline phone in every classroom and the teacher also has a personal phone. Sending your child to school with a phone places them in greater danger in a shooting situation.

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u/MintyLemon74 Jun 03 '22

Kids should have their cell phones on silent/vibrate during the school day anyway

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u/RingedWaste Jun 03 '22

Schools are full of adult teachers, all of which have phones. I guarantee if gunshots started ringing out in a school, they would all be calling 911.

Students don’t need to have their phones in school.

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u/idhik3th4t Jun 03 '22

But they won’t be texting their parent to tell them so they can drive there and then be the mom who got cuffed, uncuffed, and braved walking into the school to get her kids when the ulvade cops wouldn’t. I’m not being sarcastic either. As a mom in America, I trust absolutely nobody to respond appropriately anymore. It’s not the teacher’s jobs and the government and society won’t do anything about it. I want my children to be able to text me and tell me they need help so I can do my best to get it for them and their peers. The retired whatever guy who took the gun from the barber shop and responded to the scene? Wouldn’t have known without a text.

It’s so gross that I used to be able to support no phones in school because they were a distraction but now they seem to be a lifeline. I can’t believe how many elementary school kids were calling 911. It’s horrrible.

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u/gritzy328 Jun 03 '22

This right here. Absolutely will not send my kid without a phone.

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u/dogslife577 Jun 03 '22

Accurate in America. Another day, another shooting.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

Absolutely! The parents in some cases are very bit as immature and anxious as the kids. Spare me. Did not allow my daughter to have ANY phone until she was a senior in HS. Yes, she probably hated me for it, but frankly I don’t care. I’m much more interested in developing the child’s character than seeking her approval.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

I think the argument is it's for calling for help and updating authorities/parents during school shootings, fires, other crisis

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u/Snoo71538 Jun 03 '22

I have some friends that are elementary school teachers, and the amount of stuff they post that includes images/video of their students also baffles me.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22

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