Of Cell Phones in the Classroom: A Few Thoughts

Not long ago I remarked Joe Blevins' discussion of the less than happy realities of teaching he found reflected in the 2011 Jake Kasdan-Cameron Diaz comedy Bad Teacher.

At the time the one that interested me most was the extent to which teaching is, for many teachers, not a first choice of occupation, and many who are not well-suited to it end up doing it for at least a time. However, considering the matter of cell phones in the classroom I do find one other bit relevant: what he had to say about fighting " a battle of wits or wills" with students being "a lose-lose situation."

After all, it seems common for instructors to think cell phones in the classroom are a problem--students paying attention to their phones rather than the lecture or discussion, causing distraction, etc., perhaps in ways that make their job harder. (They weren't listening the first time, they brazenly say if called on. Can you repeat that whole thing again? Like, the whole fifty minute lecture?) However, trying to enforce a ban on cell phone use in class makes for just such a battle of wits and wills as Blevins described.

Moreover, what Blevins described at the middle school level is worse at the college level. At that stage there is no calling their parents or giving them detention. There is also a very good chance that they have very easy access to the instructors' boss--maybe easier access than the instructor themselves--and make full use of it to lodge their complaints. And of course, in college the burden of teaching, especially the toughest teaching where instructors are most likely to encounter problem students--those first-year general ed courses--falls disproportionately on adjuncts who are both overworked and insecure, vulnerable to being let go at any time without due process, often not being so much fired as simply, when they should have got word of the next semester's assignment, no phone call ever coming. Least of all can they afford such "battles of wits or wills"--and so the students do what they want.