Cell phones. We have certainly all felt the loss of our cell phones this year as they, according to mandate, must be left in our lockers, and if the rumors hold true, taken directly out of our pockets by the administration and turned over to the office when we fail to comply. And of course we fail to comply! While the policy does have the best interest of the students at heart, it is really hurting us in the long run, especially for those of us on the brink of adulthood.

The policy was instituted in order to limit distractions in the classroom, which is understandable, as cell phones have things like Flappy Bird and Twitter, which some students find more valuable than their education. Cell phones are distracting, and there is no way around it. However, our laptops were beyond distracting when we first got our hands on those. I found myself playing Tetris when I should have been reading a story for English class or looking off of my online textbook. Noticing our distraction, teachers began strictly enforcing the rule that our laptops should only be used for school related activities, and while students are still distracted, we accomplish so much with our technology. Now, I can’t imagine class without my laptop. I use it for notes, for emailing my teachers, and as my calculator. I read books on it. When I need to know the answer to something, I can quickly google it. The technology has had such a positive impact on the way that we, as students, have learned, and the way that teachers teach.

Cell phones are much the same as our laptops, except they are better. They are always on us, always turned on, and they still work when the flimsy internet is down. There were several times last year when my laptop wasn’t working and I used my phone to take notes, and I typed just as fast, if not faster, with my thumbs than I did with my fingers. I bring my own technology, and there are times where it takes twenty minutes for my laptop to connect to the internet; figuring out how to connect to the BYOT network is a skill and an art form. Last year I could have my phone out and have the document shared and printed in minutes, in several cases during the passing period between classes. There is no way that I could ever do that with my laptop.

Technology that is readily connected with the internet, such as our phones and laptops, are bound to be distracting. This is where the teachers come in. We just need a bit of direction in learning how to use our technology to our advantage and how to use them appropriately in class. There are so many advantages to having the ability to use our phones under the teacher’s discretion. We could take pictures of the textbook page so we don’t have to lug home that massive textbook. Most students would rather rush through homework than have to lug home the heavy textbooks, and having it digitally would allow us to spend more time on our homework without throwing our backs out. We could, as I alluded to earlier, use the Google Docs apps to share with teachers, take notes when our regular technology is missing or broken or just refusing to connect to the internet. We could use apps like Evernote to organize our notes more clearly. We could actually draw out the models that the teachers draw on the board and save them. We could just take a picture of the board and upload it to our notes so that we could look at it later. If we handwrite notes, or draw models there, we could easily take a picture of that and upload it so that all of our notes are organized and in one place. Dropbox. My Big Campus. Quizlet. Calendars. Reminders. Calculators. Dictionaries. We could have a school planner app that we would actually use, because it’s on our phone. Glenda Ritz, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, when interviewed by our own Ariel Wolfe, was surprised that she didn’t just use her cell phone to record the interview. The list of school related uses and applications goes on and on, and all of these would make us better and more organized students.

Organization, or our lack thereof, is what really drags us down as students, and this will hit us especially hard when it comes to college, when classes get far more difficult, and when our organizational skills will be needed the most. We always have our phones in our pockets, and they could easily be our greatest asset, so why are we not using them? I know that I have certainly felt the loss this year, as I can no longer set reminders in my phone for when I need to buy and bring in posterboard, dates of when money for clubs and t-shirts are due, or dates of tests and big projects. In college, there will be even more assignments and class functions to remember, ones that carry much more gravity than forgetting money for a class shirt. Learning to use all of these readily available functions will help students succeed in life.

So, with cell phones being as useful as they are in so many different areas, why are they being banned? Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Don’t ban the phone. Ban the distraction. Instead of locking them away in their lockers, have the students place their phones on the desk; take the novelty away. Telling us that we can’t have something makes us want it more, and it becomes a game. How much can I text and get away with it? How many points can I play on this game when the teacher’s back is turned? By placing our phones on our desk and being allowed to have them, it is less enticing to use, and it would be easier for the teachers to see if the student was abusing the technology.

By no means am I saying that there should be a complete revoke of the ban, or that moderation with our use of technology is a problem. There should be moderation, and phones should only be used for class related activities. It will be overwhelming for some students at first, just like our laptops were, but our laptops are now used in nearly every single class. They are obviously worth the small distraction they posed and the time it took to teach us how to overcome the distraction, otherwise we would have gotten rid of them years ago; taking the time to teach students the right way to use their phones will be just as rewarding and beneficial to us.

The real world is coming, and there will be no one telling us “No!” out in the adult world. Students have to learn how to manage their distractions, and we shouldn’t have to fail in order to learn out in the real world. If we are going to fail, we should fail when there is a safety net of people who want to see us succeed around us, people who will be there to pick us up off the ground and dust us off and help us try again. Ignoring cell phones will not make them disappear. They are in our pockets at home after school when we should be doing our homework, and they will be there looking oh-so-enticing for the rest of our lives. We need to learn how to be able to power them down without a teacher forcibly ripping it out of our hands. After all, school is here to teach us how to succeed in life, and learning to manage our cell phones in the most productive way possible is something that would go a long way in teaching us how to be contributing members of society.