OPINION: Minister Foley’s proposal to ban phones is the distraction

Norma Foley should tread carefully with her plan, which she flagged last week, to ban phones in schools to stop distractions and bullying. Those types of decisions should be left to schools, in consultation with teachers, parents and students.
We are too quick in Irish schools to issue blanket diktats about what students can and cannot do. If anything, schools need to become less institutional and more human, allowing the student voice to emerge and be heard. I’m sure many students are rolling their eyes at the thoughts of yet more controls being imposed on them.
Of course, sometimes a student may use their phone inappropriately. It is often a cry for help and can be a tricky problem. But it is not caused by the phones, it is caused by the human interactions and is magnified by the phones. It would be more appropriate and developmental for the Minister to make psychological and counselling services more available in schools to deal with the root causes of such behaviour.
Speaking as a post-primary teacher I prefer that my students have access to their phones in class. I find that students, for the most part, use them very well and respectfully. Sometimes I ask them to use them for a certain purpose relevant to the class. In other instances, they may ask me. That’s part of the trusting relationship that builds mutual respect.
Mobile phones are a very powerful learning resource that can be used in all classes. For example, in my own subject area, Irish, they are like having a great library in your pocket; comprehensive online dictionaries such as teanglann.ie, which even gives the pronunciation of words in three dialects! Access to YouTube enables students to listen to interviews with the actual poets and watch other relevant archival and educational material. We use great learning apps such as Quizlet, Kahoot! and Padlet, to mention but a few for vocabulary and grammar. They bring more fun into the classroom.
Apps on students’ phones can turn the classroom into a studio where they can create film and audio projects on topics of interest. My ordinary-level students in Second Year last year used their phones to create lovely presentations on a poem we studied. They really enjoyed the process, filling the classroom with laughter. It unleashed their creativity. I learned from them how to use the film editing tool, CapCut, thereby modelling how we can learn by sharing and collaboration.
Students nowadays can use their phone to take a picture of the relevant page in their textbook, saving them hauling heavy books home. They can also take a picture of notes they’ve missed, or solutions worked out on the board. All of this has become common practice in classrooms.
Yes, I hear you asking, haven’t students all got their laptops and tablets in school to do all of that? Why do they need a phone? Well, you are correct. Many schools have introduced the requirement for students to have their own laptop devices in school.
The laptops do hold their own when compared to the phone in some respects. For some of us, it is often easier to write a document or create a PowerPoint using a laptop with its bigger screen and cursor control. They are also great for viewing the digital versions of their school textbooks. Again, students benefit by not having to carry home heavy books.
However, there are almost always problems with laptops, be it loss of charge, login difficulties or frozen screens. This becomes the real distraction, wastes time and reduces the scope for improvising within a lesson. We don’t have these problems with phones. It’s simply a matter of asking students to take them out and go to such and such a resource.
Speaking of distractions, was the timing of this announcement by the Minister – during the week the Leaving Cert results came out – calculated to be a distraction from the problems arising from grade inflation?

Gearóid Ó Riain is a secondary-school teacher based in Westport, Co Mayo.