PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Kilbridge: Hello, and welcome back to The Orbit. I’m your host, Elias Kilbridge. Today, I have on student senior Ben Koster to talk about the phone policy. Thank you so much for joining me, Ben.
Koster: Thank you so much for having me.
Kilbridge: Yeah, of course. So just a little context for listeners: there’s recently been a little bit of a conversation—or not a little bit, a lot of conversation—about the new phone policy that the school is implementing. Should students be allowed to have their phones? Or should the teachers be able to take their phones, take it for the whole day? What should the correct procedure be?
Ben has been going to some meetings and discussions about it. So, Ben, do you just want to tell us a little bit about the policies, the different sides and the different opinions on them?
Koster: Yeah, for sure. So, at the beginning of this year, there were some concerns because teachers wanted a more set policy for students; teachers didn’t want to be seen as bad guys. What the school district did was they sent out a clear policy, and this was “one warning, and then we took the phone to the office.” I believe that’s worked great; teachers have been taking phones away, but it hasn’t been a big issue. There haven’t been a lot of phones taken, it hasn’t been a super big distraction in classrooms, and I feel like it’s really working great. But, there have been talks within the school district of parents who are concerned about phones and mental health in the classroom and have been pushing for a ban across the district. Currently, phones are more banned in elementary schools and middle schools, but they’re looking for a district ban, especially due to mental health reasons and for phones being such a distraction.
Kilbridge: Yeah, I mean obviously, there’s a ton of research out there about how phones, social media, would affect mental health but that being said, you mentioned that you think that the current policy is going well. What are your opinions on the phone policy in general? Should students have their phones? What are your thoughts on that?
Koster: Yeah, I think it’s actually crucial that high school students specifically should have their phones. I’m not concerned about the middle school and elementary schools, but for high school students, I think it’s actually very important that they have their phones on them. Training that discipline is something that’s gonna be important for life. A phone is gonna be something everyone’s gonna have forever. So, if in high school, we’re trying to be prepared to be adults and go to college, there’s not gonna be a teacher sitting there waiting to take your phone away. Training that discipline at a young age and training that responsibility is important is important. I think keeping this policy and training this discipline is very important, and if we were to just take the phones completely away, I think it would harm students’ growth.
Kilbridge: Yeah, totally, and especially since there’s a ton of reasons—I’m in agreement with you—not to mention that this school is an open campus, you know, it’s just that there seems to be a lot of different problems, and taking phones away seems to be making more problems than it’s creating. Not to mention how you touched on that growth that students need—needing the experience—especially as they’re maturing and becoming older. We even have adults who are 18-year-old seniors, so I definitely agree with you there. I do remember hearing about just some concerns about safety with phones and stuff like that, so do you just want to share about that?
Koster: Yeah, so, um, I think just something to add on, I think with the new devices all the teachers have that connect to the system. I think this threat of school shootings and phones… that’s almost negligible. You can’t really talk about that because the teachers are all equipped with this device. But since we have an open campus, I think taking a phone away for the entire day causes some issues. I have talked to a few teachers, and they’ve said they may want some sort of joint policy with younger students—freshmen and sophomores—before they have that responsibility of driving to have their phones taken away (and also, they’re not gonna be as responsible, they’re not as disciplined). So maybe it’s this process of changing as you get older, and when you get more responsibility, you get your phone back, but we continue with this current policy for the older students. So, that’s kind of what I have to touch on about safety.
Kilbridge: Yeah, and then also circling back to that piece about maturity, stuff like that… there doesn’t seem to be a big dispute about middle schoolers, elementary schoolers having phones. You mentioned that earlier. Has that been a source or point of discussion? Is there anything there, or is that more in the background compared to the high school?
Koster: I mean, I’m not as focused on the younger schools. I think it’s honestly important that they have their phones taken away—training in those interhuman interactions is definitely important. You see kids going out and eating, and they’re just on their phones. I don’t think that’s healthy, and I think not having that as a distraction at a young age is important. But as you get older, it’s going to be something that’s coming with life, and I think instead of taking a step backward and keeping school the way it was, we need to embrace it and move forward. That’s kind of my opinion on that.
Kilbridge: Yeah, I think the keys are maturity and growth. That seems to be what the whole discussion seems to be centered around, so I think that if high schoolers are voting and stuff like that, then they should be able to decide to focus in the classroom, have control of their own education, so I’m right there with you.
Ben, thank you so much for joining me. This was very informative, and I hope it was for the listeners as well. Thank you so much, and we’ll see you next time.
Koster: Thank you for having me.
Kilbridge: Yup!
