The government says it will end classroom distraction — but critics say the cellphone “ban” itself is a distraction, and not much different from policies schools already have in place. Although the provincial ban is scheduled to come into effect on Monday, many say it will be “business as usual.”“It isn’t really (a ban),” said union president Harvey Bischof of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation. Rather, he calls it “a distraction from things that are occurring in the education system resulting from Ford’s cuts.”“It implies that cellphones were being allowed in class for non-curricular uses … and that’s absurd,” he told the Star. “Nothing will change under this so-called ban … It’s business as usual on Monday.”During last year’s provincial election, Doug Ford’s platform included a cellphone ban — a stance that later found strong support among parents during province-wide consultations. Speaking with the Star, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said, “The aim of the ban, and the objective I think it will deliver, is a greater focus on the classroom for students that increasingly face distractions.” “Technology can be and should be a positive component of learning in the 21st Century,” he said Thursday. “However, if it’s not instruction-based, if it’s not guided by a teacher for academic achievement or scholastic purposes, it shouldn’t be in the class.” “The aim as of Monday is to reset the culture in schools where kids are focusing on their educator, on the subject material, on retaining that knowledge and applying it in their daily lives — and less so on Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat and other platforms that are simply not conducive to learning.”He called it “a positive step. We campaigned on it, parents gave us a mandate in the con ...
|
