Originally published: NT News
Over the past seven years teaching in the NT, I remain convinced of the unique talents, creativity, and resilience of Territory students.
Yet despite some progress in 2021 preliminary NAPLAN results, Territory students’ academic achievements continue to lag behind students in the rest of the country. Recent studies also show NT students reporting the highest rates of psychological distress in Australia.
As a teacher I understand there are many complex reasons for these results – such as the linguistic and cultural diversity of the NT and effects of trauma – but I also believe there are some relatively ‘easy fixes’ within our education system that would have a significant impact on Territory students.
The most obvious is to follow Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania and institute a ban on smartphone use in primary and secondary schools – unless required for a specific instructional purpose or to assist with a student’s disability.
Besides facilitating cyber-bullying, unauthorised filming (including of fights, teachers, and peers) and unfettered access to adult content, smartphones are a weapon of mass distraction in our classrooms.
Recently, I see more and more of my students struggling with what can only be described as an “addiction” to their devices. Despite what phone proponents claim, these students are not addicted to “researching facts online” or using their phone’s calculator.
Instead, students are racking up hours on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and games like Clash of Clans. As well as being distracted during lessons, these students are harder to engage as they become accustomed to the dopamine hits built into their favourite applications.
The recent leak of internal Facebook documents shows how popular apps like Instagram are intentionally designed to be ‘habit forming’ for teens and have significant and measurable mental health costs, especially for teen girls.
There is a war for young people’s attention and teachers are outgunned by the smartest minds from around the world who are designing apps to capture and monetize teen and pre-teen attention.
As educators we have a responsibility to make school the safest possible place to facilitate learning. Allowing young people access to smartphones, or turning a blind eye while they do, fails this test.
At present, it is up to individual NT Government schools to determine their own policy on appropriate phone use. I believe this creates inconsistencies both within staff and between schools. Where there are inconsistencies, some students will take advantage and maximise phone use.
With this in mind, I ask Education Minister Lauren Moss to take an honest review of the emerging literature on the effects of smartphone use on young people’s mental health, socialisation and academic performance.
After surveying the evidence, I believe the only reasonable choice is to ban smartphones in classrooms across the NT – unless there is a compelling educational purpose for their presence.
A clear stance on phones in classrooms will help teachers and students get on with teaching and learning without the distraction, drama and inconsistency of the current system.
Published in the NT News 10/10/21
Great read Michael, glad I found you on here since I missed picking your experienced brain for my own budding teaching career as much as I wanted while you were in Alice. I agree with the phones and would love to see tablet resources at the school so that engaging online games and quizzes can be accessed quickly and easily as that is the only helpful thing that having students with phones in the classroom provides (oh and perhaps hardwired digital clocks in classrooms to…) 😁