Teachers and Cell Phones

I didn't grow up with a cell phone, so maybe that's why I'm not quite as addicted as it seems some of my younger friends are who seem to see a cell phone as a fashion accessory and wouldn't be caught dead without it. I'm pretty famous in my family for not answering my cell phone because I never have it with me. I taught many of my early years without access to any kind of phone in my classroom. Even ten years ago I taught in a school where there were only a handful of phones in the entire building, even when you needed to call a parent. I almost never considered making a private call at school - such as making an appointment with a doctor - because there was really no privacy to make that kind of a phone call.

My, how times have changed! There was talk last year at my home school that there were some teachers in my building that carried their cell phones with them all day - that they took calls and would even interrupt teaching to take and make personal calls. Some kept their cell phones in their purses and the children would let them know when they heard it ring so the teacher could answer the phone call. Not on my hall, however, because we rarely had a signal inside the school walls! There was also talk about a teacher that texted all day and would even make persoanl comments to her teaching partner about a text her boyfriend had just sent her. I actually found that hard to believe. How would a teacher find the time to do that with a roomful of children? You barely have a minute to breath, much less text back and forth and chat on the phone.

It was not unusual in my home school however, for one of my teaching partners to bring the phone into the classroom if they are expecting an important call - from a doctor, for example - or if they had a sick child at home and thought the child might need to call if they began to feel worse, or even if they sent a child to daycare and were worried that the child might get sick during the school day. I have even seen a few teachers bring their cell phone to the playground and hang on to it for some of the same reasons. However, I have never seen a teacher consistently use her cell phone throughout the day for personal reasons. We have an open door policy at my home school so teachers walk in and out all the time and I have just never seen a teacher constantly on her cell phone.

However, this summer, teaching in a school where teachers come from schools from all over the beach, I have noticed that there are teachers who take their cell phones to the playground and use it throughout the entire play period. Now, I have no idea what they are doing. Writing a lesson plan? Looking up a resource to help teach a lesson? Texting a friend? Checking their e-mail? Updating their Facebook? Playing a game? I do know, however, that it is hard to watch children when your head seldom comes up from your phone. That has made we wonder if what I heard about a teacher last year just might be true - that she was constantly using her phone during teaching time.

In our school system, we do not have access to Facebook on our computers, which I am slowly becoming addicted to this summer. At first, I was indignant that I didn't have access at school because I thought I would like to check it when I first got to school or during lunch - sometimes even for professional reasons! - but now I wonder if it wouldn't just be too easy and too tempting to sneak a peek during other parts of the day... Then I realized that it would be easy to check on my iphone, so I really do have access!!

Wow - now I'm beginning to wonder what really is the ethical and professional use of cell phones and teaching? Certainly they can be used for teaching and learning. I can think of a hundred different ways I could compliment my lessons, so I would never want anyone to ban them just for the possibility that they might be misused. But I can also think of many ways cell phones could be abused. Do we need guidelines? Should we be allowed to police ourselves? Could a teacher get fired for using her cell phone for personal reasons during school time? Where should the lines be drawn? What do you think?