Technology raises communication issues

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Concerns about students misusing camera phones and other high tech items in our classrooms, as written about in the Los Angeles Times on February 8th, “Extracurricular videos roil campus,” may seem to be a new worry. Certainly if you are the parent of a child in either middle or high school, you no doubt remember the days when ‘high tech’ in the schools meant the AV squad setting up a slide show for your social studies class. But to truly understand the challenges new technologies pose for our classrooms, you have to go back to 1999, the year of the tragedy at Columbine High School.

The Columbine massacre marked a turning point for parents, who from that day forward have demanded, and rightly so, that they be able to maintain some form of contact with their children during the school day. The events of September 11 solidified many parents desire to be able to stay in contact with their children in case of emergency. But as the article in this paper made clear, new technologies pose new challenges. Though it is illegal to tape record a phone conversation without consent, students now can and do post embarrassing videos of other students and teachers on Web sites like You Tube.

The awkward incidents that everyone seems fated to endure as part of their childhoods now have become part of our nation’s permanent digital record. Nor does the problem end there. Students who use the cameras on their phones to record their fellow students in an embarrassing moment, often go on to use the text-messaging feature on those same phones to cheat on exams. How then, do we find a balance between the need for parents to stay in contact with their children and the right of every student, teacher and parent to privacy and dignity? How do we stay connected to our children, without letting them use those means of connection improperly?

Some would say the answer is to simply not allow children to have cell phones in school. The appeal of that answer is easy enough to see. It’s simple, it’s clear and it’s decisive. It is also, unfortunately, unworkable and wrong. School districts who have attempted to take away cell phones from students have been met with hostility, not just from students, but from their parents as well. Moreover, as noted by the Times, teachers are often able to allow students to use their portable technologies for productive purposes. No, we can’t just take away all the cell phones, but perhaps the answer to the problems caused by those phones has been staring us in the face all along: communication.

Communication is, after all, what we all use cell phones for, and communicating is what we need to do to solve the problems caused by cell phones in our schools. Parents, teachers, school administrators and yes, students, are going to have to sit down, as soon as possible, and work it out. If You Tube and other Web sites have shown us anything (besides videos of stupid human tricks, that is) it’s that we are no longer living in a top down society. School districts are going to have to set up technology panels to help set policies that work for all. Should there be cell phone free areas in every school? Should students have to check their phones with their teachers when they walk into class, the same way patrons check bags before walking into a store? What sort of disciplinary measures are we prepared to use to enforce our new policies, whatever they may be? We are going to have to answer all of those questions.

What we cannot do, however, is delay. Our schools cannot serve their purpose, cannot fulfill their mission of educating our children, if they can not promise all of the people in them that, at the very least, they will be free from humiliation and harassment. It’s time everyone involved in our schools, from teachers to students to parents and administrators, have a conversation, one that hopefully will take place in person, and not on the phone.

Harry M. Keiley

President, Santa Monica