When the folks running the French republic take another big-government stand on regulating citizens, and curtailing individual freedoms, and putting more laws on the books, and enforcing them, and giving more power to government workers--union workers--and conditioning their children to live under these rules, and making those rules more strict, and generally acting insufferable and Pooterish, we say:
Give us some of that!
This school year, the French are banning smartphones on public school campuses. Ah, but to be in Paris in the fall. And not have kids walking into traffic along the Champs-Elysees while looking at 4-by-6-inch screens.
The new law is different from the old law, because this ban will be enforced. There's a growing concern amongst the French about this new generation of kids growing up addicted to electronic devices. The Wall Street Journal says the ban will affect French kids ages 3 to 15.
Students, get used to it. It doesn't get much more government than public schools. And, like dress codes and nutrition guidelines and bus safety, this is more along the lines of what's-good-for-you and less about rights and individual freedoms.
Fact is, in this case the New World can learn from the old one. And this time enforce the rules. Gentle Reader might remember that New York City banned mobile phones in schools once upon a time, but because of uneven enforcement the rule was eventually dropped. We note that several schools in central Arkansas had such bans only a few years ago. But these days, we don't know a child above the fifth grade who doesn't take a phone to school.
Students don't need them.
Any emergency can be handled by the school office. Any message can be passed on. If smartphones are conveniences, they are only conveniences. In the least, schools can collect the blasted things in the mornings and hand them out again after the last bell. It's not anti-American, it's not un-American, it is French.
According to the Journal, there is evidence that going without these phones makes for better test scores. Really. Researchers at some school of economics in Britain found that standardized test scores went up after a ban at nearly 100 schools on the isle. The improvement was equivalent to one extra hour of school each week. Better put, having phones at school distracts kids the equivalent of one hour each week.
We might need our own research on these shores. We suggest banning smartphones during school hours at every American school for, say, 10 years, and reviewing scores then. Sound fair?
Unfortunately for those who'd rather keep the ringing, beeping, mesmerizing things around campus, a leader for a teachers' union in France was heard from, in favor of cell phones. She said banning them won't do any good. (What is it about the leaders of teachers' unions and nonsensical public statements?)
"People said television would rot our brains and make us couch potatoes," said Claire Krepper, national secretary and grand pooh-bah of something called SE-UNSA over there.
Thank you, Mme. Krepper. You might have made our case better than we could've ever done on our own. Merci beaucoup.
Editorial on 08/26/2018