I personally think that responsible smartphone use should be learned and practiced, rather than outright banning them.
I think this shows that adults are terribly addicted to their devices and think if they can’t stop using them, children won’t either. They certainly can’t teach how to use phones responsibly if they can’t do it themselves. Unfortunately for children the result is an outright ban.
Mobiles should not be in a classroom.
They are distracting, rarely help with actual learning, and are a source of anxiety. Children do not need to be contactable 24/7. The supposed pros are all bs too. Learn to use a computer, sure, laptops are a different matter. Much easier to police, much easier to manage, much more helpful to learning, and most skills transferrable to a mobile too. Have online courses, excellent! But rarely at primary and secondary level education will a phone actually be beneficial. Long overdue for a ban.
Long overdue for a digital overhaul too. Paperless offices are here, where’s the paperless schools? (Paperless offices are never paperless either btw, plenty of stuff still printed, physical books read, and things written down)