All students should be aware about the school’s rules regarding cell phones, but are these rules too strict? Cell phones can either help or hinder a student in a classroom environment, or not even affect a student at all.

Though the school has its own rules about cell phones, it should be common knowledge for students to know that many teachers have their own rules as well. Of course, these rules vary among the many teachers at Dublin high. Some teachers are fine with phones out nearly all the time, and some allow students to use them at certain times; while others simply don’t want to see them at all.

“Some teachers are out of the pocket,” claims Matt Daleiden, a Senior at Dublin High. Daleiden believes that even though cell phones are too distracting in a classroom environment, some teachers are just too harsh with their cell phone policies. For example, if a student’s’ phone gets taken away because their mom called them, or if Siri accidentally activated.

“I think that some teachers should give warnings rather than straight up taking our phones. Sometimes it’s not even our fault on why we got caught,” explains Daleiden.

Nowadays, as technology is seemingly advancing faster and faster, cell phones, as a result, are getting more and more features, and can be used for a variety of reasons in the classroom environment. Students have limitless options, such as taking pictures, using an online dictionary, looking for information, using it as a calculator, checking social networks, or even playing games. Daleiden claims that he mainly uses his phone in class to text and check his social networking sites, such as Twitter and Instagram, and that sometimes his phone can be a problem, due to it being “way too distracting.”

“I think that the school rules on phones are stupid,” claims Winnie Liu, another Senior at Dublin High. “The school doesn’t understand how useful the phone can be. Students can now use them to help themselves with classwork and phones are always useful in case of an emergency.” Liu believes that phones are more helpful than harmful to a student, but some teachers are just too strict.

“Some teachers allow us to eat, but don’t even let us use our phones,” Liu explains. Though eating in class is just another topic that is against the school’s rules, Liu finds it outrageous that one overshadows the other.

“I’m fine with cell phones being used in my class, as long as my students use them to help them with whatever assignments we are working on,” explains Mr. Halket. Halket believes that phones can be a very useful material in a classroom, as long as students use them correctly. Going back to what Daleiden said, there are a variety of different views and rules that teachers may have concerning the use of cellphones in their classrooms.

    With current technological standards, cell phones can be used for many more things than just instant messaging and making phone calls. With the limitless uses of a phone either in school or in general, what should we do about cell phones?