Can a school confiscate a mobile phone for more than a day?

[anonymous-user]

HedgeyGedgey said:

My understanding is that its not run as a business, they're not allowed to make a profit as such. All the money fron the fees and grants etc has to be put back into the company. We've recently had a lot of building works carried out for no reason and theres even more coming. I worked out i pay something like £27 per hour for the lectures I'm timetabled to attend

I suspect that you have little understanding of university finances. Also, few organisations have building works done "for no reason".

[Willy Nilly]

HedgeyGedgey said:

I worked out i pay something like £27 per hour for the lectures I'm timetabled to attend

So why are you pissing about with your phone if you are paying good money for your education there? Obviously not doing maths.

[Pica-Pica]

HedgeyGedgey said:

I was on my phone in one if my lectures at university, already been through the lecture PowerPoint slides at home the day before and was okay with the knowledge and had notes etc. Messaging my dad, wasn't anything important mind, to which the lecturer had the cheek to tell me to get off my phone. I'm nearly 21 years old, I'm paying a significant amount of money to be there and pay her salary might i add. If i want to go on my phone then i shall

Nearly 21! Wow! Still some growing up to do, then.

[HedgeyGedgey]

cmaguire said:

Then again, do you really not have enough free time of a day that you can play with your phone in your time?
Please excuse me if you are a young entrepreneur running a blue chip startup whilst still at college.

My study routine means i go through the lecture slides before the actual lecture. I know what its about, I've already got some notes for it. If theres anything the lecturer adds information wise then I'll add that to my existing notes. Then every few weeks I'll shrink those notes down and put them into a file ready for the exam where the notes are much easier to read. That takes up the majority of my time. If the lecturer doesnt add anything or add to my understanding of the subject, why cant i be in my phone? Well running my own business will happen in due course, gotta sort other things in life out first

[anonymous-user]

I am not sure that you are quite getting the idea of university. Maybe you should save your money and do something else.

[e30m3Mark]

HedgeyGedgey said:

I was on my phone in one if my lectures at university, already been through the lecture PowerPoint slides at home the day before and was okay with the knowledge and had notes etc. Messaging my dad, wasn't anything important mind, to which the lecturer had the cheek to tell me to get off my phone. I'm nearly 21 years old, I'm paying a significant amount of money to be there and pay her salary might i add. If i want to go on my phone then i shall

Nice attitude.

How about having a bit of respect, paying attention and play with your phone once the lesson is over?

[cmaguire]

The wider question is really why so many people across all ages appear to be fixated by these tedious gadgets.

Eat in a restaurant nowadays and it beats me why most of those in there don't just order take-out and eat at home, that many are pissing around with their phones. I attempt to tune out the irritation it causes me, but some of them even make and receive calls at a volume that allows the whole place to hear how trivial their lives really are.

[HedgeyGedgey]

Breadvan72 said:

I am not sure that you are quite getting the idea of university. Maybe you should save your money and do something else.

How so? My study technique works. Does it annoy you that the day before my exams where everyone else is panicking and actually studying I'll spend the day binge watching tv or on the xbox. I'll score upwards of 80% on assignments and exams doing this with my highest being 97% on an exam. Thats more than enough for a 1st. If i feel that the lecturer isnt bettering my understanding then i will do what i want in the lecture. Being on my phone isn't harming others learning. I'd understand if I were a dick and play music/generally be disruptive but I'm quietly sat down. I had an understanding of what that particular lecturer was talking about so didnt feel the need to listen at that time

Edited by HedgeyGedgey on Saturday 11th November 15:39

Edited by HedgeyGedgey on Saturday 11th November 15:40

[cmaguire]

HedgeyGedgey said:

My study routine means i go through the lecture slides before the actual lecture. I know what its about, I've already got some notes for it. If theres anything the lecturer adds information wise then I'll add that to my existing notes. Then every few weeks I'll shrink those notes down and put them into a file ready for the exam where the notes are much easier to read. That takes up the majority of my time. If the lecturer doesnt add anything or add to my understanding of the subject, why cant i be in my phone? Well running my own business will happen in due course, gotta sort other things in life out first

Look at it from the lecturer's point of view.
Stood out front, doing what is still in essence a vocational job where the satisfaction of imparting knowledge is an important part of the meaning of that job, and seeing students too preoccupied with their phones (or nattering to their neighbours in times passed) to hear what you are saying.
You may be well prepared, but the lecturer doesn't necessarily know that and allowing what you are doing then creates acceptance for others to do the same. And those others may not be as well prepared as you.

[Sticks.]

e30m3Mark said:

How about having a bit of respect, paying attention and play with your phone once the lesson is over?

This, it's about respect, manners.

[Crackie]

HedgeyGedgey said:

if I were a dick

[HedgeyGedgey]

Crackie said:

HedgeyGedgey said:

if I were a dick

Walked into that one didnt i

[Roofless Toothless]

Breadvan72 said:

One student's fees contribute to all sorts of things to do with the running of the university, and the fees are usually subsidised - the university doesn't run on student fees alone.

Besides, if I go to the theatre my ticket price may be paying some fraction of the actors' wages, but that doesn't entitle me to sit there texting away through the show.

I was interested by this discussion so I did a bit of quick Googling and found this publication from Universities UK.

http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysi...

It suggests that 44% of University income derives from fees. The rest comes from government funding and bequests, mainly. About a quarter is from the government.

Although I am a pensioner, I still pay tax - including income tax as I had the foresight to provide myself with some pensions and savings during my working life, as well as all the other indirect taxes like VAT, petrol & car tax, etc., so I am actually continuing to subsidise their education.

Not only did my (and my parents' taxes) pay to build the nice shiny new universities they attend, the tax I pay now still subsidises their education from day to day, and without my help they would be paying considerably higher fees.

This doesn't take into account, of course, the 13 years of free school education I have financed to enable him to get into higher education, or the fact that student loans are lower interest than loans commercial available.

When he plays with his phone during class, it's my money as well he is wasting.

Edited by Roofless Toothless on Saturday 11th November 16:43

[HedgeyGedgey]

It'll annoy a lot of you if i said what some students do with their student finance money if you don't like me being on my phone

[anonymous-user]

Believe it or not, quite a few people here used to be students, and are familiar with student spending and capers, but some of us didn't see the relationship with university as purely a (heavily subsidised) transactional one.

[Sofa]

As a current uni student, I encourage you to come and visit some of my lectures. Around 4 hours in a cramped hot lecture theatre with fold-down tables attached to what feels like the size of chair they put in primary schools these days. Not to mention that, being left handed I can't actually write notes with said tables without presumably giving myself a severe case of RSI, and god forbid you rest any laptop bigger than a bloody postage stamp on them because the table will collapse, your laptop will fall off, or both.

That's before you get to the lecturers who speak in often broken english, too quietly for anyone more than about 2m from them to hear, and when you can understand them you realise they're just reading verbatim from the powerpoint which is available online. So yes I bloody well text during these lectures, because what else am I supposed to do for those 4 hours. Sometimes I even sit on Khan Academy reading up on the maths that is being 'taught', which is far more useful...

Now obviously this is only applies to certain lectures, and I'm pretty happy with what I get for my tuition overall (although not all courses seem to provide the same value for money...). And as HedgeyGedgey says, if you want to get all high and mighty with uni students, them quietly texting in lectures should be the last of your worries.

[Pica-Pica]

Sofa said:

As a current uni student, I encourage you to come and visit some of my lectures. Around 4 hours in a cramped hot lecture theatre with fold-down tables attached to what feels like the size of chair they put in primary schools these days. Not to mention that, being left handed I can't actually write notes with said tables without presumably giving myself a severe case of RSI, and god forbid you rest any laptop bigger than a bloody postage stamp on them because the table will collapse, your laptop will fall off, or both.

That's before you get to the lecturers who speak in often broken english, too quietly for anyone more than about 2m from them to hear, and when you can understand them you realise they're just reading verbatim from the powerpoint which is available online. So yes I bloody well text during these lectures, because what else am I supposed to do for those 4 hours. Sometimes I even sit on Khan Academy reading up on the maths that is being 'taught', which is far more useful...

Now obviously this is only applies to certain lectures, and I'm pretty happy with what I get for my tuition overall (although not all courses seem to provide the same value for money...). And as HedgeyGedgey says, if you want to get all high and mighty with uni students, them quietly texting in lectures should be the last of your worries.

Try texting on a SAC, you will get kicked off and have to suck up the fine and points.

[cmaguire]

Pica-Pica said:

Try texting on a SAC, you will get kicked off and have to suck up the fine and points.

Staying awake is a bigger problem

[Sofa]

Pica-Pica said:

Try texting on a SAC, you will get kicked off and have to suck up the fine and points.

Bit of a difference there isn't there?

For one most lecturers at my uni really don't care if people text every now and then, as long as they're not distracting anyone. And for another SAC's are essentially a form of punishment which are mandatory (at least if you don't want points and a fine) so of course they're not going to let you sit on your phone for the whole thing.

[Efbe]

Sticks. said:

Efbe said:

The issue for me is not what happens with the phone. I couldn't give a monkeys, it could be a phone, a tamagochi (as mentioned) or a porn mag... the issue is how the kid reacts back to the teacher when they have been told to do something/berated/etc.

A teacher cannot be effective in a class in which any decision is ignored/argued with/confronted.
It is not just this child that suffers, but the entire class.

I think we will look back at this generation in future years as the generation that was allowed to get away with anything and everything.

Not all children, but yes, a great many are being let down..

Had we had 'phones in my day I'd have got a detention for using one - for the bad manners if nothing else. Three in a week, that'll be a Saturday morning detention. I'd have had to go to the staff room to collect the phone, and wait.....and wait, and got another bking to go with it.

As ever, changing expectations is the hardest and most important step.

It seems in my experience to be the struggling schools with the worst intake that suffer the most from this. Expensive private schools do much better with poor behaviour. Better rules, better enforcement, but the parents that will chastise their children rather than side with them when told off by a teacher.

The parenting is where it starts, lack of respect is passed down parent to child. No recriminations and an understanding by the children of the lack of power a teacher really has in a classroom just top this off.

Most of us on here are old enough to remember teachers that would verbally and physically respond to a situation in a classroom. What do you think would happen now if a child walked up to a teacher, told them to go fk themselves, stormed out, maybe trashed the room? When this happens once, the behaviour in the rest of the class will deteriorate even with this child out of the room.

Posters have talked about teachers earning respect, but seriously, how can a teacher ever earn respect if they are not listened to, sworn at, intimidated and sometimes even attacked. Respect of the teacher should be the default position when a child arrives at school. Unfortunately those days are long gone.