Guest Editorial
As I prepare for graduation this weekend, I can’t help but think about what the teachers and administrators will say about my class. What do you say to sum up four years and 110 people?
They will undoubtedly tout the school’s no-phone policy, implemented during our final two years, and its success in creating a positive environment in which students can learn. I don’t necessarily disagree, but the dialogue on the topic is noticeably one-sided.
Before the phone policy, rules differed from classroom to classroom. Some teachers were more lax: several math teachers allowed phones as long as you were done with your work. Some were more strict: my Spanish teacher lived by--and enforced!--her rule of “lo veo, lo tomo” (I see it, I take it).
I do believe that a “lo veo, lo tomo” approach would have worked. The rollout of the new policy was criticized by students: at the end of my sophomore year, the new policy was announced out of the blue. There were limited discussions prior to the announcement, but the last few weeks of the 2023-2024 school year were spent in what felt like group therapy. For a school that prides itself on its consideration of student voices, there was surprisingly little involved in the creation of the new policy.
Maybe this was the only way to go about implementing a ban, but the decision drew a line in the sand between staff and students. If some classrooms were already phone-free, did this issue require $20,000 of equipment and little student input?
Specialized pouches and magnets that students no longer use may not have been worthwhile material investments, but I do agree that there are visible effects. Poker, for example, has become a downtime staple. The hallways are louder. These are valuable contributions to the overall school environment.
The recent influx in Harwood’s use of AI-generated promotional images also begs the question: if the phone ban was meant to bring us together as a community and foster school spirit, why not ride that high and invest in student talent? Dozens of students take digital art and photography classes each semester; why not commission one of them and celebrate their talent? The phone policy was the first step taken to better the school community, but it can’t be a crutch.
