Cell phones are addicting, to most of us we can’t let go of them, even in class. Teachers struggle a lot with that. “There is a time and place for phones, I allow that space at certain times,” Hirschfeld said. He thinks that phones are constantly getting pulled up in class is unacceptable. In addition, he also thinks that phones should have a certain time and place and that students should respect that.

Hirschfeld doesn’t take his students’ phones at the beginning of class. “If the school came together and said that there not allowed in classes, then I would feel comfortable taking them,” Hirschfeld said. This means that Hirschfeld would take the phones away if it became a school-wide rule.

Another problem that faces the students and teachers is that they can’t find an agreement in the middle. As if the student would have ‘an emergency’ they would need to use their phones. “I think sometimes what a student thinks of as an emergency is different from what the teacher would consider an emergency,” Dean Monte Reynolds said. That’s why there should be policies and clear expectations when the students can or can’t have their phones.

“All the teachers can fix that really by letting kids have free time. I mean, like in my English class, for example, we have tech time like a tech bridge, so that could be helpful,” Jasmine Fereydouni (10)  said. She thinks that it might be helpful to give the students some free time. She said that this is what happens in her English class. But from another perspective that might not work for everyone, because some teachers might have more work that needs to be done.

Liza Doty is a teacher that takes her students’ cell phones at the beginning of class and then gives them back at the end of class. “I make it a part of my check-in. So each day I ask a question and as you’re answering it, you put your phone up. So I think seeing other people do that helped because then it was a process and we were all in on it,” Doty said.

Now that we’ve heard from several different voices we can settle this, it’s up to each teacher when it comes to phone restrictions. Because I think different teachers have different work in class and different points of view. They may prefer to give them a brain break in class or not, it all comes down to the teacher.