Turn down the mobile cabinets – Speech

I was lucky enough to have a daughter when I was 10 years younger than the average age for first-time mothers in Norway.

A lot has happened since I went to secondary school in the mid-2000s, but since I got a mobile phone in the 6th grade, as a parent I have a unique insight into what it’s like to grow up with a mobile phone. Few of today’s young parents have that insight.

Today’s parents seem to be afraid of what mobile phones are doing to their young people, especially during school hours. In many cases it may be justified. The students have it up at school, they snap at each other in class, they bully each other online, and they are unfocused and have the attention span of a goldfish.

When I went to school, “snap” was indeed called “SMS”, but apart from that, there was surprisingly much that was the same.

That the mobile phone can be a disruptive element in the classroom, there is no doubt. But if you think back to when you went to school, there were probably elements of disturbance then too.

The fact is that the note you threw to a fellow student in class has been replaced with a snap, or that the magazine you were reading under the desk has been replaced with a TikTok clip. Other than that, most things are the same.

Collective punishment is (fortunately) abolished in Norwegian schools. The teacher can no longer punish an entire class for the behavior of an individual student. But how can an entire school be deprived of a personal asset because individual students use it in an inappropriate way?

Why don’t you instead give notices and messages home to those who fail to follow the rules?

The mobile phone will follow today’s students throughout a long life. Instead of demonizing and banning it in everyday school life, we should rather teach them how it should – and should not – be used in a work situation.

If I fish out my mobile to laugh at a cat video during an important meeting with the boss, I also get a “remark” at work. Teach students this by treating them the same way.

I recently attended a parent meeting at the secondary school where my daughter attends. In advance of the meeting, we were sent the school’s “Technology map” by e-mail, and at the meeting we reviewed

concerns and claims about students’ use of technology.

In groups, we discussed this, and it became clear that the overall opinion of the parents was negative towards technology use by young people in general. “Imagine if everything was as good as when we were young”, was the review tone.

After this meeting, the total ban on mobile phones has been adopted. We parents are now being asked to let the school know if our children do not bring their phone to school, so that they can possibly be reprimanded if they do not hand it in at the start of the school day.

In the e-mail, this is called “notice of deviation”.

Technology in school, and today’s technology in general, definitely has many challenging aspects. I have a master’s degree in language technology with the use of artificial intelligence, and teach programming to students at university level. And believe me when I say that I get scared when I see what I’m teaching can be used for.

I can only imagine how Alfred Nobel felt when he invented dynamite. The technology around us is perhaps a bit like today’s dynamite. The vast majority of people who use it have good intentions, but if you have evil intentions, there is no problem using it to cause destruction either.

This, too, must be learned by the students.

Taking away students’ mobile phones is a disempowerment of the young people. They are just as (un)reflective as we were when we were their age. Give them an opportunity to make mistakes, and instead correct the individual when rules are broken.

Teach them when and how the technology can be used, and the positive aspects of mastering it. It is in this way that today’s youth are taught to become adults in the times in which we live.

It has been said about the youth that “They have bad manners, deny authority, have no respect for older people and talk when they should really be working. They put their legs over each other and tyrannize their teachers”.

The quote was attributed to Socrates some 2,450 years ago, and is just as relevant today. This is how I feel that the majority of the parents’ generation think of today’s youth.

It’s about time to let the students get their mobile phone back, because they will keep it throughout their long lives. Teach them to use it sensibly and correct them when they do something unacceptable.

Let youth be youth, unfocused, unreflective and in rebellion against parents and teachers.

And put aside the belief that they will grow up, communicate and play in the way you did when you were a child.

Turn down the mobile cabinets. The nineties are over, and it’s not coming back.