If you teach a core content like me (math here!), you may be guilty of the occasional mental trap of “these kids probably act better in classes they CHOOSE to be in.” You know, maybe they behave better in their elective courses because they signed up for that course instead of it being required. While there is probably some truth to this, I was surprised with today’s observations…

I teach high school geometry, and at my school we have monthly cross-curricular (CC) meetings during typical PLC (professional learning communities) time. For those of you who aren’t up on the education lingo, CC groups are made up of a group of teachers across multiple contents and PLC groups are made up of teachers of the same content areas. Since the conception of our CC groups, we have observed engagement strategies used by other teachers in our building by teacher invitation. I have invited teachers in when I was doing vertical dry erase space, PBLs, or Kagan structures. I have enjoyed these opportunities and more than once implemented engagement strategies I observed. When we finish our observations we discuss them in a CC meeting.

My high school is on campus with a CTC (Career and Technical Center) for high school students, and it services our high schoolers and two neighboring schools. For this round of CC meetings we were able to observe at the CTC. Today was my day to observe and I went to an Automotive class.

Upon entering the room I see some of my former students and students I don’t know, and they are changing tires. My colleague and I ask a student about their class and he tells us about safety procedures and how everyone is changing a tire as one of their first hands-on activities. The instructor then comes over and converses with us about various components of the class.

The school day ended at 2:40 and we were there talking until 3:00 or after. I was surprised that a teacher of elective course was facing the same struggles I face in a core class. Here are some of those struggles:

• students playing games on computers
• students up from their seat, running around the room (this was more of a first year teacher issue for me)
• students giving up too easily and not persevering
• students being on their phones and therefore not listening to instruction

These are real issues that students need help with to overcome; they need help and home and at school.

After feeling validated from hearing about the first three listed common struggles, I inquired about any issues the instructor faces with phone use. He said “I took care of that” and pointed to a set of lockers. He proceeded to share that students must lock up their phones in a locker for the duration of class. I immediately said “I want one of those!”

I do not allow phone usage in my classroom, unless I give specific permission for use on an activity. My policy is that if I see it out, the student must put the phone in a container attached to my desk, and they get it back at the end of class. This sounds great and all until you are interrupting yourself teaching to tell students to put away their phone. I also considered using a calculator caddy where students put their phone in on their way into the classroom, but I was too afraid of the safety issue of a student touching someone else’s phone.

So, I want a classroom phone jail! A small one that doesn’t take up too much space. A school-wide or district-wide phone policy would be nice, too. What about you? Does your district have a phone policy? Do you have your own classroom phone policy?