One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

By Noah Lindsay

In this article, I will assume the role of a critic and just one voice of the greater student body. My aim is to amplify concerns, not to attack anyone. I have no personal vendetta against the school administration and no strong personal feelings against these new policies, I am merely exercising my right to contest ideas. 

The Phone Ban

In the wake of artificial intelligence - a new, confusing technology that threatens to restructure how we view consciousness, humanity, ethics, art, and in the scope of academia, spawns a plethora of questions and concerns that aren’t being adequately addressed, Kaohsiung American School decides to revert back a decade or two and address an issue that is not only irrelevant, but a waste of time and resources. 

The everyday mobile cellular device is now no longer permitted to be used on campus, with rare exceptions of when they’re needed for class activities. Students are expected to lock their devices in a magnetic bag throughout the day and unlock them at the end of it. At the time of writing this, the aforementioned bag is not yet in school-wide use, so the implications of this specific aspect of this policy aren’t going to be explored in thorough detail. What I will explore, however, are the flaws that I, as a high school student in Kaohsiung American School, find in the incentive behind implementing such an authoritative policy, the side effects, and ultimately, its futility in the broader landscape of our school community. 

So why the sudden shift? Mrs. Chelsea Armstrong, the middle school principal expresses, "I believe we have a phone addiction problem—myself included. Studies show that simply having access to a phone can cause anxiety," she said. "I believe that by keeping phones away during the school day, we will see less anxious, more engaged students.” Mr. Jim Laney, the head of school, writes, “We believe the Yondr program will allow our students to: Be more mindful and less distracted, be more engaged in classroom activities, improve their verbal communication and interpersonal skills in English, improve their academic performance in multiple subject areas. In addition, we expect there will be a decrease in bullying and harassment through social media.” 

Now, for the sake of transparency and fairness of argument, I have to say that I understand and appreciate the larger goal behind the implementation of this policy. I believe device usage is (or was) rampant in the school community, and that ultimately the school’s administration do want the best for the students and faculty by trying to increase student engagement. This, however, sounds much better in theory than it happens to work out in practice.

Mrs. Armstrong cites anxiety as a core reason behind banning phones. After doing some research, I’ve come across this article by Granite Hills Hospital that seems to share the same sentiment with Mrs. Armstrong. Here’s the quote as it pertains to causes of anxiety in modern-day teenagers:

“Biological factors, such as genetics and brain chemistry, play a role. Environmental factors, including stressful life events like family issues, academic pressure or bullying, can also contribute to anxiety. Additionally, the rise of social media has introduced a new layer of stress, with teens feeling the need to measure up to the curated lives of their peers.”

I believe that social media is the main concern and point of address with the implementation of this policy. Other than social media, phones are really only used for messaging, pictures, music, games, and general access to the internet. While studies like this one suggest other factors are more prevalent and focal to the rise of anxiety in teens, the access to social media certainly can’t help - or can it?

By banning the use of social media in school, students aren’t able to compare themselves to other people online during school hours. However, when outside of campus, students are permitted to glamorize, dream, and deepen their inadequacies just as much as they’d like. And teenagers today don’t just see admiring the great lives of others as the core reason behind using social media. Some people want to see a funny video, share something with a friend, etc., and if anything, activities like that don’t serve as stressors, but rather a reprieve from the demanding, gruelling grind of daily life. Ridding students of this right to not have to perform every second of the day is counter-intuitive in the sense that instead of freeing their mind of “the toxicity of social media”, you’re seizing their breathing room - their coping mechanism. 

Taiwanese students specifically are under an unparalleled amount of rigorous academic pressure. If you’re in the position to be reading this article, whether you’re a student, teacher, or anything in between, then this is not news for you. Classes start early in the morning, and for many students in KAS, end late at night. The student’s present purpose is to somehow always consume information, process that information, and regurgitate said information formulaically, while all at the same time being expected to develop a personality and unique worldview of some sort. Then, you balance it out with athletics, a social life, and “community impact”, so that once a group of judges get together and see your achievements in life thus far written verbatim on a piece of paper, they get to compare it to some systemic metric and deem whether you are worthy enough of getting the mere chance to pay for and attend their institution. 

This is the world of the student. This is why they’re anxious all the time. Yet the KAS administration is so quick to label someone who takes refuge from an oppressive and demanding environment by tuning out every once in a while to enjoy things specifically curated and tailored to them a troubled individual, in need of some discipline and restraint. Their expectation is that if you’re stressed out or overwhelmed, go talk to a friend. Socialize. If you’re bored in class, then pay attention in class. Their central belief is that by revoking phones, they’re ridding students of the rite of passage to a toxic environment that is poisonous, addictive, and distracting. 

Now let me articulate how, in practice, this simply just does not fare well. The KAS administration’s diagnosis of the student populace is clear: they’re ill, and illness needs to be cured. The root cause of the illness is the phone, and the ultimate goal of the sick patient is to remove themselves from reality with an outlet. Now imagine (and please forgive me for the mention of some vulgar and sensitive themes), you are for some reason in charge of a mental institution that houses a group of severely suicidal patients, each patient individually complex in their mix of a myriad of other health and personal issues. They, too, have a common sickness, and their ultimate goals are unanimous. As the person in charge, you revoke all guns, sharp objects, tall staircases, etc., but provide them with sufficient living facilities. Their easiest access points to their eventual goal are taken away from them, but that poses a problem: 

Do you really think they’re not going to find a way regardless? And if not, how does this treatment incentivize them into wanting to live? 

A phone-addicted teenager will access social media via their laptop or Ipad, and KAS can’t and won’t do anything about it. A video game-addicted teenager will access video games via their laptop or Ipad, and KAS can’t and won’t do anything about it. The implementation of this phone policy is not a restriction - it’s a mere inconvenience at the expense of everyone else who uses mobile devices tactfully. 

And to address the second part of my thesis, please consider the fact that for the demographic of teenagers that aren’t stressed out and anxious 24/7, there’s students that are simply bored. The delineating factor between teenage students at KAS and the eruption of utter chaos has always been, in my mind, their immersion in their cellular devices, and by extension, a lack of interest to stimulate themselves via less conventional and more troublesome methods. A kid who is bored, regardless if they’re busy or not, will find a way to alleviate that boredom. If that kid does not have access to their phone - the best sedative there is in the 21st century, they will most likely end up doing something much worse. You might think “Well, they’re grown up, and they should be more responsible than to, for example, clog the urinal with a paper towel or put a dead rat in the lost and found.” It seems, however, like KAS is not concerned with providing new alternatives to the use of phones, and are rather simply letting students “figure it out”. By banning phones, how exactly does KAS propose to make students more engaged? Kids who stared into screens before will either stare into space or bigger screens, kids who felt anxious before are now more than ever completely enamored with their everyday pressures. 

One other major point of address is the “online harassment and bullying” that Mr. Laney alludes to, and for the sake of not wanting to be too redundant, I want to make clear that my take on the claim that banning phones will somehow decrease the frequency of this is consistent with my belief of the other aims of this policy: it’s not going to help. Not only can online harassment and bullying occur outside of school hours, you’re pretty much just shifting that into real life harassment and bullying during school hours. It seems more like a “this didn’t happen on KAS grounds, so it’s not our responsibility” more than a genuine effort to eradicate these things.  

My main critique of the broader concept and execution of this policy is that, while yes, it does address a problem, it doesn’t go far enough into the terrain of restriction to make any substantial change, and renders itself as an annoyance/nuisance. If you’re really that concerned - ban every device. Go full analog. If you don’t want to tell your kids to take notes with a pen and paper, then take their phones and put them in trays during class time. I fully believe that it will be beneficial to give kids access to their personal mobile devices during leisure times for convenience, and that any attempt to survey and enforce strict regulations that ultimately make no substantial change is a huge waste of time and money. 

On top of that, let me touch briefly on the implications of the Yondr™ bags. Students are expected to pay 1000 NTD (which I’ve personally heard complaints about, and while yes I do wish that the school would cover these fees as they’re the ones implementing these policies, I really don’t think it’s something to fret about), lock their phones in a magnetic bag, and then line up after school to wait and unlock your phone via these magnet stations. But what about kids who take the bus? They have to be somewhere on time, do they have priority? How about kids with scheduled classes? Kids who take trains? If it’s a first come first serve kind of deal, then really everyone’s just taking their chance every single day as to who does or doesn’t get to make it on time to these things. It seems as though the school doesn’t really care whether or not you leave the campus on time, but they really care exponentially more about whether or not you make it to class on time (understandably so, but for me these should be on the same level). This leads me to my next policy.

The Elevator Ban

This one I can sympathize with more, but as opposed to the other policy, I believe I actually have a pretty concrete solution to this one. The elevators have been banned due to an abundance of student tardies - which I can tell you as a student is a very real problem. However, this is not the way I believe KAS can effectively go about this. I think in the same vein as the mobile phone policy, kids should be expected to practice discipline and responsibility on their accord, without the forceful push of school administration. So, my first proposal: unban the elevators. Kids’ legs are sore and it saves so much unnecessary energy usage. 

My counterweight proposal: actually punish the kids for being late. I was late last semester for way more periods than I should have been. What did I get? A number on my report card. I know classmates that show up for like half the semester. What do they get? The same degree I’m about to get in a year’s time, except I was actually present every single day. In my old school, if you’re late and unexcused for a certain amount of time, you were made to wash the dishes, stay behind after school, or perform some type of compensation. You can’t just take away things and expect change to happen. Punish the kids with bad time management more than the ones who have good time management, don’t just punish everyone equally. 

If this article resonates with you and you feel the compunction to say something, feel free to comment under blog and start discussions. Everyone's voice should be heard.