Schools' extreme reaction should be reviewed in light of digital age

Banning smartphones in classrooms is nothing new in China. Even without the regulation from the Ministry of Education and seven other departments, phones have always been banned in most Chinese primary and middle schools.

When I attended high school in 2008, students were not allowed to bring phones into classrooms. It did not bother me much because I did not have my own phone or computer before I went to college in 2011.

For high-school students in China, the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, has always been the most important thing. Everything comes secondary compared with gaokao. For middle-school students, their most important thing is to study hard and get enrolled into a good high school. For primary school students, it's to get into a good middle school.

Therefore, it is only natural for schools to forbid students from bringing phones to school, which could become a distraction to their studies.

Only a handful of students would bring phones to classrooms when I was in high school. This is because the school did not allow it and phones were not as prevalent as they are today.

When teachers caught students playing with their phones in class, they would get furious and even smash the phone to pieces in front of the class to set an example.

Most parents would not blame the teachers for doing that, because they all want their children to obtain high scores and get enrolled into a good university.

Although phones have become much more prevalent and many primary and secondary students now own phones, it does not mean the importance of gaokao and other enrollment tests has diminished in any way.

Many schools still have a zero-tolerance policy regarding students and their phones. Any phones brought to school will be soaked in water and smashed with a hammer.

Some have waged a "war against cellphones" and have installed metal detectors to catch pupils who try to sneak them into class.

With some parents giving phones to toddlers to calm them down, is it still feasible to ban their use in classrooms? How can the ban be implemented? To prevent any phone coming into the school, should teachers search every single student every day?

If school is about preparing us for the world, then learning how to use your phone - when it is and is not appropriate - is an important part of that.

(China Daily Global 05/03/2019 page8)