classism! discrimination against technological late adopters!

[alexseanchai]

My parents just got a phone call from the high school. Highlight: All students in grades 9-12 (read: all students) are to something something pledge to graduate, and are thus permitted to bring their cell phone to English class (all students are required to be in an English class) for purposes of signing the pledge.

My high-school-age sister hasn't got a cell phone of ANY description. Never mind a phone with Internet access!

Comments

[jelazakazone]

What??? I mean, why do they need to use a cell phone to sign this thing? It doesn't make any sense to me.

My kids, ages 10 and 13, will not be getting phones any time soon and when they do, they will have stupid flip phones, which I assume wouldn't help with this signing issue.

[alexseanchai]

IDK!

[crystalpyramid]

Are they assuming the cell phone is a smart phone or is there some way you can sign electronically with a regular phone?

[alexseanchai]

Good question. Sister says she'll either find the website on the library computer or, if it's an app, just not bother.

[crystalpyramid]

Makes sense. If a school wants kids to have a piece of technology, the school should require it. No fair for a teacher to just assume everyone has it. I've definitely taught high schoolers with flip phones and high schoolers without cell phones at all, although they're increasingly a minority. (And the fact that we do the school-issued laptop thing probably means this kind of thing would never come up.)

[silveradept]

Ipe. If the school wanted to know how many students didn't have cell phones, they could have just asked.

[alexseanchai]

Yup.

[untonuggan]

uuuuugh

sympathies and hammer of angry feminism for the school system