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Cell phones in school, you're kidding me, right? It is bad enough that teens today have a communication problem with their parents, but let's not encourage the declination of their communication skills any further.

Having been in college and worked on a high school campus, there is nothing more humorous to see than the immediate exit of students from the classroom and the cell phones are out and in use. My wife had to ban them from use in our car because the kids would spend their time texting someone instead of actually talking. Once I caught them texting the person sitting right next to them.

To survive in our world, you have to communicate. I'm not talking about the one word answers or the abbreviated LOLs and CYAs; real communication where thoughts and ideas are expressed completely, where conversations have substance. I watched my older daughter go through her MySpace mail and I counted the conversations with her friends that were one word or one sentence. I asked her why she didn't just call her friends and she looked at me like I was stupid or something. Speak voice to voice? Why would she do that?

This is the world that they are creating for their future. Communication clipped to acronyms and useless words sent across a digital airway. A world where the speaker has complete control of their anonymity. They can be as insincere and dishonest as they choose. Their words can express as little of their true feeling as they want without ever looking the other person in the eyes.

Enough of the soapbox. The tragedy that I have seen with the use of cell phones, other than the above mentioned problems, is that information is too easily passed from one person to another. I have seen students with their cell phones on silent and texting answers back and forth. In classrooms that are becoming more and more over-crowded, this gets passed up frequently. I have seen kids bored to death with their class and have spent the whole time texting with someone else. I have tried to have conversations with students, only to have them text someone else in the middle of our discussion and think nothing of it, voicelessly saying that my conversation isn't nearly as important as the one with the person texting them.

I know that in our world today safety is a huge issue, especially when it comes to our children. I bought a cell phone for my daughter when she went to college for her first semester. She needed it to arrange for rides and for her protection and our peace of mind. I purposely didn't get the phone plan with texting included. I also know that there are plenty of ways to keep someone safe without the use of a cell phone; screaming, running, avoiding situations that invite problems.

Having weighed the options; should cell phones be allowed at school? No. If you want to protect your kids, by all means, take their cell phones away.

Learn more about this author, Matt Claridge.
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