In the past year, Canadian provinces have made significant strides in enhancing classroom environments by implementing cellphone bans in schools. It’s no surprise education ministries in Ontario, Manitoba, and Nova Scotia are having such amazing success. Parents and teachers have reported remarkable success in engaging and educating learning disabled students as well.
Ontario’s education ministry claimed that the ban has allowed for a more conducive learning atmosphere. Further, feedback from the education community and parents is the most important part,” said Emma Testani, spokesperson for the ministry.
“As we close out the first full year of implementation, we will continue gathering input to understand how the policy has worked in practice, where it has been effective, and where further support may be needed,” – Emma Testani.
The provincial response to the ban has been inconsistent. In Manitoba, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt offered a story illustrating the 180-degree turn in student conduct. One school librarian shared that right before the lunch ban went into effect, students were sitting in silence.
“You could hear a pin drop,” – Tracy Schmidt.
Since the ban went into effect, Schmidt has noticed increased student engagement. For one, students have more opportunities to mingle with classmates between classes.
“They still come with their groups of friends, but now they’re sitting, they’re talking, they’re laughing. They might pick up a board game. The librarian was really, really grateful to the province for taking this step,” – Tracy Schmidt.
At the same time, students have been clear in sharing their ambivalence towards the ban. For Roha Akram, an Ontario grade 11 student who helped advocate for this change, the first announcement of the policy initially made her optimistic. She acknowledged use of her phone to listen to music, too, in class. She admitted teachers made it very clear that devices should not be visible.
“They wanted it in the backpack, in the locker, in the car,” – Roha Akram.
Even though he was opposed to it at first, Akram understood why the government instituted the ban. In her testimony, she explained how most students have developed unhealthy attachments to their phones and how they improve with less screen time.
Here in Nova Scotia, education spokesperson Alex Burke told me that education workers were caught off guard in a positive way. The implementation process went better than they hoped. Teachers typically return confiscated devices at the end of the period or end of the day. This provides a structured, consistent approach to device use.
“While not all students like leaving their devices out of the classroom, there is a general acceptance of the benefit of limiting cellphone use and appreciation of the opportunity to ignore their phones,” – Alex Burke.
Burke said that schools had a lot of leeway to implement the ban. This provided them with the flexibility they needed to change how they were doing things already, or start doing new things.
The shift hasn’t come without bumps in the road. In these instances, students have creatively—and at times, hilariously—gotten around the rules. Akram recalled an experience where one student hid his phone behind a textbook while a teacher was trying to teach a class. She witnessed an incident when a teacher confiscated a boy’s phone. The boy had developed a profound emotional bond to his device.
Today, educators and students alike are grappling with the new realities. The ban isn’t likely to eradicate cellphone use in classrooms, it has reoriented the conversation to more engaging learning environments. Similar policies were enacted by most provinces across Canada last fall, following the pattern we have seen in other countries.
