www.nickhodge.com

There have been some calls to ban mobile phones at schools:

There are calls for mobile phones to be banned at schools, because of con­cerns they’re being used by stu­dents to film viol­ent behaviour.

Thank­fully, John Della-Bosca says:

NSW Edu­ca­tion Min­is­ter John Della Bosca says the over­whelm­ing major­ity of stu­dents use the tech­no­logy respons­ib­il­ity with fam­ily and par­ental consent.

My think­ing is that ban­ning phones and cam­eras will not reduce viol­ence. In fact, it may increase it as the “phys­ical bul­lies” could act without evid­ence being collected.

How about stop­ping the viol­ence in the first place?

From Skynews:

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. Short term sug­ges­tion is to col­lect mobile phones in morn­ing, and return in the even­ing. Says that what NSW is doing isn’t work­ing. Seems to be talk­ing about the vic­tims of cyber-bullying; com­pounds sense of humi­li­ation of the vic­tims; and talks about the costs.

Videos done out of school. Tech­nique called “accept­able use policies”. Jur­is­dic­tion of the schools to police it. Par­ents should be, but can­not, mon­itor what is going on. Someone has to be the voice of reason. Someone has to police it.