As the director of the Santa Barbara Free School, where students co-create the program, I see every day what happens when you give teens trust, respect, and agency.
School districts like L.A. Unified have banned student cell phone use throughout the school day, largely assuming that phones are the cause of student disengagement and poor mental health. Flip that assumption on its head and look at this from our students’ perspective. For teens, phones aren’t the problem — they’re the solution.
Our students are solving for a series of problems beyond their control, with the best tools they’ve got. Phones are the most powerful antidote available to the real problems: boredom, isolation, depression, and a lack of meaningful work in their lives. Why? Students have 40-plus-hour-a-week factory jobs! School for most teenagers is a stressful full-time job, divorced from any real purpose. Stuffed into ever more crowded classrooms, pushed to perform for grades and standardized tests, forced to sit through classes for fear of punishment, teens distract and disengage at every possible opportunity. Who can blame them? They’re coping with an unfair reality with the best tools available.