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Comment by mFixman | Hacker News Reader

Blanket bans of this kind rarely work, and policies like this are usually caused by other factors.

My primary school had a concrete playground without any trees, and school policy forbid us from running (so we wouldn't hurt ourselves), from playing games like tag (so we wouldn't run) or clapping each other's hands (because we could hurt ourselves). We also couldn't play card games to protect against gambling, nor gather in a group of 5 or more people for some reason. I would have loved a cellphone or anything not to be bored out of my mind during break, but that wouldn't be necessary with a more reasonable school policy.

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Kids will find something else to do if you take away one thing they weren't using responsibly. The problem is when, as in your case, you take everything away

Additionally, just because something gets a blanket ban doesn't mean the intent is to blanket ban. If the blanket ban simply encourages kids to only check their phones during breaks or when they go to the bathroom, that still has a pretty positive effect on kids using their phones throughout the day.

I honestly can't imagine the thought process behind doing what your primary school did. When I was in primary school the only restriction on play was that you couldn't tackle or do anything else that would obviously hurt people. I think you would legitimately either need to be a terrible person, a complete idiot, or both to ban essentially all forms of play.

It sounds like your school was run in an authoritarian and deeply unpleasant way. That's sad and infuriating, but I don't think that has any particular relevance to banning an object which didn't exist at the time.

> nor gather in a group of 5 or more people for some reason

Seriously...? There is like several worlds between this (even if it's true) and the topic.

You should ask yourself why your parents didn't do anything against those ridiculous rules and I assume you grew up in some normal western country and not in NK or something where I would assume those rules to be normal.

Objecting to school policy is extremely hard, I remember one time I got pulled aside by a vice principal who was new to my grade, trying to nab me for a minor code of conduct violation on a code I'd never agreed to. Told him to pound sand unless he could produce a signed copy of the code of conduct showing I'd agreed to it. Got my parents involved along with a few other people from the PTA, but no luck.

He did make my life rather poor for a year or two, but I told him off a few weeks before school was out when he tried to keep a group of students on campus for an after-school event, claiming we couldn't leave. The darker side of me is all too happy to see that he is among the lowest paid administrators at Seattle Public Schools despite his long tenure. My former teachers make more, which I'm glad for!

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