Teacher Sparks National Debate After Forcing Students To Lock Up Their Cell Phones


You wouldn’t think that a digital photography teacher in Spokane, Washington could spark a national debate but that is exactly what Michael Lee did. Lee noticed that his students were coming into the classroom sooner than usual and getting their work done faster during the 2017 school year.

He came to the conclusion that the students were working faster, not because they were engaged in what they were doing but because they wanted to get back to using their phones and spending time browsing the Internet or posting on social media.

Lee decided that he would make a change for the better.

“My overall goal was to give kids an opportunity to engage in what they’re doing,” Michael told KREM. “And that’s hard to do when every few seconds or few minutes there’s a beep on your phone and you have to check what it is.”

In order to store the cellular phones, Lee began looking for options and eventually found a large phone locker on Amazon.com. He then came up with a system and implemented it for all of the students.

Each student would be provided with a cubby number. They would then be required to put their phones into the designated cubby when the class started. The phones also were able to be charged in the locker during class.

Before long, Lee started to see some interesting results. Now other teachers from his school and elsewhere are following suit.


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