Phones are a major part of this generation. Phones are used to purchase things, exchange money, and even do school work. At Rock Island High School, the school has been enforcing the no phone rule during school hours, and many students were upset. Students at Rock Island High School use technology for everything, like the Journalism class uses it to make the beloved yearbook that students enjoy, and technology is used to send messages to every grade level at Rock Island High School. Can students and teachers have the same feeling about phones in schools? 

For Rock Island High School Student, Arianna Gulliory, she believes that phones are distracting to some of the students at Rock Island High School, even though she, herself gets distracted by her phone. “I usually don’t use my phone in class because it distracts me,” said Ms. Guillory. Arianna uses her phone for good. Arianna’s phone helps her a lot with taking AP classes  during her 11th grade year at RIHS, and it helps her stay organized with the S.A.T. coming up in the spring. “I have a graphing app and a scheduling app that helps me organize and calculate problems,”  said  Guillory. “Calculations and access to resources become much easier to apply into everyday situations,” she explains.  Having technology in school can be helpful for many other students beside Arianna Guillory. 

Guillory believe that her phone makes life easier and better organized. “Calculations and access to resources become much easier to apply into everyday situations,” said Guillory. If Arianna was a teacher, she would use technology to help with work with her students. “Only during free time or reasonable working would my students have their phones out. It also depends on each individual students’ performance,” said Guillory.

Mrs. Evanchyk, a math teacher at Rock Island High School, who is sadly retiring this year, has a strict no phone policy in her classroom rules. She wanted her students to focus on her math lessons, rather than their phones. “ Technology in education is good in the right spots, but it should not be in every classroom every day,” said Mrs. Evanchyk. With Mrs. Evanchyk’s rule in her classroom, she doesn’t dislike phones in the classroom, as she believes that phones can be helpful to students who maybe don’t understand the lessons that teachers give. “Showing how to do notes and do examples,” can be helpful with phones,  said Mrs. Evanchyk. Along with knowing information, she believes that phones have a lot of interesting information for students to learn. “There is a lot of information out there that they can go to, so if they don’t understand  something, they can go to YouTube, Khan Academy, Google, to find all the information they need,” said Mrs. Evanchyk. 

Mrs. Evanchyk like phones for students that they can use to help them at school, but she also likes that students can go back to textbooks. “Textbooks, I think they need that textile. They should be able to touch it, go back and forth, and it’s just less strain on them to look at a textbook, and it’s always there, and they can always look back,” said Mrs. Evanchyk. If Mrs. Evanchyk was a student, there would not be a problem with a phone. “I put my phone away when I’m in a classroom, then I focus on what’s going on in the classroom,” said Mrs. Evanchyk. Teachers may be harsh about phones, but they want all of their students to be successful in classes, with phones and even without phones in school.

Phones in schools can be distracting for some students, but can be helpful to other students, who may have a hard time in school. With phones for this generation, phones are used in any way, and with the years going by, technology is going to get more advanced. But once in awhile, textbooks and handwritten essays can be helpful also. Phones can take over this generation, but not Rock Island High School.