We've all seen students who manifest withdrawal symptoms when they are not allowed to 'text at will.'
These young people are in need of behavior modification--and will one day also be in need of thumb replacement surgery if they continue texting away at the speed of light.
Behavior modification should begin the first day of class, about five minutes into the class period as the syllabus is being covered in detail.
My syllabus contains lawyerly language to describe my texting policy: Zero tolerance, with the initial offense resulting in the student being asked to leave the classroom immediately. The punishment for texting during an exam is an automatic "F."
It is possible to hear a pin drop as the draconian policy is announced. Students relax just a bit when they are advised that mercy is shown for cell phones going off in class for the first violation, although I reserve the right to answer any and all incoming calls--and that includes those from their mothers. However, they pay special attention to the rest of the policy--anyone who has a cell phone go off during an exam will have the exam picked up at that moment. Whatever they have completed to that point will be graded and no re-takes will be allowed. There are no smiles when they are also advised that this policy has been challenged and upheld.
Does this explanation make me seem cold, callous and cruel? I sure hope so.
Traditional students today are blessed with a constellation of make-up, do-over and extra credit options that those of us who attended high school a generation ago can't seem to recall because that extensive menu of options didn't exist. Combine that permissive environment with the temptations of instant gratification via texting and you have an environment that is potentially toxic to the learning process.
It gets worse--those who text engage in 'textese.'
Students are also reminded that texting begets the use of 'textese.' My initial cold shoulder gives way to a discussion of what I've seen my teen-age daughter write, as well as my responses to her textese. When she writes "lol," I remind her that I don't hear her laughing. She is not amused when she hears it, but my students laugh at the observation.
"BFF" is met with "Forever is eternal, isn't it?"
"TTFN" brings the reminder that she stopped watching "Winnie the Pooh" a decade ago.
We then discuss the fact that most of the people they will go to work for are still stuck in the Dark Ages--i.e., e-mail--and don't appreciate those who are drawing a wage texting away on their time, or writing textese when they are compelled by circumstances to communicate something intelligible.
They are also reminded that the constant over-stimulation of their synaptic relays due to texting helps to create the scenario that gives them the withdrawal symptoms--edginess and the jitters that accompany the self-inflicted urge to answer each and every text which assaults them minute by minute--or more disturbingly, within seconds. Students make it clear that not returning texts immediately is considered to be the height of bad form.
We also discuss the fact that the vast majority of what they're texting about can actually WAIT.
This revelation is met instantly with the refrain, "But what about an emergency?"
Teaching moment #1: the student is then asked precisely what percentage of texts they've received over the last day, week, month and year actually involved an emergency.
What seemed a moment before like an unassailable position has now been scrapped.
Teaching moment #2: if there is an emergency, the institution will interrupt class to let you know. That's why we still have a published phone number and 24/7 security personnel.
Teaching moment #3: question how many texts students send and receive during the average month. Then be amazed when they provide you with a number within 5 or 10 out of literally thousands that appeared on their last cell phone bill.
This information teaches those of us who are in charge of the classroom that we have students who feel a compulsion to answer every text as quickly as humanly possible. And yes, many of them admit to texting and driving, despite the legal and physical consequences.
Teaching moment #4: time for texting detox.
My wife has had plenty of classroom experience and told me repeatedly that I would NEVER catch students texting in class. Fortunately, she missed the mark. My first experience was with a female student who had her head bowed at an angle normally associated with praying, but her eyes were open. When I asked her if she was texting, a male student's head shot up. When I asked him if he was the student she was texting, he immediately implicated a third student sitting several feet away.
The detox process began at that moment. The entire class was asked to write an essay that addressed one of the following subjects: Texting is rude; Texting is a waste of classroom time; Texting is both rude and a waste of classroom time. This gave the offenders the opportunity for self-reflection and a written apology. More importantly, it provided insights into the mindset of those who had the courtesy not to text in class.
Those who didn't text wrote blistering critiques of those who did. Most agreed that texting was both rude and a waste of classroom time.
Most surprisingly, the majority expressed frustration with not being able to do anything about the annoying tapping going on around them, as well as the distractions that the texters caused on a daily basis.
My zero tolerance policy now carries a student-driven mandate.
Zero tolerance for texting not only helps me as an instructor to lead class discussions and provide lectures without having to play texting cop; the policy helps the majority of my students to decrease the unwelcome distractions that they feel unequal to dealing with themselves. We all win.
The law is only as good as its enforcement mechanism.
This is a lesson that we learn very quickly in the legal profession. The principle holds every bit as true in the classroom. Zero tolerance for texting means that students run the risk of being called out as violators of the policy. To be fair to students themselves, way too many instructors have not enacted such rules--for whatever reason--and many students treat texting at will as a right conferred by custom and practice, if not the First Amendment itself. It's their default switch, and who am I to stand in the way of their 'new normal'?
My response: this is our time together to learn. If you don't want to learn, find the door.
The first semester my policy was in place was a challenge. The first student I caught was sitting, of all places, in the front row. I asked the student if he thought I was blind. He replied in the negative and asked if he had to leave. My reply: Yes, and right now. Perhaps five minutes of a fifty-minute class period had gone by. He complied; life resumed. The looks on the faces of the remaining students varied from horror to smiles. The unmistakable message they had received from watching this event unfold: this instructor means business.
When I walked out the door at the end of class, the student was standing in the hallway--waiting to apologize. He ended up being one of my best writers.
It has been said that good news travels fast. In my case, bad news traveled even faster. After the initial applicaton of zero tolerance had been administered, an interesting thing happened: students in my courses stopped texting. There have been no recriminations: no one has ever 'dinged' me on student evaluations over this policy. Life goes on at a less frantic pace, one more conducive to learning, not policing.
That was several years ago.
My policy is explained to students within the first five minutes of the semester. All of my students are also told the unvarnished truth: students in previous classes have run afoul of the policy and suffered consequences as a result, from being tossed out of class to having a final exam picked up before it was completed. I ask them to do me a favor and not put me in a position where they have to experience the same difficulties. To date, they have honored my request.
The takeway: a more orderly and congenial learning environment.
This policy kills several birds with one stone. Students understand that we have ground rules that must be obeyed. Their objections are addressed, discussed and settled. Students who have a compulsion to text every nano-second awaken to the new realization that the world will not come to an end if they take a fifty or seventy-five minute break from the texting merry-go-round. Students who are annoyed with fellow students who text at will no longer have to endure that dynamic--and can stop clinching their jaws. We learn together, not despite one another.
Final words
We close our discussion of the zero tolerance texting policy with a small dose of humor. I ask the class how many of them plan to major in biology. The punch line: if you are not thinking along those lines, perhaps you should. About the time you emerge from your medical school residency as a surgeon, half of your texting classmates will be lined up around the block to have their thumbs unlocked or replaced.
Louis Riggs - Louis Riggs, J.D. Hannibal-LaGrange University Missouri Humanities Council Board of Directors Hannibal, Missouri
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