Students’ mobile phone addiction and poor home education are often complained about by teachers. Some complain about the chaos in schools, adding that it is increasingly difficult for them to carry out their activities normally.
The use of mobile phones by students during class hours is prohibited in Romania, except in situations where they are used with the consent of the teaching staff, for educational purposes, according to the regulations promoted by the Ministry of Education.
In reality, many teenagers manage to break this rule, and their addiction to phones makes the job of teachers more and more difficult. More and more teachers complain about the inappropriate behavior of students during classes, blaming it on the poor education, but also on the difficulty with which they detach themselves from the applications on the phone.
The teachers, exhausted by the school atmosphere
The testimony of a young man, who talks about the problems his mother, a teacher, is having at school, has sparked a wave of reactions on online platforms.
“My mother is a high school teacher. She comes home saying she was at war. The kids are very naughty, they laugh at everything, they can’t wait to be without their phones, they comment on everything the teachers tell them, talk back or threaten to file a complaint. I understand that we live in a society where we have rights, but how do you educate a child if you are not allowed to do anything to them? A low grade is a challenge, a low grade on behavior can take you to court. Why I still come to school if I don’t know what that respect is? School is not a place to go for fun. You go to learn things. They want not to nothing, if possible, and only get 10’s… stay on the phone and make jokes“, he complains on Reddit.
A young woman who teaches English at a good school in Bucharest said that she noticed disturbing behavior even in primary school children.
“They can’t watch a five-minute animated story without getting bored and agitated. They swear, they fight, they get offended, including the teachers, they talk badly, contradict each other and argue. At 6, 7, 8 years old! I don’t even say what I hear from my classmates who have classes in older classes or what I see in the hallways.” states this.
The young woman, who says she is 23 years old, adds that many students are confrontational and often answer her rudely.
“I wouldn’t have dared to answer a teacher or not do what he says. But now I only hear “yes, I don’t want to do this because you’re lying to me”, “I don’t want a report card, I don’t feel like it”, “yes, why should I do what you say” or they roll their eyes, ignore us. And if you put a negative note in the catalog, the parents call you: “oh, excuse him, I upset him this morning because I took the cat’s side and I asked him to stop torturing her” or they also argue with you that their offspring is perfect and you are crazy for daring to give it an insufficient. It is something so frustrating, no matter what vocation or love you have for the subject and for the department.” states this.
Another teacher claims that she arrives home exhausted after 6-7 hours spent teaching high school students.
“I also had moments when I left crying, after certain conversations with the students. If I take their phones, I start to feel like I’m not allowed to do that. If I talk to the parents, they get defensive. If I lower their grade, they dispute and make a fuss. I have classes where I actually can’t keep my time. It doesn’t work either with good words or low grades, because they really don’t care.” this ad.
Parents, often blamed for school chaos
Another teacher complains that the school is run by (ultra-protective) parents, not teachers.
“These parents are convinced they know better what needs to be done in school, and the principals allow them. That’s the problem. I’m a university teacher, and the high school class of 2024 was the most difficult I’ve worked with in 13 years. In short: they want high grades with minimum effort, maximum stupidity and, in some places, insensitivity”he adds.
Many Romanians blame the parents of the “problem students” for the situation in the schools, accusing them of not taking more care of their own children’s education. As long as parents don’t respect teachers, neither will their children, believes one of them.
“Phones have been banned at times for several years in the official regulations. The problem is that there are many parents who don’t agree and make a fuss, along with stupid students who make a fuss, and then the teacher prefers to watch his lesson. You can’t go every day, as a teacher, to police the phones instead of doing your class, especially when you’re not solving anything anyway”he adds.
Some children manage to dominate their parents, imposing themselves on them regarding the use of mobile phones.
“At the beginning of the school year, a classmate of my son’s was screaming like a snake on the first day of school, that why doesn’t her mother let her use TikTok at school. It marked me badly and made me sad.” complains a Romanian woman.
A young man complains that many parents are not at all present in family life, being increasingly busy, tired and attracted, in turn, to phones. Even before their appearance, the family relationship of many Romanians was not very different, someone else observes.
“Our parents left us with our grandparents, they left us with friends, on the street, but they didn’t stay with us. And now everyone feels superior that they didn’t give us phones, for the simple reason that they didn’t exist back then.” add this one.
A Romanian adds that some parents bring their children to kindergarten and return home to sleep, and others, who stay at home to take care of the child, actually spend their time on social networks, hoping that their sons will learn in the separate room.
“My friend teaches in a school, in the village. She complained that some of the students are very tired in the first lessons. She called the parents to the school, discussions after discussions. They entered TikTok at 12 in the evening, and two parents were doing live with the children, challenges and all kinds of things. When she told me, I didn’t even know whether to laugh or cry.” says an internet user.
Mobile phones, also “guilty” of school failures
Teachers can’t do much when students spend several hours daily on phones and tablets, at home or on car seats, during the commute to and from school, believes another Romanian. But phones were created to distract students, he adds.
“They are made in such a way that they are addictive, just like a game of chance, you have the icons in garish colors, gamification everywhere, you have streaks in the apps, the algorithms in the social networks take you through a rollercoaster of emotions. There is nothing that has not been studied in order to manipulate human weaknesses to the maximum. It’s all free because our attention is the commodity. At the end of the day, you resist less temptations.” says a young man.
A Romanian claims that the interest that many students give to the phone, more than to lessons, is caused by the evolution of technology.
“It’s the first generation of parents who had screens for babysitting and left (some, sometimes abandoned) children in front of them, exposed to all kinds of things. Control over education will be in the media, in this case. If influencers show their wealth and cunning, these will also become the values of the child. A parent can talk to the child, discuss what he sees on TikTok. I see cases of children desperate for brands and money. I’ve seen TikToks made hidden, in class, like “my sneakers are worth as much as his (the teacher’s) salary”, says a netizen.
However, a Romanian states that social networks cause fewer behavior problems than home education.
“A 12-13-year-old child with a good education at home will have the ability to discern quite well what to take and what not to take from social media. The problem with social media occurs when access is provided very early, and these children are not monitored by parents and are left in front of the tablet. It also occurs when the child is already receiving a poor education at home, in which case access to social media makes the situation worse.” he states.
Some teachers teach their lesson pretending the classroom chaos doesn’t exist, another observes.
“And we, in general, had classmates who would get up from their desks during English class and make fun of the teacher, boo her, go to the blackboard and erase her lesson, etc. That woman was far too calm for her own good. While all this was happening, she continued to teach her lesson as if nothing was happening. And this was in a time when you couldn’t do whatever you wanted in school, like now.” says a former student from Rahova.
The children who used to do these things and had only one notebook for all subjects are parents now, he adds.
“The Internet is father and mother for children”, concludes someone else.
