Cellphones have become an integral part of many aspects of our daily lives. They remind us of what to do, they entertain us, and they allow us to connect with people far away. However, the obsession with our cellphones has permeated into other aspects of life, specifically the classroom. 

In April 2025, Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 782 into law, therefore banning the use of cellphones in the classroom. This sounded like a dream come true for parents and teachers alike, as they wouldn’t have to worry about their kids wasting class time on their phones. However, it is incredibly difficult for teachers to keep up with teaching, helping students, writing passes and taking phones. 

That’s why, for many practicum students and student teachers, we get the position of phone police. Practicums are periods of time where education students are sent to observe a classroom and interact with the students in order to learn how to be a teacher.

I am studying to be a high school teacher, so naturally, I have been sent to two separate high schools so far. At my practicum last semester, the teacher let me know that she was starting to prepare students for the phone ban to go into effect. She told me that one of my primary jobs was to walk around and, if there was a phone out, take it. 

I assumed that as my time went on there, I would start doing more, like helping students with classwork or even teaching a small lesson at the start of class. Instead, I sat and watched, occasionally going and taking phones. Needless to say, I didn’t click very well with the students.

This was something that I didn’t anticipate having to deal with. For the university course that was coupled with the practicum, I had assignments where I wrote about what I was seeing and what I was teaching. I was only allowed to engage with the students when it was part of my grade. The rest of the time was spent behind the teacher’s desk, being the watchful phone police. 

At the end of my practicum, the teacher told me how helpful it was to have me there, but it didn’t feel helpful. In fact, I felt like I hadn’t really learned much aside from how to take a phone from a student without upsetting them too much. The only day I truly got to interact with the kids was my very last day of my practicum.

The students were working on their final project, and my job was to go around and give feedback. It was a hard task considering the students didn’t like me very much. It got easier as I kept circling the room, but the first round of feedback was brutal. 

Students were either quiet as a mouse or extremely standoffish. They had no intention of talking to me, and they wanted me to know it. It got easier after a while, especially when I started getting them to talk to me about their ideas.

I am currently doing my second practicum as an education student, and it is going so much better than my first. Now I am helping the students, teaching them, doing warm-ups with them, and getting the teaching experience I was meant to last semester. I do occasionally have to take a phone or two, but that isn’t my only position in the classroom.

This phone ban has put yet another ball that teachers have to juggle in the classroom, and it’s likely that I am not the first student who has had that ball passed to me. It compromises our learning — it definitely compromised mine.