More than a decade ago, I attended a workshop about technology tools in schools. I listened, already converted, as speakers discussed how new technology would transform classrooms. One memorable speaker extolled cellphones as a “powerful computer in the students’ pockets” that could revolutionize classroom learning.
“These kids could have incredibly powerful computers in their pockets,” I thought. “Why shouldn’t they use this amazing tool to take photos, videos, create, research—more than I can imagine!” We just needed to address teachers’ reticence to tech and students’ inequitable access.
So my writing partner, Shara Peters, and I wrote an essay for Education Week Opinion where we quoted the speaker in: “The Powerful Computer in Your Pocket,” and talked about bringing smartphones to the classroom.
To give our past selves the benefit of the doubt, our optimistic vision may have been possible at that moment. Phones and the internet are so different now from what they were then. Social media was younger, comprised of posts of people you knew. AI-generated images were toddlers. Siri was a newborn.
In recent years, I have thought a lot about this article. I hear the phrase “powerful computer in your pocket,” and it doesn’t feel good. I now believe smartphones should just not be in classrooms. This may not always be the case, but it is now.
Indeed, at both the schools where Shara and I are administrators, students are no longer allowed to use their phones. We are not alone. As I write this reassessment of my past ideas, Los Angeles public schools have recently banned cellphones in classrooms starting in the 2025 school year, and New York City schools are considering similar action. At least seven states have now enacted restrictions on student cellphone use in school, with other statewide action in the works.
At my middle school, we came to the decision to keep phones out of classrooms two years ago, based on emerging research, as well as personal experience watching students’ attention pulled away from their peers, from their work, from their teachers by notifications .
When I championed smartphones in the classrooms in 2013, the education world was at the height of pro-tech in classrooms. Everything was shiny and tech-focused. But in the years since, a renewed focus on hands-on learning has offered a different model.
I have watched a similar evolution with the elementary to early middle school-aged students on the campus of my school in the summer. When I started at this school in 2017, the summer camp was high tech: Kids walked around with iPads, made music, movies, and played video games. Today, you wouldn’t know it was the same camp. The only vestiges of the old camp are the baking station and the bouncy house. Now, there are blocks and outdoor game setups instead. The kids are doing more imaginative play. It’s swung to the other direction. Kids don’t bring their own electronics, and screen time is limited.
I wouldn’t say that you can’t get joy from a computer or from one of those “computers in your pocket.” I mean, we’ve all watched one of those videos that makes you laugh till you cry or seen an impressive one made by a student. And for all our concerns about the mental health toll of social media use, many students have found a support system in online communities on their devices—communities that are important outlets for them. But pound for pound, there is something joyful, personal, and, dare I say, truly soulful, about touching things in the world as they play, build, and create rather than only doing so through a screen. There is time enough for them to learn to transform the world again through technology in ways we can only imagine.
I don’t regret that Shara and I wrote the essay. What works in education changes with time and research, and we need to be flexible in response. What would be a problem is if I were still saying the kids had powerful computers in their pockets and I thought it would be great if middle schoolers were Snapchatting each other in the bathroom during passing periods. Back in 2013, Shara and I didn’t know then what we know now about the incessant demands of a cellphone and how just having a phone near you can be a learning distraction.
We understand better now how technology affects people, and how we interact with it in an education setting needs to reflect our knowledge of its effects on the brain. Kids making music and movies on their devices is great. We need to find a way to harness that creative potential and continue to access the depths of information available online. We also need to be thoughtful about our students’ use of AI (and our own).
But we also need to balance those features with the human need to interact with others, reflect, touch (real) grass, use cardboard and paper, cut with scissors, interact directly with the world, employ physicality, and activate the self and soul. We can’t monitor how screens are used at home, but leaving the phones outside the classroom allows for some balance for kids.
We need to find a way to make this balance happen. All of it. Technology is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean it has to take over in every circumstance, including and especially in schools. Our kids’ brains just aren’t always ready for the fire hose of information that comes through their phones. When determining that correct balance, we could do with a bit more joy, resilience, a whole-child thinking. We don’t throw out the tech, the tools—we teach the skills and help them to create that balance for themselves.
But does that mean students should have a powerful computer in their pockets while they are in classrooms? Apologies to my 2013 self, it does not.
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