Will Germany ban cell phones in schools?

DW (English)

France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have banned cellphones from the classroom. Since a 2022 PISA study, calls for a ban have also been getting louder in Germany.

Transcript

00:00A small cultural revolution is brewing at this German school.

00:05Mobile phones, everyone's favorite addiction,

00:07soon might not be permitted here, for teachers and students alike.

00:12But it sparked real controversy.

00:14A complete ban is just never good.

00:18You need to make rules that are then kept.

00:22The kids that are always looking at their phones,

00:25you can see their grades suffer.

00:27Leiden?

00:29Banning mobile phones in schools has been a hot topic for years,

00:32and not just in Germany.

00:34Many schools have limited their use during classes.

00:37But what about breaks?

00:39At this school in Notdorf, they just went ahead and tried it.

00:43Pupils and teachers must leave their smartphones at home

00:46two days every week.

00:48It starts with young or middle-aged colleagues

00:51who protested as well, saying,

00:53no one is going to dictate to me when I can look at my cell phone or not.

00:58Especially here, in rural areas,

01:00you have to somehow see that your child gets to school or back home.

01:04That's why I think it's wrong to say,

01:06under absolutely no circumstances.

01:11The mobile phone ban is good,

01:14because during the breaks I'm actually using my phone a lot.

01:17Now pupils play more ball games and interact socially during breaks.

01:21That promotes concentration and the capacity to learn,

01:24especially by pupils who are weaker performers.

01:27But what about digital learning?

01:29Isn't that a contradiction?

01:33The way I see it, as a teacher,

01:35I have the responsibility to educate people.

01:38They can only do that if they're doing it in school

01:41and have a space available to them where they can make mistakes.

01:47Matthias Dirks is one of two media heroes at the school.

01:51His job is to promote digital skills.

01:54The state of Schleswig-Holstein plans six hours a week for that.

01:58But for a total of 1,000 pupils, there are only 60 tablets available.

02:05We'd like to become a digital school

02:07and work in a more digital way in class.

02:09There are lots of pupils who don't get any digital end device,

02:12like a laptop or an iPad or any other tablet from their parents.

02:17That means their cell phone is the quickest and easiest choice in class.

02:25Does that mean integrating smartphones in schools?

02:28There are already innovative approaches.

02:32I used to be in a school in Neumünster before I was in this school,

02:36and there they had a class called Information Technology in Minecraft.

02:40It was really called that.

02:42And once a week for 45 minutes,

02:44you created things in the Minecraft video game and learned.

02:50Afterwards, our teacher would grade it,

02:52and you could boost your creativity.

02:57There wasn't a cultural revolution in Nottdorf.

03:00Pupils and teachers can bring their smartphones to school again.

03:04Some say the experiment changed how they use their phones.

03:07But an all-out ban isn't planned,

03:09meaning Nottdorf is very much like the rest of Germany.

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