Chalkbeat's First Person features personal essays from educators, students, parents, and others who are thinking and writing about public education.
When I started teaching in 2003, cell phones were foreign in the classroom. Back then, it was clumsy to even access the Internet, let alone send a text on a cell phone. I remember a student trying to sneak a cell phone into the Bronx high school where I taught, neatly tucking it between two slices of sandwich bread. The phone wouldn't get through the metal detector at the entrance.
Of course, our relationship with these devices has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Since returning to the classroom after COVID-19 school closures, it seems like mobile phones have become like an extra limb for students, an ever-present extension of their bodies and minds.
Joel Snyder (Courtesy of Joel Snyder)
And they offer the greatest window into the state of American culture today. During lunch breaks, recess, before and after school, we see students sitting alone watching movies or playing video games. Even more bizarrely, they sit together with their faces buried in their phones. They are isolated even in communal spaces. It's clear that teens — and adults too — are surrendering their real-world exploration, discovery, and connection to their devices.
The public charter high school in South Los Angeles where I have taught for the past 15 years decided last spring to become a cellphone-free school for the 2024-2025 school year, as a change of practice and one that more school districts and schools are adopting. The policy was based on the recognition that students deserve more: more space in the classroom, more opportunities to interact with one another, and more time away from the screens that we are all addicted to.
This year, our school has a new library equipped with books, games and exercise equipment to help students be active without screens.
Gone are the cubicles in my classroom where students leave their phones at the door. In a “out with the new, in with the old” spirit, I look for ways to provide new experiences for my students and bring in an old boom box and a big book with hundreds of CDs, albums that had been gathering dust in the garage for a decade.
Joel Snyder's high school students check out his old CD collection. (Courtesy of Joel Snyder)
I flipped through the first CDs and was pleasantly surprised: some rare Wilco bootlegs from the early 2000s, a mix a friend made in the '90s, and a bit of '90s hip hop. I told my students to pop in their CDs in the morning before class or at lunch, not sure what I expected, but I figured they'd at least discover some new old music, or have a laugh at my decidedly middle-aged CD collection (The Roots, Ben Harper, Grateful Dead, etc.).
Since school started a few weeks ago, students have started lining up to ask for CDs to be played. Some are predictable—all-time classics like The Beatles and Bob Marley—and some aren't. But what surprises me most is how each choice serves as an unexpected conversation starter, a reminder of what life was like before the phone in your pocket answered every question and fulfilled every desire (and when you actually had to read CD liner notes to understand the lyrics).
… Students deserve more: more space in classrooms, more opportunities for students to interact with one another, and more time away from the screens that have us all so addicted.
The Pearl Jam CD connects to the story of Dissident, a magazine I created in the seventh grade about emerging grunge bands. The Counting Crows CD reminds me of concerts where the person sitting next to me sang along to the sad, heavy lyrics at their most. Yes, my students and I are connected through music, but more than that, we're connected in a way that felt largely lost over the past few years of screens being the default.
My students see me more: the real me, not the online me filtered through Google Classroom or Loom or some other edtech app I don't understand. Born in the MP3 era, my students bring CDs from home with stories of their parents, cousins, and swap parties. And from those stories emerge stories of what they want to do and who they want to be.
As college application season begins and students submit their statement of purpose and teacher recommendations, I am optimistic that it will open new windows into the lives of my students.
I hope the CDs will continue to engage my students and invite more of them into the analog interactions we need more of in the age of smartphones. They will spark new ideas and take me to new places. Maybe I'll even find a thrift store or two and find some new old tech.
The other morning, I brought a copy of the New York Times, a real printed newspaper, from my front yard, hoping that it would spark conversation and fill my classroom with questions, connections, and maybe even laughter.
Joel Snyder teaches politics and economics in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood of Los Angeles, and in the 22 years since he stopped listening to CDs when he started teaching, he's still been listening to the exact same music.
