Ed Source – Jane Meredith Adams
“Three hundred and fifty 8th-graders stood around empty-handed after lunch on the courtyard at Fred Korematsu Middle School last week, forming a throw-back tableau that represented one school’s attempt to revive the art of the face-to-face conversation. No earbuds. No head phones. No music. No photos. No bent necks. No phones. In the first hour of the first day of the school year, the staff broke the news to 718 7th- and 8th-graders that they would no longer be allowed to use their cell phones during free time. The decision to restrict cell phone use came after an experiment with laissez-faire monitoring ran amok, said Matthew Burnham, the youngish, chatty principal of Korematsu Middle School in El Cerrito in the East Bay Area.”(more)