Based on the Chicago Tribune’s research about 83% of American students in high school have cell phones and about 70% have Ipods. In today’s society—the age of technology—it seems devices such as cell phones and Ipods have taken some importance. Cell phones have become the prominent means of communication and there were 21 million IPods sold last year. It’s safe to say a part of these numbers are due to high school students.

Teens are the up and coming generation, they are the “future leaders of America”, and the ones who keep the companies turning out new devices every time we turn around. Why then do high schools across America ban these popular devices? They need to stop. In banning electronic devices school systems are under developing important skills kids need to learn. Schools need to keep technology involved.

High school is supposed to be a place where kids from ages 14-18 learn to grow up. They should learn to have responsibilities, prepare for college and figure out what they want to do with their lives. It’s ironic though that high school in actuality does the opposite.

Banning cell phones and Ipods in high school doesn’t teach students of how to be responsible. Instead of allowing students to prepare for college and the real world, the school system restrains them. In college professors don’t hold your hand. They don’t check to make sure you’re not sleeping in class. If you don’t show up do you think they care? If you’re texting in class or step out of a lecture to take a phone call do you think they’ll stop you? The truth is that after high school there won’t be an institution hovering over your shoulder telling you what you should or need to be doing.

High school needs be more like college in certain situations. Students should be allowed to use cell phones and Ipods in class. It will teach kids to be responsible and when the appropriate time to use their electronics is. If kids are sneaking around trying to text under desks and stash head phones up jackets do you think they’re focus is going to be paying attention to the lecture or worrying about getting caught? I think it’s the latter. If you let kids use their devices freely they learn when the appropriate time to use them is. If they miss out on an assignment or instructions because they were being reckless it’s their own fault. Kids will either learn from their mistakes or they won’t, but the teachers need to not “baby” students.

Teachers aren’t doing their students any favors when they coddle them. What are those kids that had everything done for them going to do when high school is over and they enter the real world? If you get fired from a job for texting while working my guess is you won’t do it at the next job. Kids need to experience things first hand to be able to learn. Sheltering high schooler students will only prolong experiences; it’s inevitable.

There will always be the kids that will take advantage of this freedom. They will have their cell phone and/ or Ipod out the whole school day not paying attention to anything other than that. There’s always a chance those kids will fail every class because they hadn’t done any homework and didn’t know the answers for tests. There’s a chance they’ll drop out because no one was there to warn them that they needed to pay attention, do their work, and not completely flunk out of high school. The number of students dropping out will go up and teachers will have to take the blame because they weren’t encouraging their students. They didn’t put in an effort to make them work harder or gain a sense of self worth enough to actually try to do something with their lives.

Some would agree that giving high school students the right to learn and decide for themselves, doesn’t justify the increase in the number of drop out students. I would be one of these people that have to disagree. No amount of pushing will make a high schooler care about school if they have already given up on trying. Are we going to let the fear that kids will be irresponsible keep them from growing up?