[mflip]

Yeah I'm a HS senior now. I'd estimate 90% of the students in my school have a cell phone and carry it on them all day. Of course there are a few kids who sit in class and send 100 texts a day, so what? When they are texting they aren't talking to the people around them which makes texting LESS distracting than the kid in the back of the class who constantly talks to everyone around him. If the kid doesn't want to listen to the teacher and learn something while in class that's their choice. They'll either scrape by and actually learn very little and regret it later, fail and take the class over again, or else they are the kids who can get good marks doing nothing. If the teacher finds cell phones distracting then they can ask the student to put it away. If they don't, take the phone give it to them at the end of class.

Of course taking calls in class is a little different since the student is then making noise and disrupting the class. I've had teachers have their cell phones go off in class though and usually it's quite funny.

I really don't understand why this thread has gotten so big. Should students be using their phones during class, absolutely not. Is it really THAT big of a deal, nope.