雅思课外读物--Keep mobile phones out of the classroom

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这篇雅思阅读素材是要跟大家分享关于“学生带手机”的话题。在这个没有最酷，只有更酷的时代，童鞋们不得不紧跟手机新品发布会，但要总使用新品，保持酷毙形象(at the pinnacle of

cool)却比前酷(Pre-cool)时代更加亚历山大了(Now the pressure will be more keenly felt, you can

hear it now:“Is your phone just an iPhone 4?”)。开学伊始，孩纸们应不应该带智能手机和平板电脑上学?To allow

or not to allow, this is a question, a question that won’t be going away any

time soon…

This week school is back. Kids everywhere will trudge their way (脚步沉重地、磨磨蹭蹭地)

through school gates, mourning the end of the long and wet summer holidays.

Senior leadership teams everywhere will be preparing to unveil(公布) new policies

aimed at improving student behaviour and attitudes to learning. Somewhere, the

debate around whether mobiles should be allowed inclassrooms will resurface

(重新浮出水面). Given that(考虑到) more than 90% of today’s teenagers own one, it is an

important question for teachers and one that won’t be going away any time

soon.

In most schools,you will find mobile phones treated like contraband (违禁品).

They are items to be kept strictly out of any adult’s sightline. One glimpse

could, after all, land (使……陷入) the owner in a world of bother

(哪怕只是不经意地瞥一眼手机，机主都会因此惹来麻烦不断), often culminating in the phone’s

confiscation(没收，充公). Because of this, students tend to view their teachers as

alien inhabitants from another planet, oblivious(对……视而不见，熟视无睹) to how

practically everyone carries a phone 100% of the time. Teachers for our part are

merely subscribing to (认同，赞同) a simple enough maxim(只认一个最简单的死理), out of sight

out of mind (眼不见，心不挂).

Yet a number of mainly fee-payingschools (收费学校，私立学校) are promoting pupils’

use of mobiles within school and lessons. Headteacher Caroline Jordan, of

Headington school, said: “Until recently we did not allow them in theclassrooms.

However, over the last year or so we have begun to harness(利用) the technology.

We believe there is a place for smartphones or tablets (包括I-pad在内的平板电脑) in

lessons. We want to be able to take advantage of this enormously powerful

resource that most of our girls carry around with them.”

The proposal sounds unmanageable(难以掌控的). In a class of 30, how do you ensure

students are actually Googling the question you’ve posed?Who is to say they’re

not quickly checking an update on Facebook, or Twitter or Whatsapp

(一种类似于微信和脸书的社交网络应用)? Isn’t this essentially inviting unnecessary teacher

scrutiny (审查) and surveillance (监控)? Yet, despite all this, I do understand the

reasoning: choosing not to exploit the ubiquity(无处不在)of such devices appears

technophobic (现代科技恐惧症;因循守旧的)and foolhardy (有勇无谋，不识时务的). Indeed, as educators

seek to be engaging and student-led, isn’t it best that we meet pupils where

they are rather than where we want them to be? It is a persuasive line but one

that falls apart on closer scrutiny.

A recent large-scale study found that banning mobile phones improved exam

results by 2%, even when gender and class had been accounted for. At first

glance it seems an insignificant rise but the impact is equivalent to one extra

week of school a year. The researchers from the London School of Economics

centred their work on 91 schools and the exam results from130,000 pupils since

2001. For those entitled to (享有……权利;获得…….资格) free school meals or with special

educational needs the ban was doubly effective. Investigations such as this

throw into question whether mobile phones could, in fact, intensify

inequality.

Allowing mobile phones would almost certainly increase

cyberbullying(网络欺凌;网络暴力行为). Then there is the needless work they would create

for teachers dealing with pupils who have lost or had stolen a £180 phone they

got for Christmas.

And here is a much less-discussed problem, the pressure of keeping up

appearances. In 2012 the department store John Lewis (英国老牌百货公司)surveyed 2,000

parents, and found the average cost of equipping children for school was an

eye-watering (难以想象的;让人泪奔的[高价]) £550. Even if we dismiss that figure as far from

average, John Lewis being the well-heeled (富有的;阔绰的) person’s

Argos(英国家喻户晓的百货零售连锁商)and all, thehigh price of smartphones is hard to ignore.

Costing an average of £270, it is shocking to think that by 2017, 96% of

teenagers will own one.