Perhaps I am a product of a different time, but I managed to survive through all of my years in school without a cell phone attached to my head.

Milwaukee Public Schools’ Superintendent William Andrekopoulos recently told MPS principals to ban all cell phones in schools.

The decision was made after several incidences of violence with “backup” called in via cell phone. If a student is seen with a cell phone, it could be confiscated. If a student uses a phone to in any way harm others (i.e. call someone for reinforcement in a fight, take locker room pictures, etc.) the student could be expelled.

I have one question.

Why wasn’t this done years ago?

When I was a child, cell phones did not exist. OK, that isn’t true; Zack Morris had one. Cell phones were a thing of myth, a fallacy, science fiction from a television show. My family had just gotten a cordless phone and I could make it all the way to get the mail at the end of the driveway without completely losing reception. It was terribly exciting.

My mother would have strung me up if I had even tried to bring it to school. Of course, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. What did we do way back then?

Let me tell you how we kept our parents informed of our actions and how we stayed safe. We never walked anywhere alone. We stayed in a group if it was after dark. When we told our parents where we would be, we were there or we were grounded for a month.

If we had to stay after school, or needed a ride home, we carried 20 cents for the payphone. If something came up last minute, we called collect. If we got into a fight, we fought; we didn’t call anyone to do it for us. If we were sick, we went to the office, and they’d either call our parents or tell us to get back to class.

I do understand that those were different times, but honestly, if I got in trouble in school, I had to have a damn good defense in order to get my parents to go down and talk to the teacher or principal. These days, parents seem to be defending their children against punishment every day. They are making helpless children. Parents are calling the papers and the school in order to complain about the new policy.

I honestly can’t believe that there are students using cell phones during class. I was shocked to hear that kids are answering and having conversations in class. I see people in college texting during class, but I can’t imagine someone being crude enough to answer and hold a conversation.

If my parents were told I was doing that, they wouldn’t be upset with the school; I would get punished. Perhaps I am a product of a different time, but I managed to survive through all of my years in school without a cell phone attached to my head.

Honestly, I sometimes wonder what happened to change the use of cell phones in school. I grew up without a personal phone and I survived.

Some say that after Columbine, it changed. That is quite inaccurate. My home town was hit quite hard by the Columbine murders. One of the victims had grown up in our town. This vicious and frightening attack happened right before I entered high school, and I still knew no one with a cell phone until after I graduated.

A few kids had pagers, but for the most part, they were the drug dealers. No one seemed to need a phone or even considered carrying one. Our parents always knew where we were, called each other to confirm sleepovers and checked up on us when they doubted our stories.

School was a place of learning. I got in trouble for passing notes in school and I was embarrassed. I tried to keep my teachers and principal off my case while still exploring my options. I smoked, I drank, I even smoked a little pot, but I would never be disrespectful enough to talk on the phone during class.

I believe this new cell phone ban might be exactly what the schools need. Teenagers are starting to believe they run the world; take that thought out of their heads by removing their dependence on all of these high-tech gadgets.

Superintendent, you have my full support.

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