Hang up phone in class

With the overflow of college shootings taking place all over the country, there is buzz about the use of cell phones in the classroom being more acceptable.

As a student at Florida A&M University, I’m completely supportive of measures being taken to prevent or minimize harm from vigilantes who want to act like supermen. However, if the cell phone policies in the classroom were less strict, students wouldn’t get to take full advantage of attaining an education.

Students who use their cell phones more openly cause distractions for instructors as well as students. Teaching 50-minute lesson plans will soon turn into two-day lessons and precious time will be lost.

Right now, the use of cell phones is a total distraction. Every day while I’m in class, I hear the loud rolling vibration of a cell phone.

I’m startled by the sound of the latest R&B ring tone, “Sensual Seduction” by Snoop Dogg or rap smash “Low” by Flo Rida. Don’t get me wrong, I love to get my groove on to all genres of music, but there is a time and place for everything.

That place should be in the club or at home, not in the classroom. My fellow classmates have looked at each other and started laughing when an instructor looks around in total shock to find out whose cell phone is causing the latest distraction.

The truth is, it’s not amusing. The two minutes that were centered on the disturbance could’ve been used to help me learn about a key point that was going to be on the test the next day.

There has to be other ways of alerting students about possible threats on campus.

One way could be formulating better security plans and University police patrollers circling the grounds more often.

The text messaging system that is being used on campuses abroad is one way to notify students of potential harms, but where is the line drawn between this and students who are texting each other during lectures and distracting others who are here to truly learn?

Why don’t FAMU professors sign up for the text message plans and if the school is in danger, send out a text message alert?

This way the professors who are authority figures can relay the threats to students in a calm manner.

As a student, I can’t predict what’s going to happen when I walk on campus.

I wish that criminals had more productive ways to fill their day so we would all be safe, but it isn’t so.

There should be better ways of informing students about school mishaps without compromising learning.

In the future, if cell phones are permitted more freely in the classrooms, all I can say is it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Jeanine J. James is a junior public relations student from St. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands. She can be reached at famuanopinions@hotmail.com.