“Digital break”: Marceau Lapierre college in Saint-Jean-du-Gard puts away students' cell phones

Les téléphones sont remis aux assistants d’éducation à l’arrivée au collège, et restitués à chaque sortie. MIDI LIBRE – JEAN-MICHEL MART

The ban on the use of telephones has been in force in schools and colleges since August 3, 2018. Challenged outside the classroom, the experiment proposed by the resigning Minister of Education Nicole Belloubet aims to strengthen the law. Is the digital break applicable? ? Is it just a smokescreen? ? Among the 200 pilot colleges in the coming weeks, the Marceau Lapierre college in Saint-Jean-du-Gard has been putting up cell phones since the start of the school year.

The school bell rings. The cell phone bell goes silent. And it is a great silent sigh that we feel, on the staff side. “No more confiscations and tensions”, rejoices the CPE Isabelle Miro.

A peaceful school climate, in the collective interest

This Monday, September 2 and Tuesday, September 3, back-to-school days for students at Collège Marceau Lapierre, in the presence of rector Sophie Béjean, phones were no longer in bags, as was customary.

“Monday, September 2 will be a special day” had warned Hervé Pocino, principal. It was in a letter addressed to all the parents of students at this Saint-Jean-du-Gard middle school that the new rule was revealed, in hushed tones, but with a clear message: the ban on mobile phones at the middle school, “in order to maintain a calm school climate in the collective interest”.

The measure does not seem to shock anyone.

200 middle schools are invited to experiment with this ban in France, including twelve in the academy: 3 in Aude, 6 in Gard, 1 in Hérault, as well as in Lozère and Pyrénées-Orientales.

The first establishment to implement it at the start of the school year, Hervé Pocino took the lead, with the measure not being generalized until January 2025, “we've been thinking about it for several years, so why wait ?".

A phantom pain

At the origin of what now sounds like "an obvious fact", a school trip to Strasbourg last May. "The students signed a charter in which they agreed not to use their phones". The success is total, at least during the journeys, and at night.

Tested in advance, perhaps without their knowledge (but of their own free will), this new digital withdrawal to which they are once again subjected, does not seem to traumatize Mî-Yah, Mélie and Alice, three 3rd year friends who devote their lunch break to “something else” than scrolling or consulting their social networks : "In fact, it was already forbidden. What I don't like, worries Mî-Yah, is knowing that it's in a locked cupboard.”

Stored in plastic boxes and cupboarded

“It” is in fact stored upon arrival, in one of the nine boxes in the school life office that had to improvise, and returned at the end of the day (or at lunchtime for external students). Disconnected, admitting to a perfect addiction, the object is sorely missed, like an amputee feels phantom pain, “even when it's off, it's physical”!”.

What to do”? Otherwise chat and play with friends. “We play challenges among ourselves”, relates Olivia. In this school where students sometimes have to travel more than 30 minutes by coach, “we have chosen storage, rather than a total ban, so that parents can contact their children during long journeys”.

In practice, there were still too many students, for the principal's taste, who brought their device and used it illegally, especially during breaks.

20 minutes of latency each time they consulted their phone

In the toilets, in the playground, between classes… but also during lessons, where recordings and broadcasts of images and videos on social networks were not uncommon. “It has been established that if a student checks their cell phone during a class, this can cause up to 20 minutes of latency before they regain their initial concentration.”

Reluctant parents

The measure approved by the representatives of the parents of students was not unanimous. “Surprisingly, parents were more reluctant”, reports the CPE of the 152 students of the establishment.

“They were worried about not being able to reach their children, but they forget that they don't have to do it during the day. It has happened that parents have picked up their child following a text message exchanged with him!".

The test, which aims to limit children's overexposure to screens and to combat cyberbullying, should significantly improve "the quality of collective life, essential for development". Here, it's done: the phone is persona non grata, a phrase usually dedicated to humans… and now to Android. We would lose our Latin!

Sarah Letzelter, principal of Simone Veil College in Montpellier: “Constraint is not everything”

What do you, the principal, think of this measure??

We are concerned about the misuse of social networks. With 730 students, we will experiment with the digital break in stages. What resources are allocated? ? The existing lockers are shared and insufficiently secure. À what scale of the college ? Not all establishments are equal in implementation.

How do you envisage its implementation in the long term ?

Through pedagogy, via challenges for example, and by raising awareness among parents, collectively. A law exists and any defiance leads to a sanction. Constraint is not everything. We could start with the 160 6th grade students, in boxes with zipped pockets, and begin work with them on ethics, connection time, etc.

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