Saturday, November 03, 2007

It was bound to happen...

Over the weekend, I read this Article here and thought to myself, its finally happened. Almost everyone in the country owns a mobile phone. That.. its scary and yet, cool at the same time. But that also means, its likely that children these days make up a large percentage of that statistic.

I attended a 10 yr old kids birthday party recently, and I overheard someone asking the birthday girl, what she would like for her birthday as a gift. I was shocked when I heard the answer, "A mobile phone"(!!!) I mean, what does a 10 yr old want with a mobile phone?!


Over the past few weeks, there has been numerous feedback from various people in the Bulletin's opinion page about the Ministry of Education's decision to ban all mobile phones from schools. I have been following these comments with much amusement. There are some that feel that this was a long time coming, and there are those (mainly students surprise surprise) that feel that this new ruling is "unfair" and "unneccessary", one even going as far as saying now he has to WALK FURTHER to the school office to make a call, spending $0.10 - $0.20cents JUST to call his parents to pick him up! Even going as far as saying how can he be contacted if there's a family emergency like if someone passes away! Oh come on!

Personally, I support MOE's new ruling. I know numerous teachers who constantly complain about students not paying attention in classes because they're sms-ing or suddenly, their mobiles go off. Give teachers some respect I say. And if you're a student reading this, no offence, but please remember, if you're caught with a mobile, say your goodbyes, some schools c-o-n-f-i-s-c-a-t-e.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's funny how the kids came up with so many comments about it. I agree with the decision to ban mobile phones but I think form 6 centers should be an exception though. I remember having tutors who changed classes hour without notice so mobile phone was quite useful to me.

Anonymous said...

"...they will "try" to set up "within two weeks", otherwise, it will be in February to March."

LOL this reminds me of when I bought a new Lexmark printer recently in early October for my new Mac, and then upgraded to Leopard end of October to find Lexmark didn't have any drivers ready for the printer. I was like "ooooookkkkk...." so I wrote to Lexmark and asked when Leopard -compatible drivers would be available. First response "There are no plans to support Leopard" I was like "WHAAAT???!" Then I called the support line and got some supervisor to tell me they would be available in either Jan 2008 or March 2008. And this was in October. Total WTF moment. Then it turns out drivers for my specific model will be ready in January. I mean COME ON MAN who does this?! Anyhow, I managed to get the UNIX printer subsystem to recognize the printer so I'm using it in very basic mode till January. Gotta love the support crews of the world eh? ;)

d3xlabs said...

I hear ya Geekonimus!
There's sthg abt service quality which is lacking in oh-so-many places here. Totally drives ppl nuts sometimes.
I'm just glad my espeed's back. But you gotta wait another month for your drivers to be out. Patience is a virtue!