I could see, perhaps, the teacher/lab manager having a rule about “no personal electronic devices” – both to avoid the liability of the device getting ruined by a lab accident, and also to prevent the distraction of the device causing a lab accident.
However, I can’t quite imagine where they’d have all the kids stash their phones during the class without taking on more liability or whether the kids would all agree to leave them across campus in their dorms when they might have another class right up against the lab…
So, it’s a weird hypothetical.
I know my 25 was in the habit of putting her phone in airplane mode during classes so it wouldn’t make any noise to distract her or upset the teacher during high school. So it wouldn’t surprise me to find her device “off the map” or “at previous known location” or something. We never did the “location tracking” thing, though, since she wasn’t out and about that much. And asking her to turn it on now would be super weird.
A bunch of my kids’ classes are very anti-computer/phone, apparently. My kid has accommodations to use a computer and feels weird using it for the first time ever! The anti-recording/AI vibe is strong … I don’t think they ban them from the room, but they aren’t supposed to be out.
D25 moved in a week before classes started and did 2 intensive orientation programs and now has completed the first week of classes (she has no classes on Fridays). There has been a random text here and there (with 1 photo from the FDOC taken by campus staff with a group) but tonight I got a 90 minute video call.
She is liking her classes and her professors. Already her eyes have opened to people of different genders, religions, and ethnicities. The one orientation was more multicultural and she admitted she had never been around that many POC in her life (and she was sad when the POC were making what she felt were racist statements to those not of the same background). One of her very best friends is a gay male but said one of her professors being nonbinary was the first time she had truly connected and talked to a nonbinary person face to face (she is not negative at all about this but said she made the observation as I asked what was different about college). We then talked about adjusting to college overall. I asked how her friends were doing and admitted many were seemingly having a hard time being away from home and she’s getting lots of pictures of friends crying. I asked why she thought she was doing okay. I brought up if she thought being from a split house with joint custody helped. She said not really. She felt that she toured lots of schools and felt confident in her school choice which helped (some of her friends had dream schools they didnt get into). She also pointed out that the last few years we let her take ownership of her schedule and responsibilities and she didnt feel “babied” like some of her friends. She said the biggest reason she felt that she was okay was because she knew she had lots of support at home. She knows that she has me, her stepdad, her grandparents, and her dad that she can call and we will help her through things but not just fix everything for her.
She misses her car but understands why we didnt let her have it the first semester. The food hall in her dorm is closed this weekend and she is debating her food choices. She isn’t sure she wants to walk across campus or if she wants to walk or uber to the main strip in town for off campus food options.
Anyways, she is doing all the things I wanted her to do in college so far. Meeting new people, getting out of her bubble, and figuring out who she is. She even said she was going to go do laundry and actually separate the lights and darks for the first time in her life!
Circling back to the how to acquire quarters issue. It turns out that there’s no Bank of America branch where he is, but his roommate’s cousin works at a local bank and was able to get him a couple of rolls of quarters. I love that he was able to solve his problem! I did suggest that he reach out to the laundry facilities department and tell them the app isn’t working in his dorm. It’d be great if it was fixed, so he can use the money I put on the account. We shall see.
Our elementary school was evacuated due to a bomb threat on Thursday. It turned out to be a hoax but scary nonetheless. Then, last night there was an active shooter report on the UGA campus where S23 is. This was also a hoax; there were other false reports at other Georgia colleges at the same time. Coupled with the tragedy in Minneapolis, it’s just a lot. I’m not a worrier, and I’m not particularly worried about my kids, but, really, what is wrong with people?!
S25 is all moved in! It was a wonderful move in experience at Rose. Everything was so well organized (the upper class students unload cars and move everything in for the freshmen) and the events were really well done and engaging. S25 really likes his roommates and his hall/floor seems great. Last night he sent me this which is the best message I could imagine:
My S25 is at West Georgia, and yeah, we got the same report. I was actually away for the weekend, and S25 was home (we live in GA, plus he doesn’t have classes on Fridays) – a handful of his friends stayed on campus, though. It was scary, and yet we’d heard about UGA first, so he suspected it was another hoax.
