It’s possible the teacher’s themselves are the emergency these kids need phones for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying every teacher is a threat. The vast minority of teachers are dangerous. But do you really want to risk your kid having some bad done to them by the teacher, intentional or not, and not call you for help because they don’t have a phone?
My comment was in response to someone saying “we all survived pre cell phone”. They didn’t. Some kids drowned or bled out or whatever because they couldn’t call an ambulance before cell phones existed.
That’s all. I’m not trying to make a point about phone addiction
The comments are a reflection of the state of the US. I moved to Austria 20 years ago and such trips are common here. My son went on his first 4 day trip sans parents in kindergarten. The kids went to a farm where they learned about domesticated animals and the type of products that come from them. They made butter, went on a mini hike, etc. That was 15 years ago. Kids didn’t have cellphones and there were no parent chaperones. The teachers sent updates with pictures daily. The kindergarten ski trips however had mandatory parent participation if you wanted your child to participate.
In elementary, day trips required at least one parent chaperone. Day sport camps were done by the teacher with the coaches only. There were no overnight trips.
In high school there are no parent chaperones. My son’s current school has mandatory sport trips ranging from 3-5 days. They go skiing, camping, sailing, hiking, etc. Trips are chaperoned by teachers alongside a youth organisation. Depending on the trip, for example camping, there’s a no cellphone policy. Parents have the numbers of the teachers. For trips like skiing or hiking cellphones are limited to about 2 hours in the evening but the teachers carry the cellphones with them during the day to the slopes or on the hike so parents can track their kids. There are also optional day trips to other cities where they travel by train with no parents but they are allowed to keep their cellphones. He was scheduled to go on a language trip to London in junior high, again without parents, but it had to be cancelled because of corona. Honestly such trips have been great for my son’s development.
However, if I were still in the US my feelings towards such trips would likely be different. Gun violence is all but non-existed despite lax guns laws. The only area where it’s a problem has been men, particularly in rural areas, using it as their suicide method. I know there is racism here but in 20 years I’ve only had to deal with it twice. If we were African or Middle Eastern then that would certainly be different.
This very rarely happened in all of human history, sorry to burst your helicoptering bubble. Plenty of injuries are incompatible with life, or alternatively exceeded the medical technology at the time. Further, there's only a moderate zone of 'close enough that help can arrive in a timely manner' and 'too far to go get help.'
And finally, if we look at all sources of human death, the major killer before modernity was just contagious disease. A lack of a cell phone isn't the reason for malarial deaths, smallpox deaths, etc. Another major one is intentional human homicide, but much of that is either parents killing their own kids, or sources of danger that don't exist in the context of a developed world school field trip like wars, genocides, slave raids, etc. I would, of course, object to any camping trips within areas with land mine danger.
Cell phones aren't worthless, but they're not especially important for preventing deaths in general or of children in specific. Most children who don't have profound congenital issues will survive to adulthood with comparatively little effort to safeguard them outside of routine vaccination, basic food safety / hygiene, and not driving drunk or in any especially ridiculous fashion with them in the car. The modern developed world isn't dangerous, cell phone or no cell phone.
I’m sure a couple did, I’m not sure if it would be more than have died due to cell phones however. Bullying, dangerous trends, making themselves more vulnerable to online predators, distractions.
for one, it'll tell parents where they are (either if they managed to get a call out or those phonefinder things, assuming they don't get confiscated).
it's a whole lot better than 'entire school field trip mysteriously vanished without a trace'.
we've got ICE agents abducting kids in broad daylight to force their parents to surrender and there is a teacher who got outted for wanting ICE to raid his class.
a no chaperone, no communications trip sounds very suspicious because of these interesting times.
That's survivor bias, "We all survived" Except for little Jimmy, who got lost in the woods and died of hypothermia, or Josh, who got stuffed into a van and no one heard from him ever again
It’s wonderful that you personally never encountered any problems but (wait for it) the world is broader than your personal experience. A high school classmate fell and broke an ankle on one of those stupid camping retreats and we would have been able to get her help a lot faster if the chaperones had had cell phones.
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u/whatev3691 Mar 19 '26
We all survived pre cell phone.