Drive @5 2-5

The podcast Campus Files is back with more stories of scandal, crime, and intrigue on college campuses. Campus Files, available now wherever you get your podcasts. The Drive at 5. The stories driving today's headlines. Brought to you by Servicemaster of Greater Pittsburgh. When disaster strikes, demand the yellow van. On 100.1 FM and AM 1020, KDCA. Well, hello. 866 391, 1020. I'm feeling good today. 866 391, 10, 20 is that number. Watching a story, it's interesting to watch the news or anything really on television, but especially the news in a radio studio, and the audio is off. So you kind of have to guess. what they're talking about. Anytime you see attorneys and they're down on first Ave, you know, they're talking about like somebody's in trouble. Then you see this other stuff. I play that game in my head. What is this story about? Then you'll see people standing outside the county building. Oh, that's a story about, you know, voting on something. Anyhow. I'm a boring guy. That's like as much excitement as there is in my life. One story you really don't have to guess about, you don't have to guess about at all. And Tamara had it yesterday, but... Sometimes it feels like the news is full of things that have never happened before. And that is not exactly true. In fact, it may have happened this very week, hundreds or thousands of years ago. I'm Sally Helm, host of the podcast History This Week from the History Channel. Trade embargoes, Thomas Jefferson tried them. Rent too high? We've been arguing about that for a while. Each episode is proof. The past isn't that far away. Listen to History This Week, available now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This can be solved simply, very easily, if people decided to, well, do a couple things. I'll let you hear the story. And then I'll tell you why we're crazy in so much as we're making this too hard. Here's the story from tomorrow. In a post on next, Governor Josh Shapiro says a full-day cell phone ban is needed to get distractions out of the classroom. Pittsburgh Public Schools already enforces a similar ban. And school board president Gene Walker tells Katie K.D.K.A. radios Larry Richard, it helps students stay focused. I think the research and the... You know, the districts that have been doing it for a little while show increased performance by kids and decreased incidences of violence and fighting and those kind of things. So we're looking forward to figuring out how to do it system-wide and seeing what the impact will be for our kids and our teachers. The proposal now moves to the full state legislature where bipartisan support could make cell phone free school days the new norm. To Myra, Rush News Radio, KDKA.

Yeah, we're going to Harrisburg for this. We're trying to have a plan and legislation even that is mandated in all schools. We've gone too far. We just have. We've gone too far because there are two simple things that can't be followed. This takes two things. And this is again why Harrisburg takes nine years to get something done. We have a bloated with way too many politicians. This is the exact reason why politics are so screwed up. Two things here. This takes self-control by the students. Okay? I'm not allowed to have my phone in class. Okay, it stays in my pocket. It stays in my backpack. Self-control. Simple. That's one of the two things that it takes. Self-control. The second is this. Teachers and administrators who are not afraid to instill punishment and discipline. Those two things, a combination of those two things, one of those two things, we're not here. We're not going to Harrisburg. We're not having the governor stand up and talk about it. We're not having him use it as a sort of a political arm and angle as to how much he's getting control or people want to get control over kids and screens. It's all the way down at its base level from a functionality is situation. It takes two things. Self-control from kids. And if they're unwilling or unable to have it, teachers and administrators willing to instill punishment and discipline. We don't need to vote on it. We don't need the Senate bill 1014. We don't need the House. He's a wonderful man. We don't need Devlin Robinson on the radio talking about it. None of that. Zero, not a zilch. We're wasting time. Having people in expensive suits in Harrisburg talk about this. You know, this is so problematic because we don't solve things with logic in society anymore. Here's how it should go. Very simply. You're allowed to take your phone to school. Okay? Here's how I'd go if I ran a school. You're allowed to bring your phone to school because my kids do need their phones in school. Here's why. Because just after school ends, oftentimes their plans change. My daughter's changed today. I just got a text a little while ago about her schedule and her extracurricular activities. And the teachers or the principal or whomever puts forth hard, steadfast, non-negotiable rules. If that phone is out during class. Or whatever the rules I said are, you go to detention. You go to suspension. You are meant to serve this punishment. This is non-negotiable, not pliable. We don't change it at all. That's how it works. The phone either stays in your backpack during the school day or during the school time or whatever.

And we all agree to this. Okay, you agree? No, you don't want to agree? Too bad. I'm the person that makes the rules in the school. All right, there we are. End a story. What we're not going to do is have bell-to-bell things or most of all, I see some school districts. You can't even bring a phone to school. Okay. Right, because you're going to have a bus driver who's making whatever an hour. And on top of that, every single year they have a shortage of bus drivers and we do stories about it. You're going to have some bus driver who's some retired whatever at 73 years old, minding their business and they want to look in at Big Mirror over their head and go, hey, kid in the fourth row, you're not allowed to have your cell phone. Put it away. Yeah, okay. That's the last thing they're going to do. So that's never going to work. The bell to bell stuff, okay, you want to do that, that's fine. This takes two things to resolve. Self-control from the kids, and if they're unwilling and unable to do that, teachers who instill discipline and punishment and or administrators. What are we doing here? Why are we making it so tough? Rules that are lapped over for everyone that become mandates aren't good. They don't work. It feels too heavy-handed and it's too much. Again, here's why. Josh Shapiro doesn't live my life. He doesn't know what it's like. He may know. I don't know. He doesn't know what it's like to have a daughter who's in musical and wrestles in the same season and her proctor for whatever it's called for musical changes. Sometimes they have vocal practice. Sometimes it's just dance. We'll let you know at one o'clock. She doesn't drive yet. She's not even 15. So she has to text home, let us know. And then that way, can you bring my headgear and my wrestling shoes up? I'm just going to stay. Oh, there's a unified botchy match. I really love supporting those kids. I'm just going to stay and watch that. Can you actually just bring me up some dinner? That's how life really works. And she uses a communication device, her phone. You know why? There's not pay phones laying around schools anymore. It's just not the way that it is. Mandating this is absurd. What you do is take care of and punish the kids who can't follow the rules. That's a much better way to do things. Life can feel overwhelming, but on my podcast, From the Heart with Rachel Brathen, we're in it together. Every Friday, a new episode brings you a new story with topics on motherhood, wellness, self-love, and more. Listen to From the Heart with Rachel Brathen wherever you get your podcasts.