An Arizona high school teacher blamed his students’ rampant use of their phones in the classroom for the decline of his mental health, which he says has forced him to quit his job.
Mitchell Rutherford, who taught biology at Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Ariz. for over a decade, says he called it quits after multiple failed attempts to pry his students from their devices caused him to lose his sanity.
“I have been struggling with mental health this year mostly because of what I identified as basically phone addiction with the students,” Rutherford told KVOA.
The frustrated educator believes the phone addiction stems from the closures the schools endured during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the students to desocialize.
Rutherford noticed a change in his students this past Fall before realizing he was working harder than his students.
“This year something shifted, and it’s just like they are numbing themselves, they are just checking out of society, they’re just like can’t get rid of it, they can’t put it away,” he told the outlet.
Rutherford says in October half of his students were failing his class and told him they didn’t want to be at school or care about their grades.
“I was beginning to think I was the problem,” Rutherford, who says he was growing anxious and depressed, told the Wall Street Journal.
Sahuaro High School’s phone policy says they shouldn’t be used in class, but teachers are left to enforce it, according to the outlet.
Rutherford likened the immense phone usage to drug addiction.
“Opioids, obviously a huge problem, cocaine heroin, all of those drugs, alcohol, it’s all a big problem, but like sugar even greater than that and then phones even greater than that.” he said.
Rutherford bribed the digital youth with rewards if they put their devices down in an attempt to help his students fight their so-called “addiction.”
“Here’s extra credit, let’s check your screen time, let’s create habits, let’s do a unit on sleep, and why sleep is important, and how to reduce your phone usage for a bedtime routine, and we talked about it every day and created a basket called phone jail,” he explained to KVOA.
He even tried taking his classes on nature walks and taught meditation techniques but to no avail.
“I would walk up to kids and say, ‘Give me your phone,’ and they would clutch it, and I would say that’s what an alcoholic would do if you tried to take away their bottle,” he told the WSJ.
Ninety-seven percent of students use their cell phones during school hours, according to a Common Sense Media study last year.
Gov. Kathy Hochul this week called for a ban on kids using smartphones in school, proposing that students carry “dumb” phones that can send texts but can’t access the internet.
Parents understood Rutherford’s frustration with the screen-obsessed teens but weren’t thrilled on him leaving.
“I kind of agree with him, not really agree with him for quitting, but I agree with this stance he’s taking because he’s not able to do his job,” parent Chris Anderson told the NBC affiliate.
“I think it’s understandable I feel the frustration, I have two teenage boys so they are on their phones constantly, and it’s a big distraction,” Bernadette Sauced told the outlet.
Rutherford’s final day of teaching was May 23, which he called bittersweet, but best for himself and his family.
“Part of me feels like I’m abandoning these kids. I tell kids to do hard things all the time and now I’m leaving?” he said. “But I decided I’m going to try something else that doesn’t completely consume me and drain me.”
Rutherford hopes to pursue his PhD in the future.
