I am sure I am jealous, but I never got to carry around a phone when I was a child. Sure, it would have been a bit clunky, and I wouldn’t be able to go too far because of the cord and all, but it would have been fun. Well, no, wait. No, it wouldn’t. It was too much fun hearing my mother yelling for me in the neighborhood to come home for dinner. What fun would it be to just hear my phone ringing? Or I’d get a text, “Dinner time.”
I actually feel sorry for the children who have to carry a cell phone. I got away with so much stuff when I was little. My mom had to hunt me down almost every day during the summer. That meant an extra 30 minutes of play. Kids today have their parents attached to their hip, literally. Just one text or ring and it will be over.
I teach fourth grade and I really don’t mind if a child has a cell phone in their back pack. I understand the county policy of no cell phones in the classroom, but if a parent writes a note explaining why their child has a cell phone on a particular day, I don’t mind at all. If the phone mistakenly goes off during class, I give the child a lazer shooting out of my eyes look, and quietly put a mark on their MonkeyShines behavior chart.
Some educators say that a cell phone is disruptive. I’d rather have a cell phone go off any day than the stuff that goes on in my classroom each day.
(The following names have been changed to protect their goofiness….and so I don’t get fired just yet.)
“Ms. Mendenhall, Mark is telling everyone out on the playground that I play with monkey titties.”
“Ms. Mendenhall, take a look at this and tell me if it is lice.”
“Ms. Mendenhall, John won’t quit looking at me.” (That means you are looking at him, Goofy.)
I’ve got a fake burper, a pencil breaker, a farter who will not quit farting, one who lives on Pluto, one who keeps knocking over her water bottle and tries to wipe it up with a Kleenex, and 10 who have no idea what I just said.
Yeah, they can have cell phones in my classroom.
