I hate all these fancy-schmancy cell phones but, there are plenty of teachers I had in HS that I would have loved to have video taped and then played their stupidity over the internet.
AWB, how did your school get to the point where the administration has relinquished so much power? How did you get to the point where you have no power over the kids in your classroom?
I’m with Cheesesteak, despite my personal aversion to the blinking, ringing, flashing, distracting monsters. The lack of teacher authority and admin backup is the real problem, actually, IMO.
I’ve been successful (although it’s college, not grade school) with saying: “OK, any time a cell phone rings in class, you’ve disrupted class already, so we might as well have a little fun. If your cell phone rings during class, I get to answer it.”
They scurry to turn 'em off, and I’ve never had one ring during class.
I think we’ve got a winner here. However, person like me, and knowing my friends, I’d probably leave it on just to see the look on your face 
Confiscate the bookbags.
I’m sorry, but I have always hated the “punish everyone” technique. Why should I, who did nothing wrong, have to pay for something that some numbskull classmate did?
Exactly. I’ve always believed that this method increases misbehavior. If you’re going to have to do the crime, might as well do the crime, so to speak.
Cause you are part of this AMAZING AWESOME TEAM that is MANKIND, and WE, as a TEAM, (did you know there was no I in TEAM? WOW) are RESPONSIBLE for OUR SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. When that cell phone goes off in class, it is OUR FAILURE, the FAILURE of the team, and WE SHOULD ALL have to deal with the consequences.
:dubious:
…
This is the pit, after all. In school I always felt that teachers that punish everyone for an actions of an individual should get to share their paychecks, spouses and whatever else with the students. We’re a team, no? Where’s your spirit of sharing?
Argh! Replace the first “crime” with “time.”
I swear I previewed.
Ha. You sound like my Volleyball coach.
The “punish everybody” method was the middle school technique that most of our teachers used. Talk in class? Quiz. Don’t do your homework? The whole class gets two extra pages to do for homework the next night. This was the stuff nightmares were made of for “good kids” like me (Well, I was good until fifth or sixth grade, heh.).
To do such a thing in High School is unneccesary and pretty insulting to all the pupils in a class. It’s just like when my Spanish teacher employs notebook checks for every student after the end of the marking period. It’s insulting to our intelligence, and frankly, if we’re doing well in our classes, does it matter how the hell we “organize our notebooks”? Different methods work for different people.
I rather liked the idea of answering the phone and humiliating the student and the caller (particularly if it’s the student’s significant other!) Spares other students with having to deal with cell phones going off in class, and doesn’t treat them like they’re in the fifth grade.
Spares other students from, not “with”.
That’s exactly what I think when I see people with hands-free units on that have the little operator-style microphones. Especially the ones that have the faint blue glow.
The question here is what “pay” means. The goal is to provide you with a disruption free learning environment, so that you can actually learn something while you spend your entire day at school. So that you can get a good start in life, with the tools you need to succeed.
Having idiots constantly disrupting the class deprives you of that environment. You have a harder time learning what you need to learn, a harder time getting what you need out of those long years in school. THAT is paying for what other numbskulls do, not taking a 5 minute quiz.
Think about this thread It’s about an actor berating a person at a play performance for having a cellphone go off. Those are people who paid good money to be there, and they were thrilled that somebody actually tried to do something to stop the disruption. School is “free” and the customers are kids, so they wind up more angry at the teacher trying to teach than they are at the other students disrupting the effort.
For the record, AWB has already indicated that she can’t confiscate the phone unless she breaks school rules. I also doubt she can just grab the phone away from someone. Feel free to come up with a solution that won’t get her fired.
Take a point away from the offenders overall grade every time their phone goes off?
Why not keep a shoebox at the front of the class and make everyone deposit their cell phones there? I’m suprised this wouldn’t be a school-wide policy.
Can I take this opportunity to say that I got chewed out by a priest when my cell phone rang during a wedding rehearsal? (And while I took the heat, everyone else surreptitiously shut their phones off.) I mean, it’s not a service or anything. I would have turned it off, but I forgot.
You need to channel Gunnery Sergeant Hartman:
The best thing I can come up with is for AWB to find out from other teachers if they have the same problem, and go to the administration and try to change the rules - make the teachers able to confiscate ringing cell phones. Make sure the kids (and their parents) know cell phones must be off during school hours or else they’ll be taken away. Present it as, “This is a last resort. The problem has gotten out of hand and we have to do this.”
Someone mentioned the rules at their school; the kids can have them in school but they must be off. If it rings in class it’s confiscated till a parent comes to get it. That’s the rule at my daughter’s school, too. Nothing wrong with it at all, IMO.
Kids got along just fine for years without cell phones. I somehow made it through four years of high school (and college, for that matter) without a cellphone. Just imagine!
(Of course, there were no such things way back then, but whatever…
And while I’m in Old Fogey mode: Get off my lawn!)
Proposes solution:
If cell phone rings during class, that student and the students to the right and left of that student gets 10 points deducted from his final grade.
Now that’s messed up. I’m all for deducting 10 points from the culprit’s grade, (as I suggested upthread) but what did the students to the right or left of him do? That’s a harsh penalty for someone who didn’t do anything wrong. What’s the justification?