Devonne Brown

My brain flipped on the teacher switch last week. Summer perished. I mourn summer in my heart with chains of paperclips and blocks of staples. Cold fluorescent lights took the place of the sunlight filtered through the windows in the family room. I’m heartbroken.

I’m back to monitor halls of chaos, angst, anger, and hormones. We’re all ambivalent about being there. The last thing the kids want are teachers telling them what to do, especially with their cellphones. Nothing begins screeching, screaming, dangerous anger than confiscating a cellphone. The rule is clear. No cellphones, kids are to put them in their lockers. If a teacher sees a phone in a pocket, it is to be taken. If a teacher sees a cellphone at any time it is to be taken, given to the office, and a parent is to pick it up. This is made clear at parent orientation. Parents are aware, kids are aware, and teachers are aware. 

If I don’t enforce the rule, I am derelict in my duty. If I enforce the rule, I am subject to violent screaming and possible physical attack from the student. When asked for the contraband, a student will often give it to another student in front of my face then tell me they don’t have one, and of course lie about the whole situation to the administration. Parents call to curse the school, the principal, and most especially me for taking the phone. How can I teach the kids with that hanging over me? 

There is no gentle way to enforce the rule. Niceness and politeness doesn’t count. The whole class verbally attacks when one of their own is affected by the rule. No one can teach or learn in an environment whipped into a frenzy over a confiscated cellphone. No classroom management technique prepares any teacher for the screaming and hatred of the issues phones create in the classroom. 

Imagine being trapped in a room with twenty-five furious teens, ten of them mean girl drama queens, all of them screaming at the top of their lungs before you’ve even said “Hello.” All the valium in the world won’t ease that pain.

Teachers are light law enforcement, counselors, trauma specialists, social workers, recreation directors, and heaven forbid, content specialists. Teaching content is secondary to everything else, but what teachers are judged by first. How do we compete? I don’t think anyone will be able to  teach an 8th grader with a cellphone until we get the right apps.