The most expensive things most students handle on a day to day basis outside of a computer is their cellphone. Responsible students get phones so that they can call their parents for rides to academies, or to tell them when they need a ride when they are sick. Irresponsible students also get phones to keep track of their homework when they forget it, or to make sure they are where they are supposed to be. Students as young as six or seven have phones.
The one big thing that can freak a student out is losing their phone. Parents put a lot of trust in their children dropping money on a phone, and if students lose this symbol of trust, they are in deep trouble.
One of my students forgot her phone. She was in panic mode through the entire class. The students were very helpful in trying to jog her memory.
“Did you have the phone in the bathroom? Maybe you flushed it down the toilet by accident!”
“NO!”
One of the students said that if she didn’t find the phone, saying she dropped it in the toilet might still work out for her. She said one of her friends claimed to have dropped a bad phone into a toilet so that her parents would buy a nicer model.
Another boy said that while this might be a good idea, if you can blow dry a phone, some models might work after being dropped if you don’t turn them on until they are completely dry. I thought the idea of talking into a phone you knew had dropped into a toilet seemed disgusting, dry or not.
“Did you have the phone on the bus?”
“No. Yes? I don’t remember.”
The students continued to push the girl. Every five minutes or so, she would stop her work and just say, “OOOOOOhhhh, I can’t STUDY! WHERE IS MY PHONE!”. She had serious separation anxiety. She was also worried about what might happen when she got home.
“Did you have the phone when you were in your mom’s car?”
“Yes, I remember it at that time. I had to send a message.”
I said that she should probably call her mother and ask her to search the car, since it was the last place she remembered having her phone. During the break between classes, she called her mother from the office phone. She told her mom that she didn’t remember where she put her phone. Her mother said she had found it in the car earlier, and that she didn’t need to worry. The girl was overjoyed to hear she hadn’t lost her phone afterall.
Too bad it happened after my class, because she wasted a lot of my time talking about it.
