Death By Cell Phone

I have finally made it to my half way mark of student teaching.  Couldn't be more happy.  However, I still have about 29 more days left and if anything is going to kill me quickly it will be these DAMN cell phones in the classroom.  I know, I just said a bad word.  But, my gads, these cell phones in the High School is down right ridiculous!  What 9th through 12th grader actually needs a cell phone - okay they may have one, but why do they need them during school?  And since I am on this little rant, why the HECK do they need a smart phone?

About a week ago I got into an argument with a student about texting.  The student was right in front of me as I was teaching - plain as day!  Hey student, why you are on your phone texting why don't you look up an app called RESPECT!  Sheesh?  I stop what I was doing and ask the student out right, "Really?"  Then I said, "Give me your phone."  Within a few seconds later the student right next to my previous student texting pulls out their phone to check the time (or so they tell me)?!?!  Because you know, schools apparently don't have clocks in the classroom anymore???  I stop and ask, "really?"  I continued teaching, and am not happy.  Then after class the student comes to me to get their phone back.  I was not about to give it back.  Disappointingly I gave the phone back and was not happy about it one i-o-ta!  Beforehand, as I was arguing with with the student I say it is rude and disrespectful to be texting as I am teaching, and I mention that they aren't even suppose to have their cell phones in class.  (School handbook states that cell phones are not permitted in the class unless otherwise specified.  And, I'm pretty sure that as I am teaching sewing a cell phone is NOT needed.)  As we are continuing to argue until we are both blue in the face the teacher aid of the class steps in to back a sister up.  Bless her!  Needless to say, both I and the teacher aid lose the battle and the phone goes back to the student.  BOO!  Not happy.

Two days go by.  I lose sleep.  I get myself all worked up about these cell phones being in school that I want to do something, but I don't know what to do!  I decided the only thing I can do is before I start teaching class I will have to say something.  I talk to one of my mentor teachers, and she tells me she can say something, or I can say something.  We both agree it would be better for me to say something since this is (for the time being) my class.  The night before my class I am in such a tizzy about the cell phones that I figure the only way to vent my frustration is to pull out some good old fashion paper and write down my feelings.  Oh I was fuming mad, and it showed in my writing, but boy did I release some anger.  The next day I walk into my second period sewing class and I pull out the speech (not the one I wrote down because that was very anger filled).  I know what you are thinking?  I let them have it!  I did, but I was still nice...at the end.  I got stern with them and told them all that I was sick and tired of having to take cell phones away everyday.  It was rude and disrespectful of them to even have their cell phone out as I, or anyone else is teaching.  I also said that if I have to take any more cell phones I will take them to the office and they can decide at the office what to do.  All you have to say is "take it to the office" and they know I mean business.  Then at the very end of my little speech I apologized to the students in my class who do not bring their cell phone to class or do, but don't take it out during my teaching.  Then with a bat of an eye I was on to my demonstration and the speech time was over, and sadly, forgotten.  Because guess what I took from a student the very next time we met?  A cell phone.  I think the poor student almost cried.  Because number one, they felt bad, and number two, I was very stern and told the student I did not expect this from them.

Seriously - if a student is going to text get it right!

I know, I know.  This all sounds so mean, but seriously, you try teaching and have the distraction of cell phone use going on.  Not cool!  Especially when I have spent a lot of time preparing to teach just to be interrupted by ones cell phone.  Why can't the state of Utah jump on the cool bus like the state of New York and ban cell phones from the schools???  Hmmm???

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Think of this like valet parking for your car. Students in New York City have valet parking for their phones. Cell phones are banned in New York schools, but students cannot bear to be without them on the subway ride to school and back. So entrepreneurs have been parking trucks near the schools. And there you can leave your phone for a dollar a day - or about $180 per year. The minute school is out students can go back to texting or being baffled by those new Apple maps. It's MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. 

I will continue to take students cell phones, and just hope that if anything comes from me taking their phones it will be that they learn a little bit of respect.  However, before I finish this little rant I want to talk to the parents of these cell phone using students.  Why the heck are you texting your students in school?  That is the number one thing I hear from students the minute I take their cell phone - "My Mom was texting me!"  I say, "Your Mom can text?  Cool, but why the heck is she texting you?  Doesn't she know you are in school?  Come on???"

It's almost over in the student teaching world, (PRAISE THE GOOD LORD ABOVE) and I think I can manage to deal with cell phones for 29 more days...but if I can't...well you will know it was a "death by cell phone."  Put that one on my headstone!

Oh P.S.
Guess who joined the cool kids and got herself an iPhone/Smartphone.  Yours truly...the girl who pretends to suck spaghetti.  So appropriate for a blog post on how much I hate cell phones in the school.  Ha! ;)

Technology - Good, But Also Bad?

What did we ever do before technology?  Don't you hate when people say that?  We got by just fine.  Don't' get me wrong, I love technology, I think it's great, but I also think with all good comes some bad.  My latest technology behavior has allowed the bad to seep in quite a bit in the past few weeks.  

I have been feeling for some time that my habits of using/dealing with technology are getting out of hand.  About a month ago two of the girls I work with decided to do a "media fast" which was to cut out movies, TV, Facebook, and music.  As they told me their plans I thought to myself what a great idea - good luck to the both of you.  But, I also thought to myself, I should try to cut at least Facebook out for a month, or something.  Not that I got on Facebook that much in the past, but as of recently I have spent FAR TOO MUCH time on that social network.  And what am I accomplishing on there to begin with - NOTHING!  

Just yesterday I was on the phone with my cousins wife Shellie, and the topic came up - "technology, and how it's taking over our lives."  She told me of a friend of hers who decided to do this "no technology day" once a week.  As I continued to think about this during the day I decided that I need to take one day of the week where I don't have any use of technology.  I have decided that I will do Sunday, only because it's a day where I know I won't have any need of the computer, texting, TV, and movies. It would probably be hard to do this during the week when I am in school, and at work.  On top of all that I am teaching my Gospel Principles class on Sunday which is about "Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy," and figured that one way of keeping the Sabbath holy would be cutting out technology.  

Listen, I'm not PERFECT by any means, but a person can try!  So, I am going to try! 

Let me begin with texting.  I have done my fair share of hanging out with people and in the middle of "hang out" I'm texting another person - I try not to do this, but if they start texting someone I just go ahead and text someone also.  I'll show them, right?  That is a huge irritation of mine, texting when you are with people - totally rude.  So is texting at church, but we won't get into that today.  Next media downfall of mine, is TV.  I don't have TV anymore, thanks to the cable company who finally caught on that we shouldn't be hooked up.  It's been 4 months without it and I really haven't missed it that much.  However, I have turned to other things - like the internet, and more frequent Netflix watching.  Speaking of internet, I am grateful for my neighbors who were nice enough to give me their password to use the internet.  The other thing I am grateful about is that by using their internet I don't have full bars so it doesn't allow me to watch videos online unless I'm willing to wait hours for the movie to download and that would be a negative...I'm not that patient.  So, how do I watch my show Glee and other instant movies - oh yeah, I wait until I'm at school, or my parents house.  Which both of those places don't allow much time for movie or TV watching.  I'm not watching much TV these days, and my movies at this time are about two at a time per week due to work/school/life.  Lastly, it all then comes back to this wonderful world wide web.  I'm an addict to Gmail, Netflix, Blogger, allrecipes, Goodreads, and that social network Facebook.  It needs to stop, it all needs to stop.  I need to get this technology lifestyle under control before I lose all control.   

This is what I'm going to try to do on my one day off of technology a week.  

1. No Texting!  I will do phone calls only on this day.  Besides, what happened to the old fashioned "calling someone" to shoot the breeze.
2. No TV (already do that) - so, in my case NO MOVIES!  I will read a book, or study my next lesson for Sunday school.
3. No COMPUTER.  PERIOD!  No computer for me means, no solitaire, no playing with photo's, no iTunes organizing, and anything else that has me using my computer.  Oh hello, the internet - none of that will be going on.  Duh!
4. No Internet.  As stated above.
5. I want to say no music, but I feel that some music is okay to listen to.  Maybe eventually I'll just cut it all out.  

*  As for my latest social media addiction I am going to limit myself to once a week on Facebook.  I can do this, I did it before, and I need to start doing it again.  Besides, my brother hates Facebook and already gives me a hard time when he catches me on there.  He usually say's something like, "Are you on Facebook?  I want you to get the hell off of there in my house!"  Rude, huh.  It's all out of love.  He's right though, he is most definitely right in my opinion; I need to stay the hell off Facebook for a while. (Side note:  Facebook isn't all that bad - there are people from my mission that make me grateful for Facebook because it has helped me stay in contact.  Facebook does have some positive things...)

I can't say this is going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it to try.  (I bet this reminds some of you of my mission homecoming when I said no more "Friends" TV show...the worst part about that whole thing is my families wonderful dedication to recording all the episodes that I missed as I was out serving - then me asking them a month before I got home to get rid of all the VHS recordings they had made...only to find out several years later they released all the episodes on DVD - who knew???) 

What are your thoughts on no media, is there anything else I can do to limit myself? 

Texting at Church!!!!

Here comes another "soap box" moment from me. It's a lot of reading...so if you can't stay focused then don't read it, and don't comment telling me it "was a lot of reading!!!"

Oh how I hate texting at church! A couple of years ago in one of my many single wards, one Sunday over the pulpit the member of the Bishopric read a statement from "higher authority" about leaving your cell phones at home, or in the car for the 3 hour block. I will admit that I had occasionally taken my iPod to church to play games...and used the excuse that my scriptures are on my iPod. However, at church, because it can be boring at times, I would get distracted and end up playing one of my totally fun games. I would feel bad because people would see me, and I'm sure they thought, "look at that girl on her cell phone texting." Well peep's I wasn't texting, but I wasn't reading my scriptures either. Since this statement about leaving your cell phones at home I took it to heart, and did just what that "higher authority" said. Now listen, I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means. You can think that I am, but I am FAR FROM IT! However, I am trying to work towards perfection, and feel that this is a start by leaving my cell phone in my car. It's 3 hours people - 3 hours!!!

I go off on my soap box because of what happened today in my institute class. I am trying to graduate from institute - gag, I know. To graduate I need to take a full year of the Book of Mormon. In all my college/institute years I have never taken a full year of the Book of Mormon. Crazy, I know? I have taken a full year of "Dating and Courtship" and well, you can all see where that has gotten me. 30 and single...or am I??? Ahhhh - let's stay on track here! So, in my institute class today my teacher read us an article straight from the SUU Journal (SUU's Newspaper) about texting in Church. I was blown away! As he was reading this I was looking around to my fellow (church going) classmates when guess what they were doing, playing on their cell phones. Come on people!!! Well, hopefully it touched someone in class today, besides me.

So, after class I went on to SUU's website and searched the archives for this awesome article. I want all to read this article, and to strive to leave your cell phone at home when attending church. I say these things...AMEN YO's!

Do you want to see more of my rants??? Apparently I have a few...

Are College Students Really That Stupid???

I just Can't Seem to Let it Go

Learn From These People

Reasons Why I Shouldn't Bartend

Dating Stinks...I'll Leave it at That???

If you have young children DO NOT TAKE THEM TO THE MOVIE THEATER!!!

I Deserve an A+ and by Damn I'm getting an A-

Doing Homework Among Others

Sunday-worshipper finds texting in church distracting

By Asher Swan

Monday, September 6, 2010

“Keep the sabbath day holy.” What does that mean nowadays? Does it mean you don’t go shopping and buy your necessities? Or could it mean don’t go watch that borderline-not-okay movie at the theatre with your friends?

From my understanding, Sunday is a day we, as members of a religion, spend supposedly resting and appreciating the blessings from which we are given.

Now don’t get me wrong — there are a multitude of activities and gatherings besides Sunday that offer a time to reflect and pray with loved ones and friends, but because Sunday is the “all -important day,” I would think people would treat it as such.

Now let me get this straight. I am a Latter-day Saint myself — I’m not the most practicing Latter-day Saint, but I do have a strong belief in the religion.

I went to church for the first time in a long time a few weeks ago and I was enjoying a talk by one of the many missionaries in the ward and his belief in the Lord.

The man was crying and bearing his testimony and to my amazement, I looked down my pew to see six or seven people in this singles ward, all of them in some kind of computer-screen daze, having a conversation with someone outside the walls of this haven we call church. The same thing was happening to a lot of other people in other pews.

They were texting incessantly; some were even playing games. It was shocking because I, as an inactive member, assume the people who go to church adamantly follow its teachings.

They could surely step away from their phones for a minute and listen to this missionary tell his story and relate his love for the gospel, but in return all he got were the tops of members heads and mediocre smiles as he sat down and wiped his tears from his heartfelt moment.

Is that fair? Is that right? I thought when we go to church we are there for a reason.

Maybe we are in need of some uplifting — I was — and so I went somewhere I thought I could receive that but in all actuality it was very much a downer.

I began to ask people if they keep the sabbath day holy and if so, how and why?

I felt the answer I was receiving was slightly varied. Some people agreed with me — being in church is more important than contact with friends. Others admitted they took their phone to chat when “it gets boring.”

This thinking let my mind wander to the thought, “are you here in this building because you want to be, or because you feel obligated due to community pressures and the way you were raised?” To stop going could mean other people’s judgements and opinions would be thrown around. Rather than deal with those opinions, I wondered if people go to save face.

For all members of a church and faith, not just Latter-day Saints, churches are free to the public and sometimes the person next to you might be there for reasons you don’t know.

So put the phone down, be in the moment and “keep the sabbath day holy.”

The people around you aren’t the only ones watching. Look up.

Asher Swan is the art editor for the University Journal. He can be reached at aswan@suunews.com.

If you would like to leave the author of this article a comment go here!

It Happened....

Today in class I had to give a presentation...let me go back to the begining of the week first??? I have literally lost my mind, and I think I need to be put in an mental institution...I know some of you might think that I should've been in one a long, long time ago. Well, it's finally time! I keep forgetting things, and doing things that just aren't right?!?! One key thing that I forgot today besides the fact that I couldn't remember where I parked and wondered around the parking lot for about ten minutes until I finally found my car!!! It's not even a VERY BIG parking lot!!! SERIOUSLY...so to top it off today - I - who always, always remembers to turn their phone to silence totally spaced it and forgot that I even had my phone...until I'm in the middle of class and I'm giving my presentation to all the students and teacher when my beloved cell phone started playing "Last Christmas" by Wham! At first I tried to ignore it, but then everyone started looking around the room waiting for the person to turn the phone off...it wasn't happening! Finally, I broke the looks and said, "I'm so so SORRY - that's my phone???" Then I proceded to explain that I've never ever had this happen to me before and I am so good to always turn my phone off or silence it when I come to class. They really didn't care, and were just like - it happens, continue your presentation. As I continue on there comes another ring and my teacher pipes up and say's, "Sounds like they left you a message?" REALLY!!! How embarrassing?!?! Please make sure you turn your cell phones off!!!

Holy $&!#...

Can I just say that text messaging is horrible!!! I went over about sixty some dollars on my phone bill this month and about had heart failure when I saw the amount of $157.08 due. I have never gone over on my phone bill, and I will never go over again! I have never liked text messaging in the first place, now I really am not liking it at all! I can't seem to bring myself to get rid of it though...so I guess I'm going to have to keep a close watch on it for this next month. $157.08 - What was I thinking???