ring rang rung

I'm being bullied. By teenagers. A whole class of 'em this time. Just like last year. Only, instead of locking me out of my portable, today was a new trick. They used cell phones to call the classroom phone in my room and make it ring. Ok, I can admit - once would be funny. MAYBE twice. But they did this, for an hour. I bet it rang over 20 times. I ignored it every time. I never went to look at it, except for the very last time as the bell was ringing. It was coming from an anonymous number.  Even though I was ignoring it, the kids kept reacting to it, and making a big scene, and it was SO distracting and hard to keep teaching, and very difficult to hold their attention. So no matter how hard I ignored it, they kept doing it and kept laughing and hollering about it.  For AN HOUR.

At one point, I even sat in a student desk and taught from the center of the room, and the phone only rang once while I was seated there. I couldn't tell who was doing it. This cell phone thing is stupid. I don't believe taking up cell phones should even be part of my job anyway, and the fact that it costs them $15 to get it back, OR, if they refuse to give it up they get a 3-day suspension, is even more ridiculous. Not part of teaching. Not at all. It's 2011. Everybody has a stinkin' cell phone. Let it bed. Why can't I just tell them "Put it away." and be done with it? I never wanted to be the cell phone sheriff anyway.

I spent two and a half hours after school today calling the parents of every single kid in that class, to ask for their cell phone numbers. Everyone was willing to give it out to prove their child's innocence. But the boy who texted a message "I'm thirsty" to my email... now that was just dumb. So he's in trouble, and possibly will get blamed for all the phone calls, although I'm pretty sure he wasn't alone in making the calls. I bet at least three kids, if not more, were involved in making the calls.

All because I gave out a parent letter for students to take home, explaining when my tutorials are, reminding them that our textbook has a website they can access for extra help, and I included my contact information so that's how they had the number. (Actually I gave it out at the beginning of school and nobody called me then.) Nice. No good deed goes unpunished, huh.

Have I mentioned I am confident in my decision to do something else?  Have I mentioned I have peace?  Have I mentioned I cannot wait until June 3, 2011?