Kids these days

I think I've now experienced the most "exciting" thing I'd like to experience while student teaching...so I've changed the names as I tell you all the story.

Earlier this week I was getting the unit test ready for my eighth graders and my co-teacher was teaching her ninth graders. The day had seemed uneventful enough. The period was almost over, and the kids were getting edgy. Suddenly, Mr. H (our mentor/cooperating teacher) stops everyone and announces, "Hey guys, *Mary had her cell phone at the beginning of class, and now it's gone. Nobody leaves until we find it."

Mrs. L and I closed the doors (ninth graders like to escape from classrooms, I've noticed) and the kids all started calling to one another "just give the phone back!" We had Mary check her backpack and all of her pockets but there was no phone to be found.

Hmm...so she didn't just misplace it.

Darn. :) Now my adrenaline is starting to rush my system.
(Did I mention this was a 4G iphone? What on EARTH were Mary's parents thinking, giving her a $400 phone to take to JUNIOR HIGH? They were asking for this...)

Mrs. L and I told all of the kids to look through their backpacks as Mr. H went to fetch the principle. There were some kids who were very vocal about not having the phone. Others just seemed nervous. I felt like Sherlock Holmes! Following my incredible sleuth-y instincts (insert homage to reading Harriet the Spy, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew as a kid here) I asked Mrs. L if any of the students had left the classroom at all.
"Did anyone go to the bathroom?"
"No. Oh, except *Roy. He went to his locker."

Locker? Bwa ha ha! I'm so sure...I stole some subtle glances but he seemed calm enough.

When the principle got to the room (we were way past the end of class by this time!) he informed us that we have the right to search students' backpacks. So we did.

Most of the kids had bounded to the doors to try and get out. I was trying to get Mr. H's attention and tell him to really search Roy's stuff. But in the shuffle I ended up searching Roy. To my surprise, he didn't have a backpack. He handed me his coat, which I turned inside out, and then I watched him turn out his pockets. The kids around him started taking off their shoes to show their lack of iphone, so Roy did too. Nothing. He was clean.

So I asked him, "Roy, did you go to your locker at all today?"

"No. I've been here the whole time."

Alarm bells started to ring in my head. A lie.

"So you didn't leave?"

"No."

As soon as he had been searched, he tried to scoot around me to get out the door which I had conveniently placed myself smack-dab in front of.

"So can we go?"

Think quick, Janae!

"Nope. Nobody leaves until everyone has been searched."

Whew...

He didn't seem too pleased, but made his way back to the middle of the classroom. A few more searches of backpacks and jackets, and I shared the Roy conversation with Mrs. L. Her eyes flashed and she said, "now what?"

I was wondering the same thing. It was just a suspicion, a hunch. But it kept making my stomach flip upside down.

The students were getting pretty tired of each other. "Come on! Just give it back!" One of our more verbal students was preaching hellfire and damnation. Ever so quietly, Roy walked over to Mary (who happened to be right next to me) and said that he thought he knew where her phone was. I stepped closer to them, acknowledging that I had overheard, and asked Mary if she'd like me to come with them to retrieve it. We left the classroom and started walking toward the stairs.

Mr. Principle appeared out of nowhere. He asked us what we were doing and I explained that Roy had a lead.

"So you know where it is?" asked the principle.

"I think I know who might have taken it."

My stomach flopped again. Now he knows the person who took it? But not the location? Curiouser and curiouser.

"Can you identify them?"
"...I don't know their name."
"But could you identify them?"
"Maybe if I had a picture."

Mary and I watched, then followed. They were headed to the dreaded principle's office, and so were we. For the duration of our walk there were questions.

"Was it a ninth grader?"
"Yeah."
"What did he look like?"
"He was bald."
"Bald?"
"Bald."

Mr. Principle set a spiral bound booklet on his desk and flipped to the ninth grade section. He continued to ask Roy if any of them looked familiar. Negative. Oh! Darn. That's it with the ninth graders, who all had hair.

"Do you know his name?"
"Joey."
"And he's a ninth grader?"
"Yeah."

...another quick walk down the hall...

"Mrs. Secretary, could you pull up all of the Joeys that are active in the system?"

We found one Joey in ninth grade at the school. "Joey?" asked Mary, "I don't think he would ever do that." Too bad for Roy he picked the good kid.

I suggested searching the student's lockers. The principle laughed at me and said that no one ever put anything in the lockers. Next thought--maybe the thief ditched it in a bathroom. Mary and I went to look in all of the bathrooms in the school. Ew. I never want to go into another junior high boy's restroom again! But there were some interesting holes in the walls...we had to check with flashlights.

One uneventful search later we were back at the classroom. Mr. H let all of the students go, and Mary had to fill out a police report. We apologized for not helping her find her phone, and as soon as she left we marveled that anyone would bring something so expensive to a middle school.

The mystery was left hanging. I stood at the door of the classroom as lunch began and racked my brain, just knowing Roy had some part in the theft, but not knowing what to do to prove it. Suddenly my time was up and I had to leave to get Baby from our marvelous babysitter. I left Mrs. L and Mr. H and made my way home.



Join us soon for part II of "Kids these days." I promise it will be shorter. :)