Follow Up on No Tolerance on Cell Phones...

After my initial shock, I started to actually think that this policy was good, because it meant that my school was not dealing with the distraction of cell phones in the classroom. This is something that I heard some of my colleagues struggling with in different schools, so it is nice to have the administrative support against the use of cell phones in class. Furthermore, because the punishment is so strict, cell phones are mostly not a problem.
However, when they are a problem, I think, in the end, the punishment is too strict. I don't like the underlying idea of suspending students from schools anyway, so I think that a better solution might be for only 1-day suspension or taking away the student's cell phone.
Today, a student was suspended for the second time for using his cell phone. Six days out of school suspension for the two incidences is only setting up the student for failure, in my opinion. Moreover, no tolerance policies don't allow for special circumstances either...
I do agree that students shouldn't be using cell phones in class unless if the use is for an educational purpose, and I do agree that the policy about it needs to be strong enough to be effective, yet I still hold to my opinion that 3 days is too long to be suspended.
Also, I am curious to know what other people think about this who are at WMHS?

Saying hello in German

This is a cool resource that I learned about in my German class! You can find out more at http://www.clip2go.com/
I think that this would really useful if I ever do teach German...

My (and Jennifer's) cool educational video!