I’m sure a lot of teachers wish they could smash up the devices students often distract themselves with in class, but one student in China did the job for them.
For most young people nowadays, losing your phone is like losing a limb. Obviously real life interactions are important, but let’s be honest, so much of life is wrapped up in social media and online communication that you can miss out on a lot if you’re device-less, even for just a few hours.
The Hui People Middle School has a strict no phone policy preventing students from trawling their devices, but it seems the student just couldn’t bear the thought of missing out on some phone time.
Check out his punishment here:
After watching the video, it would be natural to assume a teacher had caught the teen with their phone and forced him to smash it up to ensure he learned his lesson about bringing the banned device into school.
But, considering it would be pretty questionable for a teacher to tell the teen to completely destroy his own property, that’s not the case.
According to a spokesperson at the school, the boy didn’t smash the phone at a teacher’s request. Instead the unusual punishment was apparently the result of a policy enforced by the students.
The spokesperson said:
We’ve always had a ban on phones. Pupils sign agreements as soon as they enter the school.
No one is allowed to bring their phone to school.
However, no teacher forced the pupil to break his phone. It’s a policy the students decided to enforce themselves.
Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has doubts about this version of events. Surely the teenager wouldn’t batter his device solely on the instruction of a fellow student? What power did the classmate have over the phone user? If he knew even the students would turn against him, why did the teenager risk taking his phone to school?
Clearly, I have a lot of questions.
The footage was filmed at the school in the city of Shangqiu, in Central China’s Henan Province, by a passing teacher who witnessed the scene.
The teen hit the device with a padlock and seemed happy to leave the damage there, but a girl standing over him encouraged him to smash it further, saying ‘hit it again, smash it to pieces’, and ‘throw it. Throw it against the floor. Throw it over there’.
While we may never know the true series of events that led to the destruction of the mobile, I’m sure the teen would has learned a lesson, somewhere, the hard way.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.