Teacher Reads Daughter’s Text Messages To Class, Mom Furious

Text messages in the classroom are often looked down upon because of their disruptive nature to the other students and the instructor.

However, one mom is furious with her daughter’s teacher’s policy of combatting this disruption: he confiscates the phone and reads the messages aloud to the rest of the class.

And in this case, she may have a point.

The mom, Patricia Mitchell, wrote the UK-based paper ready to take action. From her letter:

Dear Mansfield Uncovered,

My 15 year old daughter attends ?????????????????? and I want to make public a recent incident.

A certain teacher at the school has a policy that if any pupil’s mobile phone goes off during the lesson, he confiscates it and reads some of the text messages out to the rest of the class in order to deter other pupils from having their phones on during class.

On Friday, my daughter’s phone went off during his lesson and the teacher proceeded to confiscate her phone and read out text messages.

Unfortunately, my daughter had a number of very personal text messages between her boyfriend and one from me regarding the dates of her grandad’s funeral who recently passed away.

I am disgusted that this teacher thinks it’s appropriate or acceptable to humiliate his pupils in this manner. My daughter is now scared of going into school on Monday out of sheer embarrassment and upset.

I am minded to contact the police and also the school in order for an investigation to be made.

Can anything be done about this? Please ask your readers,

Patricia Mitchell

Now, coming from a teaching field, I will have to first empathize with high school teachers. Most text messages sent during the school day — even those between parent and child — are completely unnecessary and disruptive to the educational experience.

However, common sense dictates that you don’t just read something aloud to the rest of the classroom without first vetting it to see if it’s too personal.

With one of the text messages in question regarding a death in the family and funeral arrangements, it would have been best for the teacher to give the student an out where she could have saved face.

The teacher apparently did not do that in this case, though it’s worth mentioning that the teacher’s side of the story isn’t presented, so keep that in mind.

What do you think, readers? Are any text messages sent while a teacher is trying to teach fair game?

[Image via Flickr Creative Commons]