It was a different weekend, I felt something weird but at the end I understood I could survive without my cell. In this blog I want to share my memories with my students and to see if they felt the same way I did. The idea of the project came to my mind because a TED video I shared with my students last week. It was a speech titled "Could you live without a smartphone?" where Anastasia Dedyukhina, a business mentor, talks why people feel uncontrollable urge to check their smartphones all the time, something that happens to me as a head and coordinator in my school and of course to my students; that is the reason why I decided to do this project, to see how it is to live without a cell phone the whole weekend.
I was surprised since the first day I began recruiting my students' cells; some of them did not want to be part of the project, others refused because they lived alone or because they were having a party, others were crying because a part of them was being taken; the truth is that as Friday arrived (the day I took their cells) they were feeling more nervous and uncomfortable about passing a weekend without their most valuable thing: their cells.
My wife knew about this idea and she loved it, some parents also wrote and supported the project and told me if I could do the same with all parents (the idea of living without stress for a weekend could be memorable); my wife told me "finally you are going to have a relax weekend" and she was right but between the frustration and the relief of not having your personal device, I felt something was happening with me.
I opened my laptop Friday night to check my mail, it was not the same like checking your cell, not the same like checking your personal whatsapp status or seeing your family, friends, and students crazy things they post every minute, every time. I felt a part of me was not with me.
I have always believed that family must be the first and that's what I always do when I arrive home; passing time with my kids and my wife is the best part of the day but being honest even when I am with them I feel I cannot stop checking my cell. Sometimes because of work messages or just by posting stories or my sons pics, videos or just simple status but this weekend was different, this weekend was great, I could rest and had no worries at all.
Today (Monday September 4) I felt I did something good for my students, perhaps they did things they did not do before or they felt the same way I did, I don't know; I will figure it out just after sharing this post with them; the grade is not important this time but the lesson they learnt will live on their minds and on their hearts forever.
