Last week I was falsely accused of a crime that I was thinking about committing because it was something I’d frequently threatened to do.

Last Thursday, at the beginning of my sixth period class, one of my worst students was playing Some Kind Of Game (not a real game) on his PlayStation Portable. What caught my eye was 1) the bell had just rung so he should have been getting ready and 2) it was blue.

One of my classroom policies is that if I see you playing a game in class, I confiscate the device and, if you’re lucky, return it at the end of class. However, after the blue PSPs came out, I said that if I saw a blue PSP in class, it was my present and I’d never give it back.

However, this time, I told the student to put it away and he did. Sort of. I was still thinking about taking it, but I didn’t.

Then, soon after class, he came down and asked me to give him his PSP back. I pointed out that I didn’t have it and sent him back to the fourth floor to get it. I thought it was a strange encounter: had I blacked out and stolen the device but didn’t remember; or had my guilt at thinking about taking it manifested itself as actual theft in the form of invisible demons? But then stopped thinking about it before my thoughts got too crazy. Until Monday.

On Monday, my birthday no less, the same student came back to get his PSP. He had apparently 1) forgot that he’d put it in the desk; 2) had imagined me taking it and 3) spent the weekend bitching to his parents that I was a thief who had kept his PSP over the weekend. I told him, once again, I didn’t have it and told him to go back up to the fourth floor or to lost and found or find out which of his friends stole it.

Finally, today, I had that class again and the same student was there playing with his blue PSP again. I told him to put it away and he did. Then, at the end of class, I told him to make sure he had his PSP and, if he forgot it, not to blame me.

Oh, and I told him to tell his parents I’m actually awesome and not a thief.

The worst thing you can do to punish Japanese students without getting physical is separate them from their group. The second worst thing you can do is separate them from their phones.

But I repeat myself.

The Japanese, in general, are very group oriented. Even in a large company, people who attended the same universities will form private drinking clubs separate from people who attended other universities. It would be the equivalent of getting a job with Monsanto right out of college and then being invited to join the Harvard Graduates Club while the Kansas State University Graduates Club is having much more fun (whilst bitching about Kansas University, or University OF Kansas, or, ah, hell, who cares? They are in a different club).

In school, sending a student out of the room, even in high school, is a very powerful act and even the coolest of the cool troublesome students don’t like it. They will do whatever it takes to come back in the room, even if it means actually opening the textbook for a few minutes. In junior high, it’s more problematic because, according to the law, the student has both an obligation and a right to be in the room.

The other day, in an 8th grade class, one of my worst students was staring at his crotch and smiling. Since this is not something normal people normally do, I went over to confiscate whatever he was playing with (the whole time hoping it was a phone). As soon as I got to his desk, a black iPhone disappeared into his blazer pocket. After some brief arguing and me setting up a “lunch date” where he’d get to do some extra work he handed me a blue smartphone. I said thanks and told him to give me the iPhone.

He refused and I said, more or less, “It’s a date! See you at lunch!”

I set the blue phone on my podium and, a few minutes later, had to go across the hall and make some copies of the textbook for students who’d forgot their textbooks and when I returned, the blue phone was gone.

Group homework ensued and, oddly, I managed to get the black iPhone out of the student’s blazer pocket in the best pickpocket move I’ve ever done.

This led to a meeting after class where I ended up with both phones and a convoluted “meaning of is is; if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor” explanation about how the iPhone wasn’t really turned on (in the junior high, kids may have phones but may not turn them on) and therefore I couldn’t take the phone plus it was actually the blue phone that was on and I coudl take it. I snorted “bullshit” under my breath, pointed out I can tell the difference between a black phone and a blue phone and ended up keeping both phones until the end of the day.

While I had them, I wiped the phones clean with a micro-fiber cloth and, luckily for me, both boys turned up a minute after final bell to get their phones. I promised that if I saw them again during class time, I’d keep them for a week.

Also, after my full service confiscation, even teachers are trying to get me to confiscate their phones so they can be cleaned.