I am a husband, writer, and teacher exploring what it means to cultivate mental silence.

The one day I don't have my iPhone...

Heading into today,I was feeling a bit squeamish due to the fact that I was not going to haveseveral of my gadgets (Spire, iPhone, and Apple Watch) due to end of gradetesting at my school. We were asked to turn our phones off during testing so asnot to cause any kind of distraction. So I thought…if it has to be off and theSpire and Apple Watch are so connected to the iPhone…why not unplug for a fewdays? I'd come to terms with it but…as mentioned above…was feeling a bitsqueamish without all of my stuff.

 

As I got closer toschool, I noticed that a traffic light was out…weird. As I made it past thelight and got closer to school…I noticed a lot of traffic, power company, anddistrict level workers close to the school working on something. 5 steps intoschool I knew something was wrong. Little to no power in the halls, no power atall in my room…no one in sight to ask what was up. Before I knew it…we werebeing told that school was cancelled due to a power outage caused by a blowntransformer close to the school. We were asked to contact our families to setup proper dismissal of students that made it into school…from the buses or our"before school" program.

 

WAIT A MINUTE!!! The one day I don't have my iPhone! Luckily, a colleague let me borrow herswhich was so nice. I was able to contact almost every family…left severalmessages…spoke with others. All told…only 4 students actually made it to myclassroom, 2 "before school" students and 2 bus students. Each had anadult come pick them up. Pretty smooth all told. My take away from theexperience…bring the phone to school and just turn it off…you never know whenyou will need it!

30 days in with my replacement Apple Watch...

One month in with the Apple Watch...