Teacher Tells First Graders to Stick Magnets to Things, Says One Killed Their Phone

This teacher gave their first-grade class a bunch of magnets and told them to run around sticking them to things. Being first graders, they were more than happy to oblige such a request. But, when you invite chaos with young children around, something is bound to get broken.

Now the teacher claims that their phone broke when one of the first graders stuck a magnet to it, and they want the parents to pay. The thing is… They might have made this whole thing up. If strangers on the internet are to believe that is.

This thread was posted to Reddit's r/AITA (Am I the A-Hole) subreddit by the concerned parent, u/Conscious_Koala_7009, who is wondering if they are in the wrong for refusing to reimburse the teacher for their "damaged" phone.

This thread is interesting for several reasons. First, it proves an exception to the "take accountability when you damage other people's things" rule of social etiquette, often an important decision-maker on AITA. Because this Teacher invited literal children to do what they did and then proved incapable of protecting their personal belongings from the said thing they told the children to do.

Second, according to commenters, a magnet can't damage a modern smartphone. Now, I'm of little-to-no help here; I've kept magnets away from my electronics like the plague since the mid-'90s. But, I have done the quick Google search (can magnets damage smartphones?) that the commenters have, and the answer appears to be resoundingly unanimous. No, a magnet can't damage anything on a modern smartphone, except for maybe its compass.

Third… (Ok, I know several isn't three, but we're tagging an extra one on here anyways.) As commenters have also mentioned… Don't schools have rules about this kind of thing?

Scroll on for screenshots of u/Conscious_Koala_7009's thread and the reactions below.

Tech-geeks… Any informed advice here?

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Posted by Brad Dickson