If it isn't yours, what gives you the right to take it?

I have dealt with students since I began teaching who think they have the right to take anything that they fancy. I have had my cell phone stolen, colorful pens, doodads, (we won't even discuss money), candy, whatever.

I was raised that the definition for that behavior is "theft." My students tell me I should know better than to have (fill in the blank) at the school.

Today a student left her phone on the desk. She came to me after the next class had been there to ask if I had seen her phone. Her teacher had not let her come down during the class to get her phone.

I hadn't seen the phone, but I knew who had been sitting there. Went to where the 1st boy was - he pointed to a second boy. Went to the second boy - he told me where the third boy was and told me the first boy had the phone. Went back to the classroom (since first and third boy were in the same class) and told them I needed to see them in the hall - at which point third boy hands me the phone. (

Now, he gets brownie points for giving up the phone, but whose jackaninny idea was it to take the phone in the first place? It's not like they didn't know it wasn't theirs.