9 posts tagged “students”

I was just reading the March 2008 Ladies Home Journal (I’m behind and lame, what can I say) and there was an article in the My Life as a Mom section by Marion Winik called “Can You Hear Me Now?” about equipping teenage children with cell phones.  It really ticked me off, ot because she advocates cell phones for teens to make sure they are still alive, even if they sound like “zombies” on the phone, but because she simply accepted it as the new way when her son tells her there must be a “black hole” for service at the track or can’t tell you what address he’s at when he’s at a friend’s.  

How is this acceptable?  Tell your kid to tell you where he is, or you’ll take the phone away, or he’ll be grounded, or some other vile threat that will make him do what you want him to.  I understand that age 16 is the time when kids start to spread their wings, yada yada.  But this woman says that having cell phone GPS is like reading their diaries or (*gasp*) their blogs.  I about hit the roof.  When did teenagers get the right to privacy?  Kids who are assured complete privacy know that they can say one thing and do another.  I see it (and hear it) on a daily basis when school’s in session.  My students don’t seem to get that even if they are huddled in a circle that if they don’t speak quietly I can still hear them, so I get all the dirty little secrets that Mom and Dad don’t know about.  

From my kids, I expect it.  It’s obvious not many of them have anyone paying attention to them at all, let alone worrying about invading their privacy, so I don’t expect much there (talk about banging your head against a brick wall), but from a helicopter mom in LHJ who will probably be filling out her son’s job applications when he’s 30 and sitting next to him in the interview?  Plain stupidity.  Too many of these middle to upper-middle class kids find all kinds of trouble that Mom and Dad don’t have any ideas about until they have to bail their kids out of jail, and all because the parent accepted the explanation that “the track doesn’t have cell phone service.”  

Oh, yeah.  Read your kid’s damn blogs - they’re public to everyone else, why should they be private from you?  And know your kid well enough to know WHEN you NEED to read their diary.  Teachers have been taking the slack - “Why didn’t you notice that this kid said something dark in one assignment back in January in the midst of 160 other assignments?”  “Why didn’t you notice that this kid was cutting himself?”  “Why didn’t you tell someone that this kid did a project on a serial killer?”  Well, I ask - where was Mom and Dad and why don’t they know where their kid is?  

*stepping off the soapbox now*

I am counting down the days.  Thursday was one of those days that 20 years from now I am going to recount it and laugh as a foible from my first year of teaching, but I really lost it. 

It's funny how the worst class at the start is your favourite class by the end, and that you hate you favourite class and can't wit to see them walk out the door, knowing - dreading - that you will see them again next year.  So my favourite class turned "I-hate-you-all" class is 3rd period.  A bunch of delinquent ninth graders, of which no less than 5 have been arrested this year. 

We were beginning to watch a movie.  They've just finished reading excerpts from "The Odyssey" and I was going to show the movie - assignment-free - for 4 days so they could have a picture and review before the test.  The movie hadn't been running 10 minutes when the power goes out in the portable.  I send a good kind over to a few of the other portables to see if they have power, and when they do, send him out to get maintenance.  When the maintenance guys get there, they tell me someone pulled the switch on the circuit breaker.  I look at the 2 sitting right next to it that it could have been. 

They both deny, and since I had already started them on questions in the book because the power was out, I told them all to continue working.  Two boys on the other side of the room begin laughing.  Not laughing because something is funny, but laughing because it was disruptive and loud.  When I threatened them with removal, they began farting; a time-honoured way to guarantee a disruption and attention.  Next, the two boys I stared down next to the breaker switch start loudly complaining that they have to do work instead of watching a movie.  I tell them and the rest of the class that because they cannot handle the simple task of watching a movie, they will have to take the test without it. 

Then my little thug starts talking to the kid next to him about how he's taking 4/20 off, getting high that afternoon, "Sure, I know where you can get whip-its," and then when I stand over him telling him that kind of conversation isn't welcome in my class, he says, "Miss you know what they be?"  (The English teacher in me shuddered.)  But when I restated, he told me that "it was his constitutional right to say whatever I want," to which I replied, "It isn't your constitutional right to disrupt my classroom with talk about illegal activities."

His retort: "Miss, some kids throw chairs at teachers......I'm just talking."

I stopped and looked at him, and I must say that I've felt a bit intimidated by students who were mad and larger than me, but this kid was threatening.  So I asked him point-blank, "Are you threatening me?"

"I'm just sayin', Miss."

Can you see this in your head?  It's all grainy and black and white?  Okay, not really.  In fact, I doubt this will be the only time I come up against threats I can't prove, but there it is.  I wrote him up, and hopefully won't have to see him for a few days. 

Friday came, and my AP told me that I had a few presents in my mailbox, so I go look.  BOTH farters, BOTH kids who I suspected could have flipped the breaker switch, AND the kid who left w/o permission to go to the restroom: 3 days OSS.  Thank You, GOD!  And Mr. AP.  Thank you, too.  Now that I know I've gotten rid of them, I may show the movie anyhow.

I've had a lovely Spring Break, and didn't get to a single thing that I meant to for the kids tomorrow.  Eeek!  I'll be spending a few hours preparing and grading papers tonight.  And of course, I have my own schoolwork to manage, as well.  I can't wait to be finally finished with my own degree...just one more year to go, although this summer, I have some work to do.

The "internship paperwork is due in about 6 weeks, and I need to take my FTCE professional exam, as well as my English certification exam before I take care of that.  It has been another lousy semester, and I think I am turning into a very poor student when I used to be a great one!  I fully expect to get a C in my "bird course" because the professor doesn't know how to test, and I laugh because faculty at the university don't take the classes that high school teachers must, and write the most horrible exams!  Now that I know how they are supposed to be written, it is glaringly obvious when they are done incorrectly. 

So tomorrow, I'll be doing introductory activities for Pirates! with my reading classes, reviewing for the Of Mice and Men exam with my 11th graders, and reviewing what we've already read and continuing reading of The Odessey with my 9th graders.  I can't wait to finish up with Odysseus and move on to poor Juliet and Romeo...I'm afraid I won't have enough time to finish!  I'll make it work, though.  The problem is that I don't have students who are advanced enough to give them a book and give them reading homework.  Number one, they have been trained throughout their years in school that they do not have to do homework, so I rarely get anything back, and they don't even pay attention and remember when the answers are pretty much handed to them on a plate, so...I don't really know how to handle them.

I finally realised that part of my issue is I cannot correct my missteps in teaching until the following year.  I'm afraid I won't remember, so I am going to try to do a better job of reviewing my own progress for use the next years.

So, here's the run-down I've been dealing with:

1. Teacher/student sex scandal at school involving the teacher buying alcohol for multiple students
2. Fight during lunch involving one of my students
3. One student being arrested (I know, my reaction was, "Only one?" too!)
4. A student being stabbed by a knife in the culinary arts classroom
5. A 9th grade class unable to manage safety scissors with any sort of responsibility
6. a 9th grade student throwing a temper tantrum on the floor like a 2-year-old, on his stomach, kicking and banging the floor with his fists
7. Students who flip out because they have an unexcused absence that affects their exam exemptions that they "NEED to change right now!"
8. Students who don't do anything all semester and the wonder why they got an F
9. Students who have been suspended for weeks at a time, and wonder why they have an F
10. Students who flip out because they got a B and they think they deserve an A

(did I mention I HATE report card day?)

Welcome to my world.  Watch the news; it's Friday so my school will be there.

I was having my reading class do exercises in their workbook on Monday, and because it's 1st period and they're either wound up or tired, I let them play it out for a few minutes.  This group of tenth graders are probably my favourite, and they like me well enough, even though they dislike the work so much that "Miss, can't we have a free day?" is a daily question.

So Monday, a girl on the far end of the class (I'll call her Keri) was looking through a stack of pictures, and I was looking over her shoulder saying, "That's how I remember looking at photos.  You guys usually flip through your digital camera...I didn't think you even knew about photo processing!"  They laughed of course...I'm only 26, but they think I'm about 60.  The  pictures belong to a little girl (size-little, not young...I'll call her Jo) on the other side of the room, and a photo of a dog came up and the girl looking at them pulled it out and handed it to me.  Cute dog, and there was another one on the pile, so I took the whole pile and started looking through them.

I see a photo of Jo and a girl I don't recognise drinking out of glasses...something that looks suspiciously like beer.  So I said, jokingly and unfortunately in front of the whole class, "Is this BEER you're drinking??" to which she promptly replied, "No, Miss!  It's apple juice!"  Keri tried to grab the stack away from me, but I walked away with it, still flipping through the pictures.

A dog drinking from a martini glass of the same liquid, and then another shot of Jo and ANOTHER girl drinking out of glasses (with foamy head quite apparent) standing next to a counter full of empty beer bottles.  EEK!  I said, "Since when does apple juice have head?"  And the kids laughed.  I gave the photos back to Keri and told her to get to work.  Jo, too.

And for the past few days, I've been wondering what to do about it.  I finally decided just to call Jo's dad instead of taking it to guidance after talking with another teacher.  Her dad, as it turns out, has been a recovering alcoholic for 3 years, so it's a bit of a touchy thing for him, but he took it calmly when I explained.  He said he was glad I called him instead of her mom, since she was more likely to flip out at Jo, and he was calmer.  I know he cares...he's called the school in the morning before becaue Jo had a boyfriend he was worried about and was afraid she was cutting classes.  So I got a phone call from the office just asking if she was there.  I think it's a good thing, and just from talking with him, and hearing Jo talk about him, I think he'll handle it well.  I told him I hadn't said I was calling, but to feel free to tell her that I was the one who called.

Anyway.  A different teacher, when I explained, was a little shocked I had done anything.  I mean, we hear the kids talk all the time about the drugs they do and their parties.  If we did this for everything we've heard, all the kids in the school would be in a guidance meeting 2x a week.  But SEEING it is different than just hearing about it, and I didn't want to let that slide.  She's only 15, and if she ended up in a ditch next week because she was driving home with drunk friends or whatever, I'd probably go crazy from guilt knowing what I know and never saying anything about it.  Plus, the whole class knew that I knew, and I don't want them to think they can bring be photos of their binge parties. 

God, what a mess.  But I'd rather she hate my guts for telling on her than have her dead or in the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

Have you ever known someone who just HAS to have the last word in everything?  Every statement made to them or about them needs a reply?  It makes me laugh. 

I come across this with my students constantly.  If I say, "Stop talking," they don't actually stop talking, they start talking more!  They say, "But Miss, I wasn't talking!  I was just asking him for a pencil!"  As if that isn't talking.  Or even better, "Put that cell phone away."  I hear, "Miss, I was just texting my Mom back."  Yeah, right.  There's no responsibility, only excuses and finger pointing.  If the kid would just close her mouth, and put her cell phone away, instead of protesting, "That wasn't me!" even when it clearly was, she wouldn't be in half as much trouble as she got herself into.  Will they ever learn?  

I do patio duty outside of the cafeteria for the first 20 minutes of my lunch period.  Usually, it's just to make sure no ones having sex around the back of the school and to yell at kids for getting on the garbage cans, along with the occasional "Put that cell phone away or it's mine!"  Yesterday, all the kids inside the cafeteria come pouring out, and the kids on the patio want to know what's going on inside, so they start pushing their way in. 

Apparently, there was a fight, that turned into the beginnings of a food fight and everything went to hell in a handbasket.   I'm blocking the door, trying to keep kids outside, while ushering those still inside out.  Then, because when something like that happens they lower the metal blinds over the food windows,  I had to escort a girl out because she felt like it was okay to bang on that blind and cuss out the workers.  I handed her off to another teacher, went back in, pulled off one girl off of another, and watched this other girl (I found out later, she was the start of it all) still throwing punches, but the AP (Assistant Principal) had her around the waist pulling her back.  She started punching at him.  The thing is, though, she had her skirt up around her waist, and she was wearing a green thong, and when she went down to the floor, I was REALLY glad I was at the "head end" of things.  One of my fellow English teachers wasn't so lucky and let me tell you - did she get an eyeful (EWWW). 

Lunch ended early, and the announcement came on to tell everyone to go to 5th period.  So much for lunch.  My 5th period kids (maybe not great kids, but they're relatively well-behaved and I genuinely like them) were all rowdy because one student (I'll call her L) was at the table with Thong Girl when it all went down.  L is a (very) loud black girl, and was telling the story in full on Black English.  Apparently, another girl at the table told Thong Girl that she looked like a "fat ho" in that dress, so Thong Girl started taking off her jewellery and pushing for a fight.  She threw a punch, and then the baseball players (rich white kids) started throwing food, and all hell broke loose. 

One white boy in my class raised his hand, and said, "I didn't understand a word you just said.  Could you repeat it?"  I laughed and said, "Dude, and I thought I was white!"  The kids cracked up, but L code-switched like a champ, and in perfect Standard English retold the story.  Go figure.  Then she said, "Dayam (damn), it sound so boring like that!"

During 6th period, the kids were sending a text-message around the school about a riot that was going to be started in the centre courtyard, and they had gotten boxes of plastic forks from the cafeteria to attack the administration and cops with (we had cops crawling all over the building by that point).  Several of my 6th period students had gotten the text message, and got pulled out of my class to be questioned.  I hate to see it, but serves them right.  By that point, some kind of code got called out to the police force, and every off duty cop in the jurisdiction got called in.  Holy crap. 

This is the 4th food fight this year, and the kids seem to be getting worse.  My ghetto kids are starting to say this school is getting too ghetto even for them.  The way things are escalating, I think they may be right.  

Days like today for some reason make me wonder if I'm a good teacher.  We took the PSAT as a school-wide test today, so the morning was relaxing.  I was able to work on some of my own homework and do some internet shopping at Office Depot and Amazon.com that I've been putting off.  Because I know tests like that mentally rape me, I didn't make my afternoon classes do anything.  We have alternative book reports due tomorrow, and a few wanted to present early, so I let them do it.  They were really cute, and some of them have put a lot of work into these. 

But my 6th period class, man.  They kick my butt.  It's a bad combo of kids in a bad room.  We're in the Home Ec room sitting at tables, and no matter how I arrange them, they still talk.  They ALL know each other and are friends, so they harass each other, get rowdy, and generally piss me off.  I know they're not knocked in the head with "The Crucible", but my other classes survive.  I just don't know what their problem is or why I can't get a handle on it. 

I'v sworn I wouldn't write referrals for talking or minor disruptions.  The only time I've written one is when a student in that class didn't like it that he didn't have a book because he was on the debt list, and almost the whole class forgot their books, so I made them all write an essay. He felt that was unfair since he didn't have a book, so he called me a bitch and a whore, to my face in front of the class.  That won't fly.  But other than that, I haven't touched the damn things.

But I'm at my wit's end.  These are 11th graders, albeit lower level, but still...you'd think they'd have a bit more maturity.  One kid today, as I was telling him his behaviour was unacceptable in my classroom, gave it the final three...count 'em: three - shots.  When I turned around, he tried to touch my butt!!!  Can you imagine??  I knew he leaned over, but the kid can't sit still, so whatever.  But then the kids in front of me, because I turned to them, all gasped at the same time, and said, "Miss, I can't believe he just did that!"  I can't write him up because I didn't feel anything, but the fact that he even came close enough that the kids thought he did it tells me he did.  Then I WATCHED him - twice - chew up gum and stick it on the underside of the table.  And I finally saw that it was him who is throwing the crumpled paper balls around the room. 

Then the piece of shit asks me what he needs to make up because it's the end of the quarter and he's failing miserably. 

I have to figure out how to get a handle in here, or they're going to put me in a mental institution. 

You'll laugh at the header in a minute, I swear.

One of my fellow reading teachers (we'll call her Mrs. Doe) uses portable tape players and headphones (I'm not really sure what the kids are listening to...I aught to ask) for the students to use.  One ninth grade student we'll call John was listening to his and sitting in a bean bag chair with the player in his lap.  Suddenly he starts "adjusting himself" and rubbing the tape player in his lap!! 

He took the player off his lap, and he was ALL THERE...not exposed, just - shall we say - obvious.  When Mrs. Doe looked at him like "What are you doing?!" he said, "Miss, you just don't know what you do to me!" 

She instructed him to go to the bathroom. 

Her cheeks were so red when she told us, we were rolling around on the floor.  She called his mother, and was telling her about his other behaviour problems (I have him in my English class, so I understand), and when it came time to share this lovely story, she just couldn't do it, so she left it unsaid.  We laughed even harder. 

I learned this lesson a few weeks ago.  Never make a ninth grader write on the whiteboard if he says he doesn't want to.  The consequences can be embarrassing.  :-)  For me, it wasn't a big deal (insert giggle here), but when a student is obnoxious about it (and blatant, especially with a comment like that!), it's a problem.  SO...how would you tell a parent about a situation like this?  To be honest, I don't think that I could, either.  But we told her to report him to guidance anyway.  Regardless of the giggle it gave us, that's actually something that could cause trouble down the line.