Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A Big Problem Today
Kids! Who can understand anything they say?
Kids! They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs.
Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy LOAFERS (and while we're on the subject--)
Kids! You can talk and talk till your face is blue.
Kids! You can talk and talk till your face is blue.
Kids! But they still do just what they want to do.
Why can't they be like we were? (Perfect in every way!!!!)
What's the matter with kids today?????
My students are out of control. They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying.
In the past week alone, I've written up 4 separate students--one for dropping the f-bomb in class, one for repeatedly saying "shittin'," one for crafting a pencil topper made from paper clips into the shape of a man and woman having sex, and one for being disrespectful to me (Me: Stop tapping. Him: (ignores and keeps on tapping. Another student tells him to stop but he still doesn't, indicating that if he didn't stop when I told him to, he wouldn't stop for this kid either. Another student then kicked the back of the first student's chair. Me: "I DID tell you to stop that already!" Him: "Yeah, you were ignored." Me: Do you want me to write you up?" Him: "Go ahead." Me: "Done!")
Then there's the kid in the other class who wasn't happy with the score he earned on his test. (Nevermind that I told kids what to study in preparation for this test, or that I offered to move the test to Wednesday instead of Tuesday to give them more time to study but they voted to keep it on Tuesday.) So this kid earned a 54% on the test, having lost 2 points for not following directions, 7.5 points for being unable to match the names of charactes and settings with the story names (which is the easiest section on the whole test if you've simply read the stories for lan's sake!), another 10 or so on another section asking him to match definitions to terms... really, the kid just didn't study enough.
The issue was, though, that his test grade brought his overall grade down significantly (because he had an A, he had farther to fall), from an A to a B. He approached me last Wednesday when I handed back the tests and wanted to know if we did second-chance learning. No, I told him. He wanted to know if he could do some extra credit. No, the English department doesn't offer extra credit, I told him. On Thursday he approached me to find out how many more points are on the marking period because he wants to be able to pull his grade up by then. I told him the assignments I know I'll be grading prior to that time. On Friday he emailed me and explained that he was unhappy with his score and again asked for extra credit or a chance to make up his test, citing that he must have been having a bad day and was very upset that his grade dropped so much. He then approached me the same day in class and wanted to discuss the email. I explained again that the test is done and he needs to move forward, just working as hard as he can before the marking period ends to recoup points, but that he could not do other work to make up the grade. On Monday there was an email waiting for me from his mom weighing in on the no extra credit/no retakes policy and intimating that the test was unfairly weighted as it brought her son's grade down from an A to a B. I responded to that email sharing the information about where he lost points on his test (indicating that he should have studied harder), explaining how it's unfair to kids prepared the first time around to have an opportunity to make up the points somehow, defending the weight of my test which was 67 points and was the culmination of 3 weeks worth of work, and giving her the heads-up that college courses often base their grades on 2 tests and a paper. Today this boy visited guidance during my class. I'm not positive that it was about this grade issue, but I suspect it may have been. I did not, however, receive any emails from guidance trying to get me to modify my stance, so perhaps it was simply a coincidence. Frankly, I really want the issue to drop because it's rather annoying me that I've had to have the same conversation about this issue as many times as I have. What it comes down to is this: you did poorly on your test for whatever reason; you may end up with a B because of it; move on and try harder next marking period. It really isn't the end of the world. Maybe the next time I announce a test and give insight into what should be studied, I will be taken more seriously.
Or not.
Yesterday in my honors class I had to deal with different attitude. One of the student desks was missing a chair because it broke. The maintenance dude didn't replace it in time, so someone must've moved my front work-desk chair so she could sit. I realized that my chair was missing, so I told her she'd have to move to another desk when I needed to sit. Someone wanted to know why I didn't just drag my big teacher-desk chair over and use that. I tried to ignore him, but he pressed on, so I snapped that the chair doesn't fit under the front desk, that I'm not going to drag it back and forth even if it did, and that he should stop worrying about it. Later in the block the maintenance guy brought a new chair, which I brought back to the girl and traded out for my chair. She said, "Wait--are you seriously switching the chairs? What's the difference?" I snapped that my name was on my chair, but as I got back to the front of the room, the rude boy who questioned my not moving my other chair said, "Did you just switch the chairs!? Aren't they, like, the exact same chair?" I said, "The other chair has my name on it and is MY chair, and frankly, I'm tired of your attitude because none of this concerns you and you need to stop talking." Today, the same kid asked why we were doing a Beowulf activity if we're reading The Canterbury Tales. I had to explain that we're working on a translation activity that sets the stage for both units. Jackass. Later, in my basic class, I had to argue with a kid who didn't see the purpose in copying definitions from the glossary onto a page. He wanted to know why I couldn't just give them the notes because, apparently, other teachers write notes for them and leave a few blanks and the students only have to fill those in. I told him that I think he can handle copying the definitions without fill-in-the-blank type notes. He said he didn't learn this way. I explained how, in reading the definitions and copying them, he is taking in the information. By then writing the definitions, he is putting out some information. The process exposes him to the words and their meanings a couple of times and increases the likelihood of retention. He continued to complain.
These are the types of students I deal with on a day to day basis. Something must be done about their disrespect and attitude problems. We should do away with the attitudes of the students (and if we can't, we should do away with the students who have attitudes.)
Better to have a pet--- you know where you stand with a pet.
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