Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Not Just For Uncle Jesse...
For the past 4 years, when people say, "Oh, you're a teacher? What do you teach?" I've replied, "High school English" to which THEY invariably reply, "Oh! God bless you!"
That always struck me as sort of funny.
With each passing day, week, month of working with these adolescents, though, I'm coming to, more and more, realize that I need all the blessings I can get.
These kids are the devil's spawn.
You, of course, know of my past issues. Today, though, I had another doozy. This one involved a bit of a saga with this student who likes to argue with me about everything and who also has a penchant for reading and writing notes in class to the chick in the class across the hall. They also text.
On the Friday before Thanksgiving break, I collected the class' SSR journals for grading. Journals are graded on the attitude and enthusiasm the students display regarding and during SSR time, and the quality and quantity of the journal responses. The aforementioned student suffered a bit of a set back when he decided he didn't like the book he was reading, so went to the shelf to find the book he'd been reading previously only to find it missing. He ranted and raved and made a spectacle, ended up not reading, and pretty much displayed the same behavior the next SSR day, too, as it was still missing. In checking the journals, then, I read his responses. One of them was like, "This is so stupid. Some * beep * took my book and now there's nothing to read and I'm so mad and I hope my teacher is lenient about this entry or I'm gonna be p.o.ed." The next entry was something like, "My book still isn't back and so I have to read this f-ing book that's so queer that's about these old people who write letters back and forth and I really hate it and just wish people would keep their hands off my books!" So, accordingly, I took points off for attitude and for entry quality (since he didn't actually READ on a couple of his ranty days), and I wrote to him in the grade comments section that he doesn't deal well with setbacks, had displayed a negative attitude and needs to learn how to move past disappointments with not having the book he'd prefer reading available to him, and that his language was inappropriate. When handing back the sheets, he immediately made a big show exclaiming how he didn't curse in his book and how it's not fair how I took off points, etc. Then he demanded that I show him where he'd displayed this negative attitude and where the curses were. I ignored him at first, correcting him only to say that I'd said his language was inappropriate but didn't say he'd cursed. He forced the issue, though, by stomping over with his journal and slapping it on the desk making his demand again. This time, since we now had an entire audience and I knew the words would speak for themselves and damn him, I obliged. I said, "Not that I need to justify your grade to you, but here..." and I proceeded--after a short pause during which time I was leafing through to find the offending passages and the students were starting to snicker, thinking he'd called my bluff--to read, verbatim, the offending passages. I read all 3 of them, and he started getting annoyed, trying to stop me by saying, "Alright alrightalright!" but I kept going until I was done, then I finished off by noting, "And for the record, this is exactly the type of behavior I was referring to, also. Your arguing has just eaten into your grade for this batch of SSR reading and journaling. Perhaps you should just get to work." He did.
Tuesday in class, we were reading the story which serves as the basis for our next core paper (which we'll write next week.) I made it abundantly clear that attention to this story's reading must be paid so that they are prepared for activities to follow. I told students to sit up, remove all ear buds, stow all iPods, sit up, not nap or work on anything else, but just listen to and follow along with the story as I read to them. About midway through my reading, this kid--the same one I've been discussing--gets up and walks to the side shelving area to get a piece of paper. Now, as I'm reading, there is absolutely no need for paper or pens or anything of any kind. All they had to do was listen. When I'd established seconds later that he wasn't just getting it because he'd had an itch to wander but was, in fact, going to use it to draft a note to his little girl friend, I inserted the phrase, "Put your pen down" into the flow of the reading. He either didn't hear me or didn't listen to me, because moments later, he had the pen (again? still?) and I stopped and angrily declared: "PUT THE PEN DOWN. You have NO NEED of a pen or anything else right now because YOU ARE LISTENING TO THIS STORY!" He made this face as though he was going, "Fiiiiine! Geeeeeez! What's HER problem?" and put the pen down. At the end of class, I overheard him tell his gal that he wasn't able to write her back that block.
That brings us to today. There were myriad problems with today's class proceedings; so many, in fact, that I won't even bother to circumscribe them here. For the sake of relevance, I will note only those bits that concern this lad. First, when I was checking vocabulary and another boy didn't have his, I mentioned to the unprepared kid that this is the 3rd week in a row he didn't do his work. He asked if it would hurt his grade. I told him it would, a great deal. Then the other kid chimed in and said, "Yeah! She ruined my grade last marking period." I said, "I'm sorry... I ruined your grade?" "Yeah." "No. YOU ruined your grade. It was your actions or inactions which earned you your grade. I think it's time for you to stop trying to pass the buck to other people all the time, and start taking responsibility for your own actions. All you ever do it blame others for what happens to you. You need to own it." He told me I sounded like his mom and should stop saying things like his mom would say. Then, he had his head down for most of the block. When he did finally raise it, he took out paper and--surprise!--wrote another note. After my lesson, when walking past his desk, I confiscated the letter. He tried to hold the page down. I sternly told him that he'd better let it go because I was, indeed, taking it. He tried to tell me that I had no right--that it was his letter. I said, "Actually, it's MY letter. This is MY time in MY class, and this is now MY letter." I took it and put it on my desk. I didn't even look at it. Moments later, he came up to my desk and picked it up as though to take it. I said, "You'd better put that letter back on my desk and walk away." We had a reprise of the "It's my property" conversation, but I said, "I suggest you put it down now because if you leave here with that letter you are most definitely getting written up for it." He said, "I was just going to rip it up and throw it out." I told him that I would take care of it. He then followed me to the door saying, "I'm waiting to see you rip it up. I'm watching.... Rip it." The bell rang. I fixed him with a stare and said, "This is now my letter. I will do with it what I want. The discussion is closed. Get out of my room." By this time, he was in the hall and the girl was coming over from across the hall. He said something to her like, "Yeah. I don't have the letter--" I interrupted and said, "--I have it. Now go." Then SHE started in, trying to get it from me. She goes, "Can I have my note?" I said, "No. It's my note. Goodbye." She said, looking annoyed, "But it's mine. Can't I just have it?" Me, getting more and more pissed off, "The note is mine. He wrote it in my class on my time. You two are always writing notes back and forth and texting through class. It's going to stop. You aren't getting this letter." He sort of pulled her away and said something to her. I can only assume he'd indicated the contents of the note to her because she came back, told me that she'd asked him to write it, and some other bunk. I interrupted a final time, a nanosecond from writing this chick up, too, for arguing with me, and said, "I don't know what the note says. I didn't read it and don't really care what's in it. I won't even read it. But neither of you are getting it back and I'm not going to discuss it with you further." The boy latched onto that, saying, "You didn't read it? Good. Because you'd cry. But ok, if you don't read it, good. Deal!" and pulled the girl away with him.
Now, at the time I told him I wouldn't read it, I had every intention of reading it. I knew that I was lying. However, I left the note folded up in my pocket, deciding if, indeed, I needed to read this note. I'd assumed it was just a love note--which would explain the girl's urgency to have it returned and the boy's desire for me not to read it, as well as possibly explain his statement that I'd cry (because I figured maybe he was trying to say that it was sickly sweet and gushy). I also thought about my word. I value my word. I am NOT a liar. When I say something, I consider my word my bond. I teach students about the honor pledge, but would be willing to break my own word on something so trivial as a love note between two idiot 11th graders? No, I decided. I will not read the note. So I left it in my pocket, thinking I'd dispose of it at home so that nobody would happen upon it at school. Or, if I got really curious, I could always have Brian read it instead and give me the gist.
Moments after making this decision (and in the process of writing up another kid for another infraction), the asst. principal came in my room to speak to me about a dumb issue that happened in the boys bathroom (which, naturally, involved some of the kids in this class.) In talking to him about that, I ended up relaying the terrible events of the day's class, including (but not even focused upong) this kid and the thing with the note. His interest piqued, the principal asked if I had the note. I said, "Yeah. It's in my pocket." He asked if he could see it, looking intrigued for what inane teenage juice it might contain. I hesitated a second, thinking about how I said I wouldn't read it, but also thinking that this is my boss, after all, and what's the big deal if he reads a stupid love letter? I said I wouldn't read it, and I was keeping my word. So I handed it over. He took it, and I watched him read it. His face was strange. I said, "So is it a love note? Is it cheesy?" He said, "You didn't read it?" I said, "No. I told him I wouldn't and I didn't." He said, "Well, it's actually really mean. There's stuff about you in it. He said some not-nice things about you." I said, "Oh! Did he call me a bitch? Whatever." He didn't respond to the bitch comment, but did say that it had really inappropriate language in it--some f-bombs among others--and asked if he could hold onto it. I hesitated again. It's one thing to show it to him, but if he takes it and confronts the kid about it, it'll definitely look like I lied and read it and showed it to him. Especially if I was named in it (and negatively). He said he didn't want to do anything to make things difficult for me or to put me in a bad spot, but that he also is really uncomfortable with what it said, and thinks it's completely inappropriate for any student to be writing things like that about anyone who works in the building. We moved to other topics for a time, but before he left it came back to this note which he was still holding. He said, "Look, I don't like it as an administrator, but I also don't like it as a man."
It was this comment that struck me. Did this kid call me the c-word or something? I'm thinking he did. I'm thinking it may have transcended bitch. And I'm thinking it was attached to a string of f-bombs. Naive me--guess I would have cried not from his teenage words of love, but instead because he was maligning me viciously. Now, as this kid is not worth the gum on my shoe, I'm not THAT upset about it. I'm a bit bothered, sure, because I'm human and have feelings and have never done anything to make anyone feel this way about me. But in the scheme of things, his opinion is not one I value highly. Please see stories above for an indication of why.) However, I think I actually ended up protecting myself (and my feelings) by not reading it. Loving the immediate karmic payment for honoring my word.
The principal, however, is not comfortable with letting it go unmentioned. He wants a meeting with the mom and wants this kid's behavior to stop. And so it goes.
Thus, there will, of course, be more to this story. When he gets in trouble for the note, he'll come straight back to me and confront me about lying about reading the letter. Just to be clear, I still haven't read it and I have no intention of reading it. If some student wants to call me a bitch or a cunt or any other nasty word, so be it. I don't have to read it. I don't have to lose sleep over it.
And frankly--ironically--what it all comes back to is that this kid will accuse ME of 'getting' him in trouble. Had he not, though, written something that he wouldn't want me or his mom or the principal to see, and had he not continued to write notes in class after I've told him to stay on task and stop writing them, then he would not be in this predicament.
He won't see it that way, though. He'll just think he was right about me. Oh, the irony!
And so, as you read this, continue to bless me. It seems I need all the help I can get in dealing with the crap that flies at me day in and day out. I think I'll send out my own prayer: Lord, have mercy!
Labels: bad students
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