Saturday, November 06, 2004
Slow Burn
The end of the marking period is drawing near and like clockwork, my students are becoming increasingly disruptive, fitting into roles with a precision meshing normally seen outside Switzerland. Every student has their role in the mechanism--joker, whiner, scribbler, clown--and right around now, November, when the light is low and the weather gets cold, the students start to really feel their oats. So what if it's the end of the marking period? Grades go in next week and they don't give a darn!
Well...that is not quite true.
They do give a darn, it just so happens that they won't do their homework either. Call it extra credit and the kids will claw their way over their own mothers to get it done, but call it homework and the papers might as well be made of brussel sprouts.
But lord knows they'll do other interesting things, things that might not get under every teacher's skin, but for some reason wriggle under mine.
Yesterday, for example, I basically stood in front of my third period class for about 30 minutes waiting for them to be quiet so that I could teach. Since no one had done their homework (bring in a weather page from the newspaper), it was already impossible to do my original lesson plan, where students would work in partners to analyze meteorological symbols. But instead of trying to have an actual discussion, or do a demonstration, or something, I just had them copy notes while I returned old work. Yeah, it was boring...but I delivered my material to most of the kids. Ignoring of course the ones who somehow got their hands on a tube of Ben-Gay and started sneakily putting on each other's skin as they worked. First they'd complain about the cold, then the burning....(I've never used the stuff, but all the ads lead me to suppose that meant the stuff was at least doing its job!)
The Ben-Gay incident was just another thing on the pile this week. Stacked on top of the tampon incident, the STD urine sample incident (isn't it great to go to a schol where 100-150 students already have chlamydia?), and of course the fistfight in my first period class, where students claimed, as always, that they were just playing...
I sent both students to disciplinary probation, of course one of them came back with a lie saying that she had been sent back, which was fine with me...I just e-mailed her aunt with a full report of her behavior.
Individually, these incidents, though stupid, though fantastically annoying, would possibly be bearable...but having them all at once? This week was just me burning alive....slowly.
Oh and regarding the election (another bit of frustration resulted from my attempt to teach kids how polling works), I yield the floor to Rufus T. Firefly:
The last guy nearly ruined this place.
He didn't know what to do with it.
If you think the country's bad off now...
Just wait 'til I get through with it!
The end of the marking period is drawing near and like clockwork, my students are becoming increasingly disruptive, fitting into roles with a precision meshing normally seen outside Switzerland. Every student has their role in the mechanism--joker, whiner, scribbler, clown--and right around now, November, when the light is low and the weather gets cold, the students start to really feel their oats. So what if it's the end of the marking period? Grades go in next week and they don't give a darn!
Well...that is not quite true.
They do give a darn, it just so happens that they won't do their homework either. Call it extra credit and the kids will claw their way over their own mothers to get it done, but call it homework and the papers might as well be made of brussel sprouts.
But lord knows they'll do other interesting things, things that might not get under every teacher's skin, but for some reason wriggle under mine.
Yesterday, for example, I basically stood in front of my third period class for about 30 minutes waiting for them to be quiet so that I could teach. Since no one had done their homework (bring in a weather page from the newspaper), it was already impossible to do my original lesson plan, where students would work in partners to analyze meteorological symbols. But instead of trying to have an actual discussion, or do a demonstration, or something, I just had them copy notes while I returned old work. Yeah, it was boring...but I delivered my material to most of the kids. Ignoring of course the ones who somehow got their hands on a tube of Ben-Gay and started sneakily putting on each other's skin as they worked. First they'd complain about the cold, then the burning....(I've never used the stuff, but all the ads lead me to suppose that meant the stuff was at least doing its job!)
The Ben-Gay incident was just another thing on the pile this week. Stacked on top of the tampon incident, the STD urine sample incident (isn't it great to go to a schol where 100-150 students already have chlamydia?), and of course the fistfight in my first period class, where students claimed, as always, that they were just playing...
I sent both students to disciplinary probation, of course one of them came back with a lie saying that she had been sent back, which was fine with me...I just e-mailed her aunt with a full report of her behavior.
Individually, these incidents, though stupid, though fantastically annoying, would possibly be bearable...but having them all at once? This week was just me burning alive....slowly.
Oh and regarding the election (another bit of frustration resulted from my attempt to teach kids how polling works), I yield the floor to Rufus T. Firefly:
The last guy nearly ruined this place.
He didn't know what to do with it.
If you think the country's bad off now...
Just wait 'til I get through with it!
