Monday, May 09, 2005
A Big, Big B...S!
What a way to start the week! Two students got arrested for fighting in my class before lunch. This may sound overly harsh, but at least one of the students took a swing at an officer, which is grounds for assault in anyone's book. Stupid move.
Speaking of stupid moves though...I decided to take a student in my last period aside for an after school conference after he gave me some lip in class. For context, this kid is missing nearly 30 assignments. The only things he has in fact turned in were tests, and let's just say his grades on those were less than stellar. He walks around in class. He talks. He is a typical disruptive student. The twist is that he was apparently a lawyer in a past life and therefore can admit no wrong. Furthermore, he threatened after class to go straight to my principal and let her know what I had done.
Which begged the question: "What have I done?" All I wanted to know was why he was upset. I think the crux of it was that because he was being disruptive, I refused to give him a note sheet to copy material off the overhead. And that I took the copy he stole off my desk on the sly and crumpled it up in front of him. That might have been it. But he refused to answer. He kept giving me the runaround.
And then, for the first time since I've been teaching, I did something I did not expect.
I asked him when he was going to cut out the bullshit.
Not B.S. Not horsehockey. Bull shit.
First time since I started that I cursed, flat out cursed, int he presence of a student.
I suppose it could have been worse. I could have said something directed at him. And it's not like he was not trying to play around.
Still...annoying to lose my cool. Perhaps I've just been overly stressed.
What a way to start the week! Two students got arrested for fighting in my class before lunch. This may sound overly harsh, but at least one of the students took a swing at an officer, which is grounds for assault in anyone's book. Stupid move.
Speaking of stupid moves though...I decided to take a student in my last period aside for an after school conference after he gave me some lip in class. For context, this kid is missing nearly 30 assignments. The only things he has in fact turned in were tests, and let's just say his grades on those were less than stellar. He walks around in class. He talks. He is a typical disruptive student. The twist is that he was apparently a lawyer in a past life and therefore can admit no wrong. Furthermore, he threatened after class to go straight to my principal and let her know what I had done.
Which begged the question: "What have I done?" All I wanted to know was why he was upset. I think the crux of it was that because he was being disruptive, I refused to give him a note sheet to copy material off the overhead. And that I took the copy he stole off my desk on the sly and crumpled it up in front of him. That might have been it. But he refused to answer. He kept giving me the runaround.
And then, for the first time since I've been teaching, I did something I did not expect.
I asked him when he was going to cut out the bullshit.
Not B.S. Not horsehockey. Bull shit.
First time since I started that I cursed, flat out cursed, int he presence of a student.
I suppose it could have been worse. I could have said something directed at him. And it's not like he was not trying to play around.
Still...annoying to lose my cool. Perhaps I've just been overly stressed.
