Sunday, April 23, 2006
Godspeed, little doodle!
I've never claimed my students were the quickest on the uptake. Normally I expect this relative lack of situational awareness to extend primarily into the realm of academics, which will no doubt explain general reaction to report cards when they come out tomorrow. (Top 3 predicted responses that do not involve profanity?: 1. Why did you fail me? 2. But I did all my work! 3. How come I got an F?)
However, normally the kids are very smooth when it comes to non-academic areas...like rule breaking. They're very good at smuggling in cell phones, CD players, MP3 players, and the like into class and using them when they should be paying attention. Any attempt to intercept students engaging in such behavior will automatically result in a level of diplomacy and litigious prowess rarely seen in a teenager. They will either attempt to explain, argue the just nature of, or deny their actions completely, or perhaps apologize and promise not to do the offending act again. This however, is just a feint. They'll do it again. They always do.
Like the kids who apparently can not read the big red sign on the window warning them not to open or close it without permission because it will not stay up and has the potential to crush their fingers. Is it wrong that a small part of me wants someone to get hurt closing the window so that the remainder of them learn the importance of following directions? Probably.
Another major pet peeve is food, which I forbid students to consume in my room because it attracts mice. I now have four preserved mice, all caught on site at the school, mounted on my wall as evidence of our rodent problem. And yet on Friday, two of my students come in with big handfuls of Cheez Doodles, the artificially orange puffs of edible styrofoam covering their hands with artifically processed dairy flavored dust. Quite frankly, the students, gorging themselves, looked disgusting, and I have no doubt were well aware of the food policy in my class. (It's not like the mice are hard to notice.) Which is why it was so frustrating when one of them, a particularly disrespectful so and so, started laughing and in between bites reached out a hand to offer me some of her snack.
At first I declined...but then, an idea struck and, perhaps stupidly, I reached out for a Doodle...and then crushed the handful into powder. It was easy. It was satisfying. It guaranteed the food would not be eaten. I found the solution artful. My student however was less than happy. She threw the remaining powder on me and then, rather than simply admit her error in bringing food into the room in the first place, proceeded to scream and be a general nuisance as I attempted to clean up the dust. She was, in point of fact, so loud and disrespectful that I planned to write her up, only to find myself lacking discipline slips. Then I thought of sending her out of the room, but she would not leave, insisting that "the only way I'm leaving is if you call someone to take me out." And rather than play into her little drama or bother the school police, I decided to just ignore her and let this whole Doodle incident fade away.
Until the second student came in, not knowing what had happened to her friend...and I did the exact same thing to her. For all the combined yelling and so forth from these students, I still feel justified in my action. Granted, I doubt it will stop them from being disrespectful, but I'll take the minor victory and move on from there.
The situation in that class, and the one subsequent (where I found an unwrapped and hopefully unused condom on the floor) remind me time and again of two things. First that no matter what they say, experience does not make this job any better...you just get better at dealing with all of the bizarre situations that characterize life in the classroom. And second, there are only a few more weeks in the classroom, and then my stint as a high school science teacher is, at least for the near future, finished And no matter how much I like some of my students or my co-workers, the summer can not come soon enough.
I've never claimed my students were the quickest on the uptake. Normally I expect this relative lack of situational awareness to extend primarily into the realm of academics, which will no doubt explain general reaction to report cards when they come out tomorrow. (Top 3 predicted responses that do not involve profanity?: 1. Why did you fail me? 2. But I did all my work! 3. How come I got an F?)
However, normally the kids are very smooth when it comes to non-academic areas...like rule breaking. They're very good at smuggling in cell phones, CD players, MP3 players, and the like into class and using them when they should be paying attention. Any attempt to intercept students engaging in such behavior will automatically result in a level of diplomacy and litigious prowess rarely seen in a teenager. They will either attempt to explain, argue the just nature of, or deny their actions completely, or perhaps apologize and promise not to do the offending act again. This however, is just a feint. They'll do it again. They always do.
Like the kids who apparently can not read the big red sign on the window warning them not to open or close it without permission because it will not stay up and has the potential to crush their fingers. Is it wrong that a small part of me wants someone to get hurt closing the window so that the remainder of them learn the importance of following directions? Probably.
Another major pet peeve is food, which I forbid students to consume in my room because it attracts mice. I now have four preserved mice, all caught on site at the school, mounted on my wall as evidence of our rodent problem. And yet on Friday, two of my students come in with big handfuls of Cheez Doodles, the artificially orange puffs of edible styrofoam covering their hands with artifically processed dairy flavored dust. Quite frankly, the students, gorging themselves, looked disgusting, and I have no doubt were well aware of the food policy in my class. (It's not like the mice are hard to notice.) Which is why it was so frustrating when one of them, a particularly disrespectful so and so, started laughing and in between bites reached out a hand to offer me some of her snack.
At first I declined...but then, an idea struck and, perhaps stupidly, I reached out for a Doodle...and then crushed the handful into powder. It was easy. It was satisfying. It guaranteed the food would not be eaten. I found the solution artful. My student however was less than happy. She threw the remaining powder on me and then, rather than simply admit her error in bringing food into the room in the first place, proceeded to scream and be a general nuisance as I attempted to clean up the dust. She was, in point of fact, so loud and disrespectful that I planned to write her up, only to find myself lacking discipline slips. Then I thought of sending her out of the room, but she would not leave, insisting that "the only way I'm leaving is if you call someone to take me out." And rather than play into her little drama or bother the school police, I decided to just ignore her and let this whole Doodle incident fade away.
Until the second student came in, not knowing what had happened to her friend...and I did the exact same thing to her. For all the combined yelling and so forth from these students, I still feel justified in my action. Granted, I doubt it will stop them from being disrespectful, but I'll take the minor victory and move on from there.
The situation in that class, and the one subsequent (where I found an unwrapped and hopefully unused condom on the floor) remind me time and again of two things. First that no matter what they say, experience does not make this job any better...you just get better at dealing with all of the bizarre situations that characterize life in the classroom. And second, there are only a few more weeks in the classroom, and then my stint as a high school science teacher is, at least for the near future, finished And no matter how much I like some of my students or my co-workers, the summer can not come soon enough.
