Saturday, October 13, 2007

The Last Straw

In my English 12 class, I have one beleagured student. Counting summer school, this is now the sixth class he has taken from me. But it wasn't until Friday that I finally had enough.

The sad truth is that sometimes a kid has so many other factors going against him that he is predestined for trouble. In the past I blogged about how I would try to help him and make him feel better about himself in my class. And believe me I tried. I still joke with him and can shoot the shit with him. The way I feel about him as a person has not changed; the way I feel about him as a student, though, has.

I've tolerated many things in the past - an essay about how he ran from the cops and had to hide in the woods or how one of the times he felt most alive was taking some hot girl home while he was all drunk and then waking up to find she was fat and ugly and kicking her out of his place. At summer school he spent more time on youtube and ebay than working on his assignments. This year it has been the same old story -coming in late, wearing his hat all the time, whipping his cell phone out in class constantly, drawing a swastika on his tablet, say "fuck" on a daily basis. Believe me, I could go on.

In fact, last year I caught him chewing in class. According to our school handbook, this is a suspendable offense, and I turned him over. Well, on the first day of school this year, guess what I catch him doing? Yep. I gave him hell and told him that I didn't want to see that happen again.

Then yesterday as he was walking out of class, he dropped a waterbottle full of what appeared to be a light yellow substance. I picked it up, hoping it was apple juice. But the little brown particles floating inside didn't belong to applejuice. So I send it down to the assistant principal's office. So now - according to school policy - he will be suspended. Given all of his legal troubles, I wonder how this will impact him.

I've heard he's going to anger management counseling and taking medications for the myriad of things that ail him. But there has to be a line where enough is enough, right?

So on Monday or Tuesday I will sit down with our counselors and lobby to have him removed from class. I'll bring in the quiz from Friday that he failed. I'll talk to them about the test he missed because he either skipped or was in court that he has not made up yet and is now a zero. There is simply no way he will pass - even if he wanted to totally change his attitude and work hard, he'd still not make it.

I'll plead my case that dealing with him - though I just ignore him 99% of the time - takes away from me being able to teach the rest of the class. Whenever he is present, he tips the class toward chaos. When he is gone, we get a lot accomplished.

So we'll see what will happen. But it's like in coaching. My coach used to tell me, "Kurt, one reason I'm ALWAYS yelling at you is because I want you to get better. When I stop yelling at you, that is when you have to start worrying." I've stopped yelling at this student. It's just wasted breath.

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