Thursday

Well, it has taken until the eighth week of the year for a full blown confrontation with a student. This happened in my senior English class yesterday. The student in question, who has more trouble in his/her life than any one kid should have, came in as usual, which means she/he was standing outside the door making a hell of a racket. This students always demands attention, which, lately, has begun to really wear on me since the class is a collection of 37 different personalities (including mine). It cannot be dominated by just one. Yet that is exactly what this student does day in and day out (well, when they choose to attend).

I walked toward class. And there they were. They asked to borrow fifty cents. I said no problem and dished out the change. Then I breezed into class and got things rolling. However, this student was ready to begin class. Conflict. So I ignored him/her. This didn’t meet the student’s need for attention (which they obviously don’t get at home or anywhere else).

As usual, I continue to ignore the student’s antics and just plow on. Why feed in to her/his need for attention?

After chitchatting with a few students, I asked them to pass in their parent permission slips (I print out their grades and have them take them home and have a parent or guardian sign it). This is a graded task, so it affects their grade quite a bit.

Unfortunately, this student doesn’t have much for parental guidance in his life (could there be a correlation????) and he/she said, “What am I supposed to do?” She/He had neither a grade report nor a parent to sign it.

I could have said, “Show up to class on time when I hand out the grade reports you actually can get one. Or try and complete your work so you actually have a passing grade.” But I didn’t. I advised him/her to do what we have done in the past, have either our assistant principal or guidance officer sign it for them.

That wasn’t good enough.

By this time we had already wasted 15 minutes of class, which was pissing me off because the student was putting the emphasis on him/her and not the class.

More grumbling under his breath.

“Are you just going to whine all day or can we get something accomplished?” I shot back, tired of her/his antics.

“What the fuck?”

“Okay, why don’t you just leave.”

“No. I’m not leaving.”

“Okay, then be quiet.”

More grumbling under his/her breath.

“Listen, if you have any guts you will say it to my face instead of whining under your breath.”

“What the fuck?”
“Alright, Get out.”

“No. I’m not leaving.”

(Why didn’t I think to take my entire class on a field trip and leave him/her alone in the classroom? Probably because I have several thousand dollars worth of technology there. But that would have been quite dramatic to just pack the hole damn class up and leave him there. “You’re not going to leave? Fine, we will.”)

“Then I’ll call our assistant principal,” I said and headed for the phone, my hands shaking. I never get into confrontations. I mean if you get me angry, you have to be one hell of a &*^%.

“How much do you want to bet I won’t be here when he gets here?” she/he calls.

(I should have said, “Ooooooh. Aren’t you the tough guy?” But I didn’t think of it. Probably because the assistant principal was at a meeting and I was trying to get a hold of his secretary.)

“Have a great day!” I called as he exited.

He/she had left, leaving a torn up dollar, stolen from a fund raiser our art department was having, strewn all over the floor.

“Thanks for the tip!” I called . . . and began class.

This won’t be the last conflict. But like Kristie said - document it for when something drastic happens. I didn’t think we’d come to blows or anything. But I wouldn’t put it past this student. I thought we were going to go at it last year, but they backed down. I would never use force on a student of course, but I don’t know that this student is beyond that. And I would defend myself, my class and my students.

Alas, I really like this kid, still. But how I see them as a student is irreparably damaged.

At least I have a break from them for a week. Or the rest of the quarter. Then only nine more long weeks. What’s that 45 class days? Given they miss at least 10 , I think I can survive 35 days. Plus throw in Christmas vacation. I can make it. But it shouldn’t have to be like this, should it? Why dread what you absolutely love to do?


They always tell us to end with a positive right? Here it is.

My fourth block College Comp class is pure delight. Today the peer edited their third essay. I was busy running around the room helping out here and there, printing off grade reports, digging for missing work, helping kids with their upcoming novel tests and so on. But it was grand to overhear them talk about writing as writers.

“You need to break this paragraph up. It’s clunky.”

“This part just doesn’t sound like you.”

“This is a good image.”

“I love this dialogue.”

“How else can you rephrase this?”


The list goes on, but it was great. When I could, I soaked it up. This class makes all the other crap worth it.