One of my students (the one with the auntie boyfrien') would come to school every day and while I was monitoring the hall he would say "i ain't coming tomorrow" but he always came. Around week three we were doing some hard math (flashback to eighth grade: simplifying square roots) and he just wasn't getting it. Part of the problem with him, and almost all of my students was that they did not understand their basic multiplication tables (as most 8th graders do). But during the independent practice for this lesson, this student had a TEMPER.TANTRUM. He was throwing paper off of his desk and pretty much going cray-cray (that means crazy for you non-forensicators). Even though I probably should have given him some consequences, I knew that the reason why he was being so cray-cray was because he wasn't understanding the material. So I pretty much let him have his tantrum, talked to him after class and he agreed to come to lunch tutoring the next couple of days - and he did.
This same student was BFF with a bigger girl in the class, and they had a pretty tumultuous relationship. All the other students would be like "stap flirtin!" and then the boy student would feel like he had to say something rude to his BFF to prove that they weren't flirting. One day he took it too far and said something VERY rude (he called her a fat gorilla). Lunch period that day was spent therapy-style talking about respect, apologies, etc. They were back to normal the next day and the boy student was hungry for chocolate, so he asked his BFF if he could eat her finger.
I had a student in my class who was not special ed and was VERY smart. But he had gotten suspended for five months during the school year (he was in juvi) so he could not take the end of course exam. The first couple of weeks it was awesome how quickly he was learning the new material. He was also very mature/respectful so I would give him extra work and he was fine. Week four and five he showed me who was boss. We would get to school about two hours before the students to set up, have mini-lectures, rehearse etc. So on this Tuesday morning (after 3.5 hours of sleep) I had spent 1 hour drawing diagrams on the board (that we would fill in during class). Right before class started a student was trying to skip so I had to go get him. I came back to my classroom and saw this smart "respectful" "mature" student ERASING MY WHOLE BOARD!!!!! I was not happy (he had gotten in trouble earlier the day as well) so I sent him to the office. He came back about 15 minutes later and interrupted the class he said: "My probation officer was in the office and damn she was wearing some tight pants!!"
One day before school started some my students arrived early, so we were chatting. One student asked me if I lived in a house or an apartment. I said that I was living in an apartment with another math teacher. The student then informed me "you betta not let your boyfrien' alone with your roommate, you're going to come home and she'll be pregnant by yo boyfrien'." It was pretty hilarious.
Parent phone calls (both positive and negative) are my least favorite part of teaching so far (even besides breaking up fights). Of the phone calls I have had so far: some have been VERY awkward (the parent will be like "ok" "alright" "bye), some have been VERY disheartening "i'll go show him not to misbehave", and some have been pretty sad. I called one of my favorite students parents and at first an older man answered and hung up on me. THANKFULLY the call had been disconnected and her mother called back about 10 minutes later. I informed her mom how well the student was doing and how hard she was working. The mom's response was "so will she pass this test." I am not God (or a psychic) so my instinct was to say "well if she keeps working hard she'll be ready for high school!"
On the last week of school my students took their math test that they needed to pass to go to high school on Wednesday. At the beginning of summer school the principal/teachers told students that Wednesday was the last day of summer school. We decided that our students needed those extra two days of instruction so we really invested them to try to get them to come on Thursday and Friday and it looked pretty promising. That was until the threat of "gang nation." On the Monday before the test my students were buzzing about "gang nation" I thought it was some sort of TV show or theme party. I later found out from another teacher that "gang nation" are designated days where gang members have to stab a certain number of people in the opposing gang.
After learning about the threat of gang nation I found myself in a moral dilemma. My students had been screwed by the education system and any extra instruction would certainly help them. On the other hand, even if "gang nation" was a rumor, and risk of one of my students (or any student) being stabbed probably justifies an absence from school. After announcements from the school director ensuring us that security/detectives/police etc. would all be on campus we decided to go ahead and keep convincing our students to come to school (as did all the other teachers). So our students were ready to come to school (I was doing fun games with M&M's and budgeting etc.). But before the final bell rang the principal made an announcement that students were not to come to school on Thursday or Friday.
We planned for them to come to school anyway, just in case. And 5 out of my 19 students did show up (which is pretty impressive). A couple of students had taken the school bus to school and an administrator got on the bus when it arrived at school and instructed the bus to drop the students back off at their streets. Some students actually took the bus home then WALKED to school. They learned a lot those two days and had fun too.
Since Atlanta I have had a lot of time to reflect. When I first met these kids it was really sad, I felt so bad for them. As my relationship with them grew I learned a lot about them. A lot of them have no money, witness gang violence, drug violence etc., come from "broken homes" etc. but none of them feel sorry for themselves. They do not mope around school feeling bad for themselves they just act like regular rambunctious pre-teens. That realization really helped me to be more strict with behavior management/holding them to high expectations. It also made me think of all the times I feel bad for myself for absolutely no reason.
What lies ahead: I found out I will be teaching all Algebra 1 in the 9th grade academy so I am super excited about that. We have random bouts of meetings this coming week then next week we have district training Mon-Wed then I meet MY STUDENTS on Thursday!
*I will try to blog every Friday or every other Friday once school starts.
