Friday, January 08, 2010

Day #74

We had a two-hour delay today. I rolled up to school about 8:30 (didn't have to be there until 9:30, but I had stuff to do), and there were dozens of kids milling around outside. I told them "y'all don't have to be here until 9:30, go back home!" But they hate being at home. They'd rather stand around in the cold for a couple hours.

Only about a third of the students showed up today, rendering all lesson plans moot--what's the point of teaching something new and reading ahead in the book if most of the kids aren't there anyhow? The classes were all dramatically shortened to boot, and student behavior was even more off the hook than usual given the short day and imminent weekend. So today was a throw-away.

I made them do warm-ups and then let them play with my laptop and the other PCs in the room. Some kids worked on Study Island, others went to Primary Games. The ones on my laptop played with my iTunes, and dilligently wrote out a list of hip-hop songs they said I need. Apparently having only one Gucci Mane track renders me culturally inconsequential. The kids in my second period class asked me where the "nasty" videos of my wife and I were stored on the computer. There are no boundaries with these kids.

Six Faces got moved from Gen Ed to self-contained pending testing for emotionally disturbed as of today. Yesterday she told my class "You can do whatever you want in this school and nothing happens. I do what I feel like and I'm still here!" I told her something was about to happen and she didn't believe me. This morning as they took her away to the other side of the school she was crying and telling us she was sorry and that she would act right if we let her back. After 5 months of stabbing, kicking, bashing, stripping, cussing, running, dancing and otherwise disrupting classes, she has had several opportunities to act right.

No comments: