Friday the 13th

A friend of mine is a 13, so I wish him a happy day today.

I'm sipping a mug of Ghirardelli hot mocha as I sit here typing, my reward to myself for enduring another day with the yahoos. Despite promises from administration and guidance staff, two students who are failing my English class and who refuse to read are still sitting in my class on a daily basis, distracting other students, making noises while others try to do their work, interrupting class discussions with childish comments, and complaining that school should be optional and reading shouldn't be expected. Keep sending them out with behavior reports, I'm told, and that'll bring results. Nope. One of them has been tossed from my class four times in less than three weeks, and his punishment consists of a half school day sitting in a vacant office copying school rules from the handbook and an hour of time cooling his heels after school lets out. I was told after his third ejection that one more time would mean his exit to a school for troubled youth in the next school district north of us. Well, he earned that fourth discipline report today (refusing to put away a ping pong ball that he was bouncing on his desk during Silent Sustained Reading, being argumentative when told to keep his hand out of the pocket where he hides his cellphone which I'd seen him using, and continuing to talk after being told twice directly to stop while others were trying to complete a quiz), and my money says he'll be back in my class after a one-day ISS again. Neither of these kids will read. You'd think I'd asked them to swallow fire. They won't even pay attention when I read aloud to them. Usually even the laziest of students will be quiet and listen when someone else is doing the work for them, but not these two.

Mr. Four Discipline Reports is the one who failed English 9, but because of some deal made by the principal, he was allowed to take English 10 without first having passed English 9. He has also failed the first semester of English 10, so there's no record that this kid has the skills or ability to pass any level of high school English. He thinks that the two paragraphs that he wrote in class during the first week of the term should earn him a passing grade for the year, and all this other stuff like reading, tests, quizzes, vocabulary work, appropriate participation in class discussion, and essay writing are unnecessary. The other one (BT) needs direct remedial help, and he sees our reading specialist twice a week, but according to some test score the guidance director cites, he's too capable to be placed in remedial English. Apparently those tests don't measure ability to comprehend what he reads or what is read to him, and to find the answer from that reading when he has the question right in front of him. He can't do it, even when he seems to want to do so. What he's really good at is getting attention by using baby talk, waving at others in the class, making odd comments during class discussion, using his wristwatch to reflect sunlight into people's eyes, shuffling newspapers loudly during SSR, and talking back as I turn away from him. I wonder which employers will pay him big bucks to do that on a regular basis. I was told this afternoon that his mother said she just needs a computer and then she'll home school him. I laughed myself to tears when I heard that one. Good luck to her! Let's see....don't I have an old computer around here that I could donate to the cause?

How sad that so much of my energy has to be spent on a couple of 15 and 16 year old children who clearly don't want to succeed - by the school's and state's standards - which leaves me less energy to spend on those students who clearly DO want to learn and who need the help.

So here I sit in a lovely warm chocolatey haze of pleasure, knowing that I have almost three full days ahead of me without seeing or thinking about those two. Ahhhhhh!