Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Seventh Grade Mahem...

This afternoon, after a morning filled with hallway brawls and students cutting class, the administration called the entire seventh grade to the auditorium for a much needed talking-to. It wasn't pretty. The A.P. was livid, the students apathetic, and the faculty simply dumbfounded. My favorite quote of this little meeting was when the A.P. announced a "hit list" of students cruising for a superintendent's suspension. When a students asked how long they would be at an S.O.S. school, the A.P. replied:

"You'll be gone so long that you'll forget your homeroom teacher's name."

Of course, being the immature man that I am, I started to snicker.


On another matter, this morning I came to find out that the student that has been making my life a living hell, Can't Sit In Seat-Can't Stop Screaming Boy, was caught in an illegal activity yesterday on the school grounds. He may very well being headed to an S.O.S. school by tomorrow. *HUGH SIGH* I've tried so many modifications and interventions for this kid, have researched his disability to exhaustion, called his house ad nauseum, and nothing has worked. The bad part of all this is that he's the main focus of my thesis; so it appears that I'm back to the drawing board for an action research issue.

GOOD NEWS! The school is sending me to some training program on Monday and Tuesday of next week! So this evening I'll start a set of substitute lesson plans for the poor sucker that gets stuck with my classes. I accepted the assignment with great seriousness; but inside I was doing back flips. WooHoo! What the training for is an area of some confusion. Regardless, I'm elated.

GOOD NEWS! My normally good class was a little of out of control yesterday (understatement) and after listening to the 30 or 40th F-Bomb utterance I walked out of my classroom for 30 seconds or so. I was only standing outside the door, but when I returned, the class was dead silent. This morning a few of the kids came to me to ask whether I was okay and to tell me how sorry they were that I became so frustrated. This was followed by awkward hugs.

Seventh graders are breed unlike any other.

DISTURBING NEWS! As part of my "lotto" reward system, today's winner was the proud recipient of a plastic dinosaur (the type of which I have no idea). His winning item was quickly snatched away by the rest of the boys, and promptly placed on their crotch area, while they proclaimed in a boisterous voice, "I GOTTA LIZARD IN MY PANTS. PET MY LIZARD! PET MY LIZARD!!!" Classy.

4 comments:

X said...

Does your school have a dean, or someone in charge of discipline who isn't an AP? I can't imagine our 7th grade AP holding an assembly like that...I'm sure it would be as about as effective as your apparently was.

yomister said...

Thanks to the budget cuts at my school, all three dean positions were eliminated. Gone. We have NO deans, and this is for a school of approximately 900 students. Teachers were given the Chancellor's Code and told to follow it. Problem, of course, is to whom do you bring the everyday violations that need to be addressed?

*sigh*

ms. v. said...

Lovely.

Listen, a few of us are organizing a NYC teacher-blogger happy hour. If you're interested, please email me.

ms. v. said...

My email address is ms [dot] frizzle [at] gmail [dot] com