12/4 –Student: “Yo that party last nite was popin, girls was going easy.”
Me: “Wrong, sir.”
12/7 – Female student: “I couldn’t enjoy the snow last year because I was in jail.”
12/7 Student farts on another student (full bend) in the back of the room as we are waiting for the bell. Couldn’t stop the kids from leaving before the bell. Lunch Detention for the young man, and a phone call. What a phone call.
12/8 – Female student spills coke all over student’s work when she opens it and it fizzes everywhere. The day after she spills McDonalds pancake syrup on my back table. Thinking of making a no food rule.
12/10 – My room is trashed by first period on their way out when I mistakenly let them have 15 minutes to do their homework at the end of the period.
12/11 – Went to a student’s house to deliver all of his work before christmas break. He comes back into the room the next two days, doesn’t have any of it. Asks me for another. I say no. He says you never gave me one. I glared. He says when? You know when. He says Oh like I was paying attention. Sir, I care as much about your work as you do. I excused him from class.
It’s obvious I don’t have patience for that. Should I, or should I let him drop out? I might not understand the full situation sometimes, but in that one I do. Should we have teachers that care about kids even when they don’t deserve it? If a kid is abusing my hard work for them, I tend to lose all respect for them.
12/11 – Learning to teach like my hair was on fire.
12/11 – Vocab Exercise. Kids draw an example of “Piety.” Then what Piety is not. Kid draws: “If I asked someone to pull my finger at a funeral.”
12/11 – Need a basketball goal for all the paper balls that miss our trash can.
12/14 – “This is a hot mess” teacher says referring to teacher drama.
12?15 – “This nigga’s always got something to say” a kid says. I say, “Sir, do you realize what you just called me?”
12/16 “Were going to beat the honey buns out of you” – kid writes in creative assignment.
12/17 “What in the sam hill are you talking about?” – kid on his exam.
12/18 Parent student conference where student slumps over in his seat like a dead fish the entire 20 minute meeting. Doesn’t say a word except “I ain’t running no damn track.”
1/20 – “You read so you can’t get baked if you don’t know a word.” – student in his journal
1/21 – Finally major success. 4-5 period was flawless. First period black was also good too thanks to the added priveleges of using ipods after ten more good classes and the potential to pick their own seats. Still working on the perfect storm: orange first period.
1/26 – Three wasps and a stink bug. Wasp count up to 23, but kids flip out at the stink bug crawling across the rug. I do bear grylls impression “Did you know this is the third most venomous insect in the world?” “Really?” ” No!” Also, admin were doing a walkthrough at the perfect time, while the wasps were still out. You can be sure that I was given a fly swatter and a call to the exterminator by the end of the day!
1/28 – Read an essaywith the kids on hard work, and how if you start to love something you start to do the hard things. Kids responding well to it. On kid says: “oil wells go deep. It’s like someone has deep thoughts and a deep heart and a lot of good in them.” Even our usual suspects were clued into the poem and volunteered to read with sincerity. Things starting to turn around?
1/29 – I write up the symbol for “diamonds at the meeting of my thighs” on the board as “power / sex.” Then student from the back of the room says: “Hmmm. Power sex.” I lose it.
