Is that for us?

Today I was erasing the board after one class left and before the next class arrived. A student from the next class walked in as I was erasing and asked, "What's was that on the board?"

I didn't answer, thinking of what I could say. She continued, asking, "What was it? Was it for us?"

I turned around and said, as nicely as I could, "If it was for you, why would I have erased it?"

She says, bright and happy, "Well, maybe you wanted to write it again."

That's true, you can't see.

Today I had to talk down to a class. They're under-performing, whining and not being very pleasant to be around. So, I laid into them a bit. Afterwords, it was a bit tense.

After the "talk" (which I rarely do), I began the lesson. In the lesson students had to use the quadratic formula. I wrote it on the board in the top left corner and said, "I'll go ahead and write it on the board so everybody can see it clearly."

The blind student said, "Everybody...?"

That really broke the tension. We had a good day from there forward. Best day yet actually. Hopefully it will last more than a few days.

A few weeks ago, in the same class, students were complaining that something on the board was blurry. So, I asked the blind kid if the board was blurry. He played along, without even knowing I winked at him and said, "not at all."

mmm, tastes inky.

The other day a freshman student, ready to burst into puberty any day now, could not find anything to write with.

Nobody knew, but the school gods were smiling on us all just then. The student though, he just though his luck was running high. He found a brand new ink-insert to a blue gel pen on the floor (you know, the part that goes inside the pen that you can remove if you take the pen apart...the part with the ink).

Using the pen-insert, he took notes, wrote, doodled, did whatever boys his age do. In between using the pen insert within the constructs of its intended purpose, he would place the pen-insert into his mouth and chew on it.

It exploded. It exploded in his mouth. It exploded in his mouth shooting that blue gel-ink down his throat.

He gagged. He threw up into his back pack. Then, he began clawing wildly at his tongue with his fingers. His teeth, tongue and fingers were all dark blue. He could've been auditioning for The Blue Man Group.

I watched as he ran out of the room trying not to touch anything. Then I stood in front of the class with my eyes closed for several minutes.

When he returned he told his story, though we were all there. He said it tasted terrible. His teeth were still blue. They were screaming blue. If David Lee Roth were a color, it'd be this blue. Gaudy and obnoxious.

I asked him, "What is your mother going to think..." He interrupted me and explained that he wouldn't tell her.

I continued, "What is your mother going to think WHEN SHE CLEANS THE TOILET and it's blue?"

Frustration and Love

Today is the end of the first quarter. I feel enormous pressure to give students passing grades. However, I am just the score-keeper. Still, it sometimes strikes me that the "job" of a teacher is to give students passing marks, not to help them learn and prepare them for the future.

Even so...yesterday, before the quarter final, a female student breaks down crying, ends up curled in a ball, on the floor, in the corner. I thought that maybe her mom died or something. She could hardly breathe she was so upset. Her friend is literally trying to pick her up.

I thought about sending her to the counselor, but that would be punishment. You never want to go there. I figured that if she could control herself and not disrupt people, that if she wanted to stay and take the test, that would be her decision.

She did control herself and took the test. Not only did she take it, of the 100-plus students that took that precalculus test, she earned the highest score!

The source of the tears...she had just been dumped in a text message by her boyfriend. Love is fickle.

Introducing...

Hello. I hope you'll follow this blog.

The purpose of this blog is to tell some of the stories that I experience as a high school teacher. This is not intended to be educational or informative, but humorous.

I will not disclose any names of students, or anything private or personal. The idea here is to record some of the many outrageous things that high school students do.

This is the record of what I witness.

Combative Tuesday

Today was the day to sleep in the bed you made over the past 9 weeks, for the students anyhow. Last chance, quarter exam. I've never noticed so much tension before, but then again, I'd never had so many students start the year so poorly. So, I've never had so many students so desperately need to do well on one particular test before. I know why they struggled early on, something beyond my influence or control, but still...

Most students showed up early, asking last-minute questions. Wow. Effort, concern and motivation! That's awesome.

But then...this particular student showed up late, again.

She sat down as I was showing the class their quarter grades. She had an F. She asked, "Mr, is there anything I can do?"

A few minutes later, she was texting. I took her phone.

Then, while others were working, she actively devised schemes in which she was the victim of circumstance... "I had a bad teacher, I've never been good at math, I have a headache, this is boring, I'm in love today, what's that shiny thing hanging from the ceiling?" ... get the idea?

Another twenty minutes pass, she's not started her work yet. Then she starts playing with her ipod. I tell her to put it away. She says, "But Mr, I can't listen to it?"

I tell her that if she wants a better grade she has to do some work.

She says, "But Mr, I'm trying my VERY best."

I said, "If this is your best then you don't have very much to offer."

She cried.

Huh.