Shaddup Already!
2005-02-17
Hateful children and a teacher's just dessert.
D's mom never called me about the advertisement. I'm really not surprised.When I went into school on Wednesday, I read over the essays from Tuesday. We have block scheduling two days a week. Because of some testing, this week we saw our afternoon classes on Tuesday and our morning classes on Wednesday. Usually the afternoon classes are on Thursday.
At any rate, as I was reading the essays, I got to one from a girl who refused to write her essay until I started talking about how not doing an assignment doesn't hurt me, it hurts them.
I was floored by the amount of venom in this child's writing. Here's just the first paragraph:
I do not deserve this grade because it was not my fault Ms. B lost some of the papers or does not remember if she saw it or not I don't like the fact that Ms. B completely did not make an effort whatsoever to find the papers she lost of "misplaced."
I explained to the kids that there were three reasons I might not have gotten their advertisements. I said they might not have turned it in, they might have left it over at Ms. P's portable after I told them repeatedly to get it and bring it to me, or they might have failed to put their names on it.
A argued up one side and down the other that she turned in her ad and it had her name on it. So sorry, I didn't get an ad with your name on it honey.
So today I told her that since she was so obviously angry about her ad situation, I was going to invite her to look through all the ads I had received.
She dug through them, pulled out a paper and her face lit up. I recognized the paper immediately and challenged her to find her name on it. It wasn't there. Oh, that was a sweet moment.
I had a nice little chat with her. I made her apologize to me and then we talked about how I take the work they do seriously and I don't just throw work away and then tell kids it's their fault I can't find it. I also said that before I give someone a zero, I check my papers at least 3 times.
She couldn't have been nicer to me for the rest of the period. Now if only she has learned something. Some little thing about taking an iota of responsibility. I doubt it, though.
On the flip side, I kind of lost my cool with my 3rd period class. It is full of whiners and that kind of negativity just wears a person down. Someone made the comment that the school was too strict for them. I went off on how they needed to start taking responsibility eventually. I told them that if they grew up not taking responsibility, then who would pay their bills? Not them, they'd be out on the street. I said they wouldn't be able to hold down a job without a sense of responsibility. I went on and on using very strong language to say things that they needed to hear (I don't mean curse words, just things like telling them they would be out on the streets).
Then I went and sat down at my desk to cool off. I sat there for about five minutes, not saying anything. The class didn't say anything either. Once I calmed down they went about doing the project or the essay. Today I finally got to read the essays and this is one that I got (bad grammar and spelling included). Considering who it's from, I'm not surprised, but it's still nice to read:
Hey Ms. B! I am writing this essay to persuade you to take my grade for my advertisement. And I want to say thank you for giving me and everyone else the chance to do this. Because most teachers wouldnt. They would just give you a zero and be done with it. But you are giving us a chance.I dont know what happened to my advertisement but I know I turned it in because I remember cutting candy out of my magazines. But I probaly didnt put my name on it or something. Or maybe it was in Ms. Ps classroom but, Whatever because Im going to deal with it because I am writing this essay.
Anyways, you said in homeroom that I would probaly be angry at you. I was at first but then I though why should I be mad at you? Its my fault and I understand that. So i want you to know that Im not angry like you said I might be.
I know how you feel. You give people all these chances to make up things but they get attitudes for giving them this assignment. And Im not just talking about this. But they dont understand your just trying to be nice and let people make up whatever they have to make up. But thanx for giving us this chance to make up this grade because you know if we get a zero our grade will go down bad. And your letting us do this because you know that we're not going to like it very much.
Anyways, I hoped this persuaded you to give me a grade on my advertisement instead of a zero. Because I really dont want a zero. Thanx Ms. B for giving us this chance to make it up to you.
Other than being painfully reminded of how much work I have to do with the kids on sentence structure, homophones and contractions, it was nice to read that.
