She talks to wolves...

Today had the unpleasant quality of feeling like a brick wall that I had just run into. Repeatedly.

On Tuesday, I gave my World Lit kids some easy homework. I really do not subscribe to the practice of giving homework just to give homework, but I wanted to get them back into the mode of actually doing homework and hopefully expand their horizons a bit. So I asked them to research some non-American winter holiday traditions and write me a short essay reporting on their findings.

No one did it. One student said he couldn't find anything because when he typed his search into Google, it kept giving him American traditions. Another student claimed he didn't know they had to write anything. I know this is not the case considering I wrote the assignment on the board, talked about why we were doing it, and then explained how much their grade would decrease with each day the assignment was late.

This was not a very heartening way to start the semester.

They went on to be incredibly unimpressed by the Epic of Gilgamesh and unable to understand where Sumer was located.

My composition class was surprisingly better today (sadly due to the absence of a couple of individuals). They took notes and did as I asked them, although it's still going to be a major uphill battle. (An example of what I am dealing with: "What are the building blocks of sentences?" "Paragraphs?" "Of sentences? What are the pieces that make up a sentence?" "Uh... subjects?" "A little closer, but not quite. What are the things that are coming out of my mouth...?" "... ... words?" "Yes, words are the building blocks of sentences!") We managed to go over the basic structure of a paragraph and types of paragraphs and their positions in the basic 5-paragraph essay. Then we started practicing writing introductory paragraphs, though I think I might scale that back to just working on paragraphs in general next week.

In my free period, I managed to get all my grades submitted. I was even extra nice and prepared them in a document indicating the relevant semester average and credits each student received. That should make the office lady's job easier, later, when she actually has to prepare transcripts.

I did not, however, manage to put the finishing touches on any of my job applications during my free period. I was having a real problem with my blood sugar and my hydration today, so my mind was twitchy and scattered.

Only half my class showed up for Southern Literature. Again. Only a third of Andy's Government class showed up. The weather was worsening this afternoon and several counties had let their schools out early, but that didn't touch Montgomery county. It wasn't even raining when school let out (at it's normal time). I suspect that might have had some bearing on why our students didn't show up, though. Regardless, I still got my students through an introduction to Southern literature and started them on Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." They had difficulty reading the Southern dialect and didn't twig as quickly as I expected they would to the fact that you can read it aloud and figure it out. "Ms. B, what does 'solitry' mean?" I waited, sure she was going to get it now that she read it aloud. "Ms. B, what does soli..." "Solitry. Solitary." "Oh... oh!" I figured she had it then. But she repeated it with "calk'lated" later.

I had originally intended to submit applications after school today. Instead, we had lunch with my brother. Then we beat the weather home. And I worked desultorily on one grad application while attempting to stave off a bad headache, etc.

I am tired of this post now and I am sure most others are as well! I will close with my sadly low wordcount and take myself off to more water (hydration!) and reading.

Today's Goal: 750 words, and still owing 961 due to previous shortages.
Goal met? No. 272 words were written, leaving me owing 478 for a total of 1439.
Reason for stopping: I feel unwell and just don't have much in me.

Project: Short story, title of "Green Dream."
Status of project: Carin on transport down to Dunwain, sleep-deprived and awash in despair and delirium.

Just because I know you're all dying to know how my research paper writing class turned out, in the end. Here's the tally:

Student 1: Brilliant student and the only one of two worth anything. Learned the process, practiced the process, wrote several rough drafts, worked with me to improve her drafts, turned in a complete final paper.
Topic: Racism and Social Injustice Portrayed Through Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

Student 2: An average student, but usually committed to working really hard. Started out working thoroughly but tapered off half-way through the semester into wishy-washiness. Changed his topic three weeks before the paper was due. Still seemed to be on track to getting it done, then just turned up yesterday with nothing. Desperately typed up a page at the library and handed it in to me.
Topic: How Wilson Rawls Wove His Own Life and Experiences Into Where the Red Fern Grows.

Student 3: She was withdrawn from our school (maybe coming back?), but she didn't do much work anyway. She made it half-way through the outlining process, but kept turning in quotes-from-the-book-masquerading-as-plot-summary every time she tried to write a rough draft.
Topic: The Plight of the Black Woman as Interpreted from Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Student 4: He could have had such an awesome paper. He was a bit lazy, but he worked with me really well up through the outline. He had such a clear and meaty outline too! He should have had no problem getting the required page count. Instead, his work ethic suddenly fizzled out and he turned up yesterday with a "No, I didn't do my paper. This is my last week at this school anyway." As if that makes this semester not count: no, sir, you're going to have to work harder in your senior year now to make up for this.
Topic: Symbolism in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death."

Student 5: This fellow fought me from day one. He chose to write his paper on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, assuming it would be easy: and it would have been too, if he'd done even a little bit of work! Yet he didn't even finish reading the novel, much less seek out any sources. I kept meeting with him and reiterating what he needed to do, but it was like trying to drag a mule up an incline it was wholly dedicated to never setting foot on. After all this, though, he claimed he had his paper done and just "forgot it at home." This was an hour and 14 minutes before the deadline, so I told him he better start working on getting it up to the school. He left with some of the other boys in the class to "go get it," except he didn't call back up to the school until 12:36 (nearly an hour after the deadline) to say that he couldn't get a ride back up to the school. This was two hours after he'd left the school. There was no way I was softening on the deadline anyway, but he didn't really try, did he?
Topic: Christian Symbolism in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Student 6: I was so excited when this student first chose his topic. He was going to do a paper using Dr. Seuss! How fresh and invigorating an intellectual exercise that would have been, both for him and me. Definitely not the usual well-trod ground of high school research papers. We worked out a smashing outline togeter-- and then he just stopped working. Going to the library was entirely too much to ask, in his opinion. I did everything I could, but he just refused to write his paper in the end. He gave me a title page and a hand-written sheet of something yesterday. Sigh.
Topic: Dr. Seuss' The Butter Battle Book and The Sneetches as Cautionary Tales.

Student 7: This student has disappeared. We haven't been able to contact him in weeks and none of the numbers we have for him are working. Awesome. Prior to disappearing, he was also dedicated to fighting me every step of the way. He chose the shortest book he could (Jack London's The Call of the Wild), didn't read it, and insisted that he'd never find time in two and a half months to go by a library for research. Apparently neither could he find the time to ever develop an actual topic. He had his mother start making excuses for him before he disappeared. And he obviously didn't turn a paper in yesterday.
Topic: ???? in Jack London's Call of the Wild.

Student 8: This is the plagiarist I posted about the other day: the one who turned up for all of five classes out of the entire semester. He was never present enough to learn the process of writing a research paper and certainly didn't grok it on his own. Meetings with his mother, with him, with him AND his mother never resulted in actual attendance or dedication to picking up the pieces of his education. He turned in a plagiarized rough draft: you all saw my comments on it. He neglected to return to school this week (big surprise, that) and turn in a final paper. Or take his tests in his other classes. Which he also never attended.
Topic: Something about love in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Student 9: This student could only be bothered to come to classes half the time and, when he did show up, couldn't be bothered to actually keep up with his homework or attend to what was going on. The only formal work he did for me was work with me on choosing his topic and the early conceptual steps in putting together an outline. And that was where the work got too hard for him to bother with anymore. However, he did turn in a paper yesterday. Complete with screenshots from the film version of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." No, I don't know why he thought that was appropriate. I've only glanced at it so far, but it's all biographical information about Poe and loosely-related thoughts on "The Tell-Tale Heart." Clearly written by someone who has no idea how to write a research paper.
Topic: An Analysis of the Mad Narrator in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."



This rate of failure makes me feel like a failure. I mean, obviously I'm doing something wrong, right? My teaching style is apparently off and I'm just not doing it right, yeah?

No. Because then I analyze myself and my teaching very carefully and very thoroughly. I often go overboard with the self-analysis, you know. And the truth is that I am NOT a bad teacher and I am NOT a failure. I bend over backwards for these kids and I spoon-feed them and I go really far in putting up with their bullshit before I snap and write snarky comments on their plagiarized rough drafts.

It doesn't matter. These kids are here because they don't care and their parents don't know what else to do with them, but at least have enough money to keep them in a school somewhere and off the streets. Which several of these kids seem to resent: they want to be on the streets. They honestly do not see why they need to have any kind of skills in researching or analytical thinking, and they laugh when I tell them they'll be doing this kind of stuff in college. ("Not at Trenholm Tech!" they crow.) And when I desperately try to appeal to them that these are skills they need in life, that the ability to find information and USE information to analyze, to deduce is vital to any kind of success in life... well, they think that's pretty funny too. Or they just stare at me with blank faces.

And it's all so very depressing.

Let us have a tale of school.

I had just given my 11th graders their quiz on Their Eyes Were Watching God, when one of my seniors (hereafter known as Bearina) entered the classroom in search of her cel phone. Never mind that students aren't allowed to have cel phones in school. My students were distracted from their quiz, had to move around to allow her to search, and it was generally annoying.

She didn't find it and left, only to return a few moments later, claiming that our office lady had told her she could search again. She was visibly more agitated this time, again having students stand up and going so far as to demand they open their bags this time. She started bitching about how the cel phone wasn't hers and cost $500. My students were hopelessly derailed from their quiz-taking.

She left again and I finally got them settled back into their quiz. But all was not done! No, my door then burst open as Bearina and a 10th grader stumbled into my room, struggling. I thought they were fighting at first, as I rose, shouting them down, and then realized that the 10th grader had actually been holding Bearina back from another student. They exited my room as quickly as they had come with me hot on their heels.

I emerged into chaos. One of the office lady's was at the desk trying to talk to a client. (!) The Ineffectual Teacher was talking to the Neo-Nazi student, and he was arguing that she couldn't give him a demerit for whatever happened. Bearina was still being held off him by her boyfriend and the 10th grader, both of whom managed to get her to sit down. I called her boyfriend over and asked what had happened: apparently, the Neo-Nazi had gotten cute with her while she was searching for her phone and so she attacked him. (I found out later that she actually slammed him into a wall with a desk, pinning him, and proceeded to wave scissors in his face.)

At this point, Neo-Nazi returned to his class and Bearina proceeded to Andy's class (which she was currently supposed to be in). However, she opened the door and immediately started demanding which of the seniors had her phone. One of the other seniors talked back to her in a condescending tone, so she started in with the various obscenities, such as "I'll take all you motherfuckers on!" Andy asked her to be quiet, strongly yet respectfully, and so she slammed his door so hard back that it ricocheted off the table and television behind it. Andy came out shouting at her to sit down, with the office lady joining in, but she ignored them all and proceeded outside.

Just after all this ruckus, yet another senior approached me and gave me Bearina's missing cel phone. She said "she had left it on the table." I just told her to go back to class and went outside to where the other office lady was talking to a tearful Bearina. I handed over the phone, identified who had brought it to me, and waved off any appeals to agree with Bearina's actions.

All my 11th graders did pretty poorly on their quizzes, and I don't think it's entirely due to how much they read.

Bearina has been expelled. We have a zero tolerance policy regarding students attacking other students. It's a damn shame that this happened, though. Bearina had a good mind when she bothered to apply herself. I just hope she can shape up and find her way somewhere else.