Grades are WAY better this year compared to last; Two-thirds of my students this year have a C or better compared to only half last year, and I think it's safe to say that I'm holding them to the same or even higher expectations this year. That being said, a student can still earn a D for effort, and an F only goes to those students that choose to cut class or refuse to even take notes. And yes, appallingly, a student can receive his or her credits for their diploma with a D grade. It kills me when students jump for joy after getting a D. I suppose it's better than an F, but it's a sad realization that college is not even on their radar. Today we're doing a lesson on different levels of education and their respective salaries; I think almost all my students are invested in getting their diploma, but college is a different story. One of my students told me that for them, college is "feasible, but not likely." That gave me mixed emotions. At least he acknowledged that it was possible. I think that's more than what we started with.
To close, I'll leave you with a few doses of the ridiculous things that must be dealt with each day as a teacher. Firstly, I have run out of things to do with my most obnoxious girl in 3rd period. Every day she calls someone in class a bitch among other expletives and by now she has realized that getting sent to the office receives no lasting consequences, so I am forever just sending her outside so that I can actually get somewhere with the lesson. The problem is that when everyone in our 9th grade hallway sends their worst student outside so that learning can happen inside, chaos happens outside. There is now officially nowhere for me to put this child to retain sanity. This is the same girl who today tricked me into writing "dro" on the overhead and pointed it out to the rest of the class (for anyone who doesn't know, dro means homegrown marijuana). I was, of course, incredibly pleased.
This story is by far the best though: In Algebra I am constantly asking myself - and sometimes outright asking the students - if I am teaching a bunch of 12 year olds. Clearly on these days my 9th graders lack any sliver of maturity and less learning takes place than I would like. There are a select few that are the ringleaders on these days from hell, and I come to find out last week that my one student to rule them all is ACTUALLY 12 YEARS OLD. Remember: in 9th grade you were 14 turning 15. This child was so bad in 6th grade that the middle school somehow decided to socially promote him to 9th grade the next year just to get him the hell out. I've been told that he's heading back to the 7th grade for the rest of the year, but I found his smiling face in my class again today. But oh my god no wonder he wreaks havoc in my class - he hasn't learned enough math in the first place to know about anything we've been learning. I almost feel bad for the middle school having to take him back as the big man on campus who went to high school for a quarter. This kid is crazy - at 12 years old, he is already decked out in red and tagging XIV on everything for his Latino gang affiliation. Of all my future gang banger students, he openly makes the biggest deal about it - like when I use a blue overhead pen instead of a red one - and he's only the equivalent of a 7th grader. Scary. The scariest part is that during Back to School Night his English teacher tried to talk to the mom about his gang comments and etchings on the desk, only to realize later that the mom was decked out in red as well. Latino gangs run in families...
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