The Further Adventures in Teaching Yogi: Week 2
Week 2 showed me that I am influencing his decision making, but it's not a total transformation...
Monday - Mother called saying he wouldn't be coming in with little explanation.
Tuesday - Mother called and said he'd be 10-15 minutes late due to stomach problems. He showed up 27 minutes late. I told him I would not wait past the 15 minute lateness again. He left afteer an hour.
Wednesday - Only showed up nine minutes late, but left 30 minutes early. I called Mother to let her know what happened the previous day and this day. When I mentioned him being late 27 minutes the day before, she reminded me that she called me to let me know. I had to explain that she said 10-15 minutes and he was 27 minutes late. I would not wait past 15 minutes again.
Thursday - Yogi showed up 15 minutes EARLY? Unbelievable. It wasn't perfect though as he left 20 minutes early, but an amazing improvement.
Friday - Received a call before I left the house. Yogi had been up late puking. That is the sickest kid! He wouldn't be coming. I called to let my Principal know and I found out that he made it to summer school and she couldn't figure out why he couldn't make it to me. Good question.
While there's been some improvement, some of the games are still going on, but I'm starting to get across to him that I'm not playing.
Adventures in Teaching Yogi
My wife got a book recently called
"Fat Dog Don't Run No Rabbit", by Frank L. Quinn. It's sub title says, "Promoting Change in Overpriveleged Childron and Their Families". Quinn points out early on that economic status has little to do with whether or not a child is overprivileged. Sure, a child whose parents buy him the latest gaming system every time a new one comes out is over priviliged, but so to is the child who's wearing hand-me-downs and whose single-parent mother defends her child's actions, poor grades, disruptive behaviors, fighting, on everything other than the true culprit to blame, him- or herself.
As Mrs. Asshole has been reading bits and pieces of this book to me, I thought of a student of mine. Let's call him Yogi. I'm Park Ranger Asshole, and the ever desired picinic basket is really time away from the lesson.
See, my school owed Yogi some educational hours. "Owed" may be a bit strong a term here, as the hours had been offered, but he was almost never available. However, do to a clerical error, he got a second chance. In order to avoid the same clerical error from last time, I documented everything. These were my Adventures in teaching Yogi.
Week 1:
Day 1 - Yogi informs me that he has to leave after have of his allotted 2 hours. I inquire as to the reason and he responds, "I have to get my grandmother's phone back to her."
"Doesn't she know you're supposed to stay for two hours?"
"Yeah, but she doesn't know I have her phone."
YOGI!
Day 2 - Yogi doesn't seem to understand that any break time he takes for lunch/snack extends his departure time. He took a 23 minute break, so I reminded him he needed to stay 23 minutes after his original leave time. He declares he's not staying and leaves 23 minutes early.
YOGI!
Day 3 - 20 minutes before out meeting time, while in transit to the school, I get a call saying that mom called the school saying he was sick. He had gotten sick at summer school and it tool at least 30 minutes for them to call to cancel...
YOGI!
Day 4 - I wait 15 minutes after the arranged meet time. I was told by the district coordinator of this stuff not to wait more than 15 minutes, so I leave. I'm pulling up to my house 10 minutes later and I get a call from Mom. He got caught in traffic. The fact that summer school is less than 5 minutes from my school and it apparently took him 1 hour and 25 minutes to get to the school does not concern Mom. I refuse to turn around and return to the school.
YOGI!
Day 5 - On the way to school, I get a call from Yogi saying that he would be 15 minutes late because he had "to take my girlfriend somewhere." I waited 30 minutes past the arranged time and Yogi finally showed up right when I was giving up. He brought in tow his girlfriend, his buddy Boo-Boo. "I didn't have time to take her home," he says.
"Well, you have time now. I'll see you next week," I respond.
YOGI!
Yogi got the better of me that first week with the help of his mother. We'll see if I could get her to stop accepting his excuses in another post.
A Teacher's Nightmare
I had a nightmare...
I had transferred to Local Middle School (although as dreams often do, I knew what it was supposed to be, but it didn't look anything like the real deal). Th teacher's name whom I replaced was still on the door, but they had my named written on paper and taped up. "Mr.
Asswhole".
DAMNIT! Why do they ALWAYS misspell my name?
The whole school is chaotic, students and teachers just wandering the halls at all times. Amongst them my original boss, the guy who first gave me a teaching job. A man I greatly respect. So when things went bad, his presence made things worse.
First, it turned out that my room was infested with bees. They were buzzing all around me, and I was trying to herd them out of the door, because bees are herd animals, apparently. One of my students ran up to me yelling, "Mr. Asshole, I'll get them!" and he starts swinging at them. This riles them up (Yes, I said "riles") and they sting me. Now, when I think of bees stinging I always imagine quite vividly, even in my dreams in seems, the stinger sticking in my skin, and as the bees flies away, his innards
slewsh out in a grotesque fashion onto my skin, but in my nightmare, it wasn't imagination. I needed a towel to wipe bee innards off of my skin.
Then I realized that some students, female students, had gotten a hold of my laptop.
"What are you doing with that!?"
*GIGGLE*
"Give me that!"
When I got my laptop back, I saw they had changed the wallpaper of my laptop to a picture of the group of girls, naked, laying in a mass.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I COULD GET FIRED!"
Then class changed, I wandered off to get a refreshment and...lost my classroom. It was either 8 or 18, but I could remember which, and my name had fluttered off of the door. I knew people were talking about me. The ineffectual teacher from the
Alty School, so I was hesitant to ask for help. Luckily, I found my room.
The next class had, oddly enough, adults alongside students. I tried to teach, but the adults were disrupting the class. I got frustrated and told all the adults to leave, and I was promptly ignored. So I threatened to call the Student Resource Officer, and was continued to be ignored. So I went looking for the call button to the office. They realized I was done playing and the adults, plus several students, started leaving. I instructed the students to remain in the class, not that they listened. I could have used the
walkie talkie, but again, I knew I was already being talked about.
As I circled the room (It was a circular room!) a kid tossed a mechanical device to me. I didn't know what it was, but it was warm, clearly doing something. I tossed the contraption back. As I circled I heard a kind of exploding noise and all the electronics, save for some of the ceiling lights, went out. I knew right away, it was a device that emitted an
electro-magnetic pulse. I turned around to tell the kid to go to the office. As I approached him, the kid tossed me another, much smaller device. It had very small screen on it. It must have been shielded from an EM pulse. It showed me, with the EM device tossing it to the kid, and then it going off. It looked like I had set off the device that fried most of the school's electronics!
The End
I can only assume that I had that dream so that, as this coming school year goes by, I can think back, "At least it hasn't been as bad as that dream."
Randomness
Earlier this week, Delta-Boy, the 5 year old, came up to me and said, "I've been trying to get so mad that I move things with my mind."
Amused, I asked, "Where did you get that idea from?"
"My mind told it to me."
My son's mind is telling him to get into a furious rage so he can Carrie the place. I'd lock my door at night if I thought it would keep the Child of the Damned out of my room. Scary.
Today I was making my lunch when Mrs. Asshole came running into the kitchen, "Come see what Bravo-Boy has done!"
So I trundle down the hall and enter Delta and Bravo Boys' room. "Dada, Bravo-Boy put some poo in the pot! Isn't that wonderful!"
"Is that your poo?...in that pot? Good job, Bravo-Boy!"
I think after four years of potty training and one more baby to potty train, I now know from where the scat fetish comes. You get so used to being excited about poo that the context starts to become meaningless. Eww.
So, my Ass-of-All-Trades thing is continuing. The School owes a kid hours. Technically it was already offered but he never showed up. Now, since the make-up time was outside of standard school hours, no records were kept and The School was told that since we didn't record his absence from these make-up times, we have to offer it again. So starting Monday I'm going in a couple of hours a day. It's funny how all of these extra money making opportunities have arisen the year I didn't get a summer teaching job. It's not as much as I would make in summer school, but I'll take it.
Happy Birthday America
So, our beloved nation turns 231 years old today. Doesn't she look great! She really is a beautiful, proud lady. Coming up on an election year, I can't tell you how much I love this country. What's an election year got to do with it? THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS, BABY! I love elections. I love the political debates. I love that every four years we get to say who we want to run the country. And really, if you consider that some offices have elections at different intervals, we get to help steer this great land more frequently than that, but it's the presidential election that really gets me jazzed.
I think that's something that people tend to forget. No, not that I get pumped up about presidential elections, but that we all get to step up to the ship's wheel and turn the country in the direction we want it to go in. Now, we all get the chance to step up to the wheel, so just because I say, "Arr, me harties, let us turn to starboard," someone else might come up and say, "Ahoy, ye evil genius pirate, I reckon we would be better served goin' to port," and if more people say "port" than agree that we should go starboard, well, we go port. I'm ok with that.
But some people aren't ok with that. Some people don't want to take a turn at the helm because they don't like how the wheel looks. Some don't think it matters if we go port or starboard. Some want to go in other directions but don't think we can. We can go in any direction assuming enough people want to go that way. Some don't even care to take a turn at the wheel. Fair enough. Participate in the navigation of our country to the extent that you are comfortable.
But then there are the complainers. Do they have the right to complain? Sure. But that doesn't mean they have a platform to stand on. Complain when our captain breaks a law, fine. Complain when the majority of us say "head to port" and we're taken to starboard. Fine. But complain when you're not in the majority?
I'm going to stop with the nautical analogy to make sure I'm understood here. I know a lot of people feel the last couple of presidential elections were "stolen". I understand the frustration. I mean, the second election so many people were complaining about the President, how could he win again? But then no one hears the people who are content. No one content shouts to the heavens that something must be done. So maybe what we heard wasn't reality. Maybe the content just outnumbered, barely clearly, the complainers. Or maybe some of the complainers were those who chose not to participate in the Democratic process.
We now return to our nautical metaphor...
But despite my opinion about the rampant complainers, what I love is that they CAN complain. SOme ships, you complain about the captain, you're walking the plank, or keel hauled, or run through. We can say all that we want how the captain is the biggest fucking retarded baboon to ever walk in a suit, and we're suprised that he doesn't slip on his own drool, and that we'd rather jump ship and head to the HRMS Canuck, and not worry that we will be made an example of. We don't have to worry that the captain will help us on our way to the HRMS Canuck by throwing us overboard. Most countries' citizens don't have that kind of security.
I love this old 231 year old ship and feel she's holding together pretty well. She's not perfect, but she's one of the best ships out there. Some think she's on the verge of falling apart, but I have confidence in us, her crew. She'll sail for 231 more years, assuming the oceans last that long.
