PTA: Parent, Teacher, Asshole

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.

posted by Bodog @ 2:11 PM