4 posts tagged “summer school”

View other items tagged “summer school:” Photos, Audio, Videos, Books or Links. View “summer school” on Vox.

Bugging Classrooms

In a fitting end to a summer school session that began with an admnistrator telling us that "these kids have been beaten down all year long," this group of enjoyable youngsters has proven that they are no slouches when it comes to administering a little beat-down of their own. 


After returning from the restroom, one of my students informed me that there was huge, buzzing, green-backed beetle bouncing back and forth in the hall outside my door. I stepped outside to have a look, and of course it turned out to be one of those situations where I couldn't resist taking one or two awkward swipes at the dive-bombing insect. One or two turned into 15 or 20, as my competitive side got the better of me. Next thing you know, I'm having a serious, cooperative, hands-on lesson with one of my students on how to swipe a bug out the sky. Thankfully no one came upstairs, or they would have seen me and one student twirling, ducking, leaping, and pawing at the air. Finally we chased it into another teacher's room (it was empty, except for the teacher). Finally, my professional instincts got the better of me, and I delegated the task of bug-capture to my student, and began walking back across the hall. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a veritable colony of these beetles meandering about the outside of another classroom door. 

I made the mistake of poking my head inside the classroom to check with the instructor as to the bug-status of his room. He told me that he had killed three already, and then all hell broke loose in his room. I shut the door quickly, and promised to round up the remaining critters on my own (but not before leaving him to contend with small-scale chaos. I could hear him accusing various students of releasing the horde of beetles through the door.
Finally, with the help of my student, I rounded up the beetle battalion into a Yuban can, and sent him outside to release them. I'm not sure of who brought the bugs to school, but all but one of the beetles refused to fly, so the joke sort of fell flat. It made for a nice end to one of the wackiest summer school sessions I've ever been a part of. 

Overall, the kids were a huge improvement from last year. But I hope, in the future, we will refrain from referring to summer school kids as helpless victims of the beat down.

2 comments Tags: teaching, bugs, summer school, public school

Another summer school antic.

I wonder what will happen to my little chair-throwing, chest-exposing, truth-speaking maniac. Yesterday, he wrote in his journal how he's so angry about school at times, and how he hates being escorted to and from every class by an aide (he doesn't have enough self-control to stay out of trouble walking through the halls unaccompanied by an adult). Then he said I was the best teacher.

Of course lunch came, along with grotesque reports of an act of sexual harassment he had committed. I rounded up five witnesses, he denied it and called them all liars, then I got mad because I felt like he was lying to my face so I told him a few things and left him in the office. He's not here today. I think I may have dropped off his popularity list.
6 comments Tags: summer school, sexual harrassment

Ghetto/Stupid/Poor

This gem is courtesy of my trashcan-hucking, classroom table-upending, chest-flashing one-man wonder of summer school destruction and chaos. He’s a nice kid—just a bit wild, and lacking whatever it is that allows one to behave in a somewhat civilized manner. Sometimes, however, lacking a social filter allows one to speak seldom-heard truth.

This is from his journal response regarding a time he had misjudged someone:

A time when I misjudged someone was when I judged that people that go to ______Junior High are ghetto because my family said that most of the people are stupid and poor. I found out I was wrong. When I went to _____ Junior High to go to summer school and I now know that a lot of them are smart and look like they have expensive clothes. I also found out that it doesn’t matter how expensive their clothes are they could still be mean and stupid. I also judged that everyone was mean and ignorant. I was proved wrong by a lot of people at _____Junior High.

Keep in mind that summer school is held at the “ghetto/stupid/poor” campus, and students from the other campus, such as this articulate young man, are outnumbered 4 to 1. Also bear in mind that he is probably the thinnest and  shortest student in the class.  I had to explain his comments to a few students who stopped listening at “ghetto, stupid, and poor,” but it was worth pointing out how much guts it took for this little guy to admit the error of his unfounded stereotypes in the presence of those he had prejudged. (I didn’t draw attention to the fact that he pretty much tossed his parents/family under the bus with his confession).

I wish mom and dad could have been there to share in their son's enlightenment. I also wonder how many parents motivate their kids during the year with threats of being sent to summer school with all of the "stupid and poor kids."

3 comments Tags: writing, summer school, education, ghetto, stereotypes

Summer Antics Continue

Summer school week #2 has been surprisingly low key, except for the individual who felt compelled to yank his own shirt down from the neck and expose his chest to the class. Then today, I observed startled looks from table group I was assisting, and I turned to see him lifting up a table, and depositing it's contents (all of my teaching gear for the day) all over the floor. I guess he didn't realize that hefting a table to display the strength of his cannons would cause everything on the table to fall off. Not my responsibility to show him that. I teach English, not physics.


He sat out the rest of the class in the office, but I ran into him during break. He asked me ever-so-politely if he would be getting an "N" (needs improvement) for behavior on this week's report card. He felt he deserved a satisfactory rating, since he'd only been kicked out of class two out of four days. Maybe if he was a leadoff hitter for the high school, I'd accept a .500 avg., but I can't think of anything else in life where 50% gets the job done. 

1 comment Tags: teaching, summer school, education, behavior