Nothing much. I mean, beyond the normal "I miss Mom" moments that can set me crying at mere first chords of certain songs (like "If I Die Young" because my sisters and I heard that song over and over and over the day before Mom died when we went on a quick school-starts-on-Monday- school clothes shopping trip) not much else is bad, except for maybe my job.
Signs I don't think I'm actually teaching 9th grade:
~ About 75% of students who don't know how to make a word plural
~ About the same percentage who can't capitalize or add end punctuation to a sentence with consistency
~ About 20 students out of 205 who can get internet access in their free time to complete homework
~ four students engaging in a marker fight during class who then laugh at me when I get upset at them for disrupting the class
~ students who constantly fold paper to make it pop all while making funny mouth noises all during a test
~ kids who run away when told to stay put so they can get extra tutoring
~ 50% of my kids who read at or below a 6th grade level
More signs I don't think I teach Jr High:
~ kids getting arrested for drug usage in the school bathrooms
~ students skipping school to go to drug parties and getting charged with possession
~ at least one student who is already a father
~ girls who have two year olds
~ students coming to school with knife pens, martial arts chains, and knives
~ girls, who as 9th graders, are already familiar with how to get an abortion and some that have had more than one
2 comments:
Sadly it doesn't get much better in adulthood for some of these kids! Here is an actual email I received from one of the Customer Service Representatives at my company this morning:
From:'KKay'
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 12:36 PM
To: 'Emily'
Subject: 1306633
Will u check on this I know we written it up Monday but it was a ig that didn’t get made cause he said he told us to go ahead do but never got done
I thought it was tough with my combined 5/6th graders who do not know how to punctuate a sentence properly, don't know spelling rules, do not know how to summarize and the list goes on...I am grateful that working in a rural farm community school has its perks...I can say with all honesty that my kids know where the calves come from and for some that is the limit of life experience. One of my favorite experiences was the first grader who was convinced that corn and other items grown were where all food came from...it did NOT come from the freezer section or in a can. He told me that I was wrong as to the process from farm to store. HANG IN THERE, YOU ARE A TEACHER WHO MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
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