school vignettes

Scene: Teacher standing at the door welcoming students to class, male (usually disruptive) student comes up to talk

S: Miss, I can't do work today (holds out gloved hands)
T: Why?
S: I just can't do work today. I can't write. (holds out hands again)
T: Why?
S: (looking annoyed, glances at outstretched gloved hands) I hurt my hands yesterday when I was running away from the police and I had to climb a barbed wire fence
T: pause
S: It's all their fault. They're the ones who caught me.
T: What were you doing that made them need to chase you?
S: I don't know. But it's all their fault my hands are hurt. Want to see?
T: Not really
S: (carefully peeling off gloves to reveal ugly red gashes all over the palms and fingers) See, Miss! I can't do work today
T: Hmmm
********************
True to form, the kid did NOTHING all class. He sat in the corner desk and slept through reviews and a quiz and reading and an assignment. I'm not complaining at all about this! Class was actually relatively peaceful with this one asleep.
*********************
Later that class period another student come in as the class is taking a quiz:
S: Miss, I need work.
T: Oh, that's nice.
S: I need work cuz I'm in ISS. You need to get me work.
T: Ask nicely and then I'll help you.
S: Seriously? (laughs)
T: Yes. Be nice.
S: (still laughing, he looks around for support but everyone is silent)
T: Just ask nicely and I'll get your work.
S: Ok. Fine. Will you pah-lease get my work for me?
T: Why yes! I would love to! Thank you for saying please!!
S: (rolls eyes)
*****************
Scene: Same class. Students working. One student complains he turned in an assignment but that the computer still says he's missing it. He's sent to the graded work basket to find it. He finds what he says is his and the handwriting matches, except, someone else's name is on the paper.
I walk up to the kid whose name is on the paper and show him the back of the paper where there is writing
T: I'm trying to find the owner of this paper, is this yours?
S: No. That's not my handwriting.
T: Oh, really?! That's funny because your name is on the front (I flip the paper over)
S: Oh, I guess it is mine.
T: But your handwriting doesn't match the writing on the back. You just said it couldn't be yours.
S: Well, if my name is on it, it must be mine.
T: But your handwriting doesn't look anything like this. How can this be yours?
S: Well, I don't remember putting my name on it. You don't know that I put my name on it. You don't know that I didn't write that stuff on the back.
T: And yet, this is your name in your handwriting on the front and this is not your writing on the back. And, you just told me this wasn't yours. Why did  you steal someone else's work?
S: I didn't put my name on it. I didn't do anything wrong.
T: (sigh)
******************
One reason this particular class period was quiet was the absence of yet another usually boisterous guy. I had no idea why he'd been absent all week,  until I went to the office to complain about another very boisterous boy who was added to this class. I got to talking with the school's police officer and it turns out this student was stabbed over the weekend in an alleged gang fight in front of another student's (from this same class) house. The kid was stabbed one inch from his heart and is so lucky he didn't die right there. A man who lives in the house saw the incident and told the other bystanders to take the injured kid down the road to the hospital by bike-- as in-- the stabbed, bleeding kid climbed onto the pegs of a bike as a girl peddled him to the hospital. At some point, he was life flighted to Primary Children's. Due to riding on the back of a bike, they believe air entered his wound  and I guess that can spread through fatty tissue and cause problems. The attacker was a 7th grader whose brother lasted two whole days at school;  the brother busted some kid's nose for talking crap about him. Jr High is apparently a scary place.