Last week seemed to end as a crash and burn. Not necessarily in the content/teaching area of the classroom, but a couple other discouraging events occured. The first event didn’t invovle me personally, yet I think I learned a few things by watching the event unfold. On Thursday, my CT was chatting in the hall with a collegue. The collegue happened to mention why alternative ed students or dropouts should be set to the military. He said, and I quote, “Once an idiot, always an idiot.” My CT brought this idea into the classroom to open up the discussion. She thought it would be a good topic that the students may have an opinion on (I should preface this with the fact that this is an upper level class with juniors and seniors). I thought the conversation was appropriate and fit there age level. Well, unfortunatley this was not a great topic to bring into the class. My CT did not pick a side, but did mention what she would do if one of her kids dropped out at 16. She said she would not support him and he would be finding a job. She did mention one particular student in our systems alternative ed. class and this was done to make mention that all alternative ed students should not be out there. The problem came because his sister was in the class and she only made mention of it to point out that you cannot generalize all students.
The point of the message went home, and was misconstrued to the parents and the brother. On Friday, while we were at lunch someone place a letter on my CT’s desk. The letter was very vulgar and not at all nice. It involved profanity and many accusations which he wasn’t even there to hear. The situation has worsened because the boy’s best friend is in the class in which the conversation occured, but was absent the day of the conversation. He apparently found out and on Sunday my CT recieved an email relating how wrong she was and so on. This whole situation is a result of comments taken out of context. I mention this situation just to reflect on our role in the classroom and how the different topics we discuss and what we say on these topics can have an incredible impact on many people. I think teachers must be careful about what they say, as situations and comments can clearly be taken much further than they were meant to.
Another situation which I was directly involved in was the finding of information which I am required to report. I was preforming a weekly binder check in one of my classes and while I was going through the notes I discovered a conversation between a student in my class and somebody else. The conversation started by saying how funny she was when she was F****** high. This conversation went on to say that her pops was her supplier and he mother didn’t know about it, but it’s o.k. because her father wouldn’t tell. There was much more, but that was the basic theme. I turned the binder over to my CT who consequently had to take it to the Vice Principal. The V.P. didn’t act all that suprised or worried though. He said, but talk to her about it and then give it to the guidance counselors, it’s really all you can do. I thought this was an interesting conclusion to the whole situation. Today that conversation occured, but the student didn’t have much to say. She broke down crying. Right now I am not sure how the situation will turn out. This is interesting because it deals with many legal issues and what a teacher is obligated to do when situations such as these arise.
Anyway, this was an interesting Friday and I just thought I would share some of the lovely occurances in my building. I think these are real situations that all of us must deal with in some way or another, no matter where our placement is.
