Juniors

I’m so very badly behind on all of this. I always have the best intentions about edublogging during the school year, but it seems like they always collapse. My mental energy just gets all used up!

My juniors are tough – real tough. There are some really good kids in there. But, see, at CHS we have academies – specialized in-school mini-schools where students with specific interests can tailor their classes. All the kids who think they might want to be teachers are in a teaching academy. All the kids who think they might want to go into medical fields are in a medical academy. All the kids who are interested in technology are in a tech academy. So all of the juniors and seniors who have any sort of plan, goal, or intrinsic motivation have already split off into more specialized English classes, leaving me with… well, my junior class. A handful of great kids who want to learn, buffered by a thick wall of kids who want to sleep, goof off, disrupt, drop out, and otherwise drive me crazy.

I had a bad day a few weeks ago. I’d been warned that one of my students was going to be a challenge, and he was. Things blew up when he confronted me and tried to fight with me, in the library, in front of the class. I had to send him out of the room without a referral slip or anything – and while I didn’t feel physically threatened or anything, my fight-or-flight reflexes were definitely jumping into high gear. I’d never been treated like that by a student. It really made me quite nostalgic for my shorter kids.

Then he came back a week later, and was a much better kid. May have had something to do with having a bad cold. But I’ll take it.

And then they transferred his cousin into that class. His cousin is the sort of kid I’d like to like. He’s the sort of kid I’d like to save. He’s (apparently) got the worst case of unmedicated ADHD I’ve ever seen. Remember the kid last year who made monkey noises and threw himself out of his chair all the time? Well, at least that was kind of cute. This kid CANNOT SHUT HIS MOUTH. During silent reading, he’s talking. During my lessons, he’s talking. He’s out of his seat, bugging other kids, taking things off peoples’ desks – including mine – running his mouth, making inappropriate drug references. It’s to the point where I begin to suspect that he’s long since passed the ADHD line and is now firmly in the category of “seeing what I can get away with because I have an IEP.” I hate to say it, but if you saw this kid, you’d say it, too.

So Noisy Boy is transferred into my junior class, which is over-full, and stuffed with disruptive, noisy kids. His accommodations include minimizing auditory distractions and giving him constant attention. I can’t do it. There is no place and no time in that particular class when I can cut down auditory distractions. I can’t give him constant attention, because I’m so busy trying to keep the rest of the class from mutiny.

And he’s cousins with Challenging Boy, and ever since he transferred into my class, it’s recess time at the family reunion.

Gah.

Okay, I have to go put on my big girl shoes and go to school now. I’m working with IT to get access to WordPress again – I think I’ve convinced them that it’s a valid form of professional development. They granted me access two days ago, but yesterday it was gone again. We’ll see. Hopefully I can start posting more regularly again, and get caught up on everything that has been going on in the first month of school.