Kids with Tude and the Parents that Love Them

What a week. My fourth period class pushed me to the edge on Thursday. Out of 14 assigned speeches, 2 of my kids were prepared. I have never yelled at students the way I yelled at my class yesterday. I went into immediate Jewish mother, give em' guilt mode. I told them it's one thing to disrespect me by not being prepared and honoring the expectations of the class; but it's far worse to disrespect yourself and your peers. I told them that if they didn't care if they failed, if they hated the class, then they should go talk with their counselors. I threatened the dreaded parent phone calls and deducted ten points from each of their speeches when they finally gave them today.

Some of you may wonder why it was such a big deal. It's a big deal because this is their final. For some reason many teens think they get to decide when, what and how much of the school work assigned they will do. I drew the line BIG yesterday. At our high school, there are basic competencies that must be passed in order to pass the quarter (we are on the quarter system). This speech is one of the competencies. They are lucky I truly care about their success, for many teachers would say, "you fail the final, you weren't prepared".

Today, Friday, I walked into the class doing my best to smile. The kids were prepared, but still a bit rowled up. They find it necessary to talk inbetween each speech which wastes time and distracts the upcoming speaker. Today when one student wouldn't stop talking, I told him to be quiet already. He replied, "Gosh, CALM DOWN!" Can you imagine what my reaction was??

I was LIVID, I immediately sent him out of class. Went to talk with him five minutes later. Told him I didn't understand his attitude and defiance lately, told him I like him, he's a cool kid. His response: I wasn't defiant, I just told you to calm down. DO THESE KIDS HAVE ANY COMMON SENSE? In the end, this student got a VP Referral from me. He could have avoided it, but instead he chose to tell me to send him to the VP when I told him most teachers would not deal with this and would give him a referral, his response to that was, "Fine, send me up there!". And so it was.

Actually, I know for a fact that this student has common sense. His father has called me in the past to check on his attitude "problem". I also met his father, a great man, parapalegic who gave up custody of his son to his son's grandmother because the kid's mom was on drugs and with the father being a parapalegic, he was afraid the mother would fight that he was not fit to father his son. So this caring father, gave up parental rights in order to protect his son. That's true love.

I called the student's father to tell him what happened. All I can say is I know this student will not have me on his "teacher of the year" list. His father was pissed off (to put it lightly), but very thankful that I called. He also asked me to call on Monday if his son does not apologize to me on his own accord.

Sometimes parents can be overly involved and a pain; but in this case, I am grateful there are caring and supportive parents out there.

(to be continued)