I can only imagine what my grade 8 teacher, Mr. Cronk, would say to his wife when he got home every night from school. We had a kid called Kevin that went out of his way to be the center of attention and the bane of Cronk’s existence. Mr. Cronk did his best to spend his final year before retirement in a relaxed state of Zen but his attempts were often blown from the water in Kevin-based explosions. I know that the stories that I have accumulated in my very brief time here are out of this world and mostly unbelievable….all of which I have witnesses for.
I have one kid that is consumed daily by his vile farts that he finds unending pleasure in fanning around the classroom. He literally sits in the lotus position (or at least I think that is what you call it when the soles of your feet are together with your knees apart) rips the loudest most obnoxious farts and then revels in the reek of it in a manner closely resembling that of a treasure seeker that has found a cash of gold and madly laughs as the gold coins pour from his fingers. I suspect that he has some kind of intestinal infection based on the quantity and voracity of his flatulence. I daily have to restrain myself from telling him to go check his pants.
I have another kid that gets bullied by his very large, angry mother at home and then turns his aggression on the kids at school. He was suspended a couple of weeks ago for raising his hand as if to strike me because he did not like what I was saying. This was following his headbutting another student and drawing a nosebleed and tears. I was trying to explain acceptable classroom play behaviour when he drew his hand back. He has recently been quite good and responsive to the manner with which I approach him. He fired through a math unit that I planned and was the only student to get 100% on a difficult handout. I am pleased with the tentative progress here. He even said hello to me when I was going into my oldtimers hockey league Thursday night... which is a first since he rarely says anything to anyone in English.
Tuesday I had a fiery showdown with one of the quiet students in my class. He consistently refuses to do work, or even sit up for that matter. I probably hear 3 words out of his mouth daily since he rarely raises his head off of his desk BUT if he does I usually find him crawling under the desks of other students or standing on his desk. This refusal to do work came to a head the other day when I put my foot down: if he was too tired to do any work in computer class; he was too tired to go to gym. Strangely, when it was time for gym most days he would lift his head off of his desk and go run around with the other kids. He would often fire off three or four math questions to appease me in my work requirements. He sat out of gym once before for lack of work issues. The only stipulation he had to meet was the completion of one basic addition math sheet and as soon as he was done he could go to gym but he refused. Tuesday, I gave him the choice again: complete work and go to gym or do nothing and no gym. He chose not to complete even half of the assignment and he was kept behind while the other kids went to gym. I decided to spend my prep sitting with the two boys that did not complete the assignment sitting in the office. One boy went willingly and the boy in question threw a stark raving fit outside of the office. His mother works at the school and she was called so that the situation could be explained to her. She agreed with my decision but he refused to cooperate with her so she called her husband at home to come and get the child. At this point the tears got bigger and he began to thrash around. Due to the nature of the community, his dad walked across the street and was at the school in about four minutes. After a prolonged bout of screaming and crying the dad had to carry the child out from under a desk in my classroom. As an aside, the other kid sat quietly in the office and ate candy that the secretary kept sneaking to him so clearly I am not the meanest person in the world.
That being said there are some very rewarding moments in the classroom. Today, my roommate threw a going away party for one of the kids in her class. His mother chose poorly when she hooked up with her latest boyfriend and ended up subjecting her family to terrorization and physical abuse. While he is fortunately stuck in Iqaluit seeking medical treatment for a work injury she and her children are moving away, which is great news for the children. When he walked into the classroom this morning to cheers of “surprise!!” he began to cry happy tears. I guess no one has ever done anything like that for him; shown him that they care. This kid will leave knowing that he was a cherished part of the class and hopefully keep a positive view school. I also had some great – but not nearly as touching – moments in my classroom today. My kids understood and jumped into the math that I recently introduced. This Monday past I brought in the concept of the addition of numbers that have decimals. This was roughly received with outright protest - "TOO HARD!!!" is one of their favourite sayings - BUT today everyone worked well and understood the math. Building on some great social studies and language classes it was a great end to a wonderful day.
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