Small Improvements

Remember the student that just stared at me when I offered him paper to take notes on? (http://umk12tfs.blogspot.com/2008/10/imperfect-interactions.html) Well, last week things were different with him. I said hi to him on the way into the classroom, as I often do, and he acknowledged me this time. Then when it came to the work period, he went up, grabbed the worksheet, went back to his desk, and before he could begin copying from his neighbor like he usually does, I sat down in front of him and offered some help. He actually accepted and we started going through the algebra homework. I gave him more help than I do with other students (I usually make them struggle a bit if they want my help.), but overall I was happy that he knew what to do about half the time. We were productive for a good 20 minutes. I imagine it helped that I had become familiar to him over the course of the last few months, but primarily, as Mr. Tuttle agreed, this student was just in a good mood that day. Whatever the reasons, it was heartening to see that even the most troubled students can shine on any given day.

Later that day, in 6th hour, I had a different experience. During lecture, several students were yelling across the classroom and being very disrespectful. Mr. Tuttle stopped class twice to give them a talking to, and I kept walking around putting out the smaller fires. By the beginning of the work period, I was about to tear my hair out in frustration, but I kept it together and sat with the most distruptive students. After a few minutes of trying to get them to do their work, I could feel my frustation level growing again. Then, one student pointed to my shoes and said, "Those are old man shoes!" This got a little chuckle from the others, and I was about to say something very adult-like back to him, when changed my mind and said, "Well, you've got little boy shoes on." This loosened things up a bit and we got to talking about being old versus young and how I'm still in school even at 29 years old. I told him that I'm still in school, because I'm scared of the outside world. He asked, "Are you scared of being on the streets?" I explained that I was scared of being stuck in a dead end job, that I worked for a while and it was boring. He couldn't understand how school could be better than a job, since you get paid in a job. Luckily, one of his friends backed me up and said, "Man, I've worked and it sucked. It's the same thing every day. Even if school is boring, at least it's different every day." Not surprisingly, the other student stuck to his initial assertion that any job is better than school, even after I explained how you can make more money and get a better job with more schooling. In the end, I only got 2 minutes of actual math homework out of this student, but at least we made him think about taking school seriously. Who knows, maybe he'll slowly change his mind someday...