Dealing with Strange Stories on Day 22...

I have a student whose primary diagnosis is a specific learning disability (SLD), however I think there is a bit more going on inside of that head of hers than what meets the eye.  She seems to regularly tell stories inside of her head, forget that she hasn't been talking aloud, and then finish her story by telling it to me directly.  For example, the other day as I was showing her where the main office was, she says to me, "... and then my cat will eat it."  Another time, while in class, she approached me and said, "... and she used to let my cousins and I sit on her lap."  At first, I would respond with, "Wait... what?" and then just look at her while she stared at me blankly with a smile on her face.  I've now learned to just roll with it and respond by saying "Oh really?  That's nice."  So far it's worked like a charm.

However, the other night I received a call from her mother.  Here is how the conversation went:

*RING*RING*RING*
Me: Hello?
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Hi.
Me: Umm... hi, who is this?
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: *mumble*mumble*mumble*
Me: I'm sorry, I can't hear you.  Who is this again?
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Miss Anonymous?  Miss Anonymous???  This is StrangeStoryTeller's Mother.
Me: Ohhh... I'm sorry!  Hi StrangeStoryTeller's Mother!
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Hi.
Me: Umm... how are you?
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Why did you call me?
Me: I'm sorry?  I... uhh... I didn't call you.
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Yes you did.
Me:  Umm... did you have a missed call from the high school?
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother:  No, you just called me and left me a message saying that my daughter wanted you to call me.
Me: Umm... uhh... Did you just get a message from me?
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Yeah, I just missed your call a few minutes ago.  I'm confused as to why you're calling me.
Me: Yes... well... umm... I'm confused too because I haven't used my phone at all since getting home from work today.  I think I may have called you about 3 weeks ago because StrangeStoryTeller had said you wanted to talk to me, but I didn't just call you now.
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother: Uhhh... oh.  Ok.  Sorry.  Bye.
Me: *Nervous Giggle* It's alright, is there anything that is concerning you?  StrangeStoryTeller is doing really well in her classes so far!
StrangeStoryTeller's Mother:  No, thanks, bye.
Me: Oh... ok... have a good night...


I think it's pretty apparent, through that conversation alone, that the saying "Like mother, like daughter" holds very true in this situation.  It was such a bizarre and awkward conversation, I really didn't know what to do with it.  So here's your New Teacher Tip of the Day:  Be prepared!!!  If you think your students can be strange, just wait until you meet their parents!

Ripping Out My Hair On Day 20

KidWhoHatesWriting seems to be back to his old ways, and they are exhausting.  Today he refused to do his math and vocabulary quizzes and then said, "Shut up you faggot!" to another student.  Now before I go on, let me explain to you how much I HATE that word.

I have developed, what I like to call, "bombs"; my students know what they are and know not to use them around me.  The two most common "bombs" are the R-Bomb and the G-Bomb: the R-Bomb being retard and the G-Bomb being gay.  I hate having to hear students call each other "retarded" or "gay", so whenever I hear it I yell out, "WHOAAA!!! WATCH IT WITH THE [R or G] BOMB!!"  I then explain to them how insensitive and disrespectful those terms are and, not to mention, how they really do not make any sense within the context that they are being used.  All of my students, both last year and this year, have responded really well to it and I've even heard them saying to each other, "Dude, Miss Anonymous is in here, you can't say the G-Bomb around her!"  So, since I hate the words "retard" and "gay", you can only imagine how much I hate the word "faggot".

So as soon as I heard KidWhoHatesWriting say it, I instantly sailed into him.  (I threw that in for you, Dad!)  I told him to never use that word in front of me, how it is extremely disrespectful and degrading, and that he needed to return to his seat and control himself.  This made him angry, so he refused to do any of his classwork for the rest of the period.  Once the bell rang, he got up, left all of his papers on his desk and started to head for the door.  As he passed me I said, "KidWhoHatesWriting, make sure you take your classwork with you."  He ignored me and continued past me.  I then repeated myself, only a little louder, and then watched him ignore me even further and walk out of the classroom.  Now what he probably forgot was the fact that I am in the next class with him, so as he walked out of the door thinking that by ignoring me and pretending not to have heard me, he was getting away with completely disrespecting me, I knew we were going to have to have a further conversation.

At this point, I was extremely frustrated, but I knew I had to take a few deep breaths to calm myself down before confronting him in our next class.  I took my time walking to the next class to allow myself to gather my thoughts and clear my head.  So after entering the classroom, I let KidWhoHatesWriting know that because of the offensive language he had used and because he had blatantly disrespected me by ignoring me while leaving the room, he was going to have to serve a detention with me this week.  I told him that because I don't know what his schedule is like outside of school, I would give him the option to choose which day would work best for him.  His response was, "I'm not choosing a day because I'm not staying for your detention."  I then responded with, "Well, then I'll just go give your mother a call right now to discuss it with her."  And that is exactly what I did.  She informed me that she would talk to him as well as his father and to let him know that not serving a detention was not an option.  His father then called me around 6:30 this evening to get the full story as well.  So my hopes are that if KidWhoHatesWriting, hears our concerns both in and out of school, he will get his act together sooner rather than later.

Soooo this brings me to my New Teacher Tip of the Day:  Buy a wig to disguise your bald head, because  you are bound to pull out every last strand of your hair.

Not Giving Up Hope on Day 19!

I got KidWhoHatesWriting to write today!!  It wasn't much, but the the point is that he WROTE!!! I have no idea if I'll ever get him to do it again, but at least now I know that there is definitely some hope for him!

New Teacher Tip of the Day:  Don't ever give up hope!!!

Crazy Cat Lady Coworkers... Day 18.

I am about to share with you an email that I received today:

"Hey everybody,

I will be calling out on Tues., Oct. 12th. My boyfriend and I need to take his cat in for treatment for her hyperactive thyroid. Depending on how long it takes, I may or may not be in for the rest of the day. Just a heads up. The info about the appointment is attached. It's kind of interesting - she's going to be radioactive!

Thanks,
CrazyCatLady (I've officially named her this)

P.S. My boyfriend doesn't have a car, and his cat doesn't do well in cars in the first place. His cat is 13 years old and his baby, so he is kind of freaking out (and he doesn't do well in crises). And we live in [a town an hour away]. Just more of an explanation. :)"


She then included attachments from her vet detailing what her boyfriend's cat will be going through.

New Teacher Tip of the Day#1: It's a called a personal day for a reason... keep it that way.

New Teacher Tip of the Day #2: You will have crazy coworkers.  Find another coworker to laugh with, it's the only way to keep your sanity.

Some Students Will Never Learn... Day 17.

As a first year teacher, there is a chance that you may be thrown into a situation that you are absolutely 100% not prepared for; there will be no amount of schooling, at that very moment, that will help you in the decision that you face.  I was "lucky enough" to be put into one of those situations last year when I had to make the decision as to whether or not I wanted to have a student arrested.  This particular student, who had eaten lunch with me on many occasions and I thought I had a pretty good relationship with, ended up stealing my iPod touch, my sunglasses, and the measly $3.00 I had in my wallet.  I'm assuming you are now wondering, "How did she got caught?"  Well, calm down, and let me tell you... about 2 weeks after my things had gone missing and I had filed a report with the police officer at school, Captain Klepto came into my office and asked if she could charge her iPod on one of our computers while she went to class, I told her she could and she left.  That's when I noticed that she was no longer using an iPod Nano and was now using an iPod Touch.  Interesting. So I went over, looked at the back of the iPod, and was pleasantly surprised to see my original engraving still intact.  I then brought it to the police officer and he went and tracked her down.  About an hour later, the officer asked me to leave my class and I was faced with the decision: Do I want this student arrested or do I want her to receive a warning?  After having an internal battle inside my head as to what to do for about 30 seconds, I decided to have the student arrested in the hopes that this would teach her a very serious lesson: that her actions would directly effect her life and how she is viewed by others.

Now let's fast forward to today.  Today, Captain Klepto was arrested for stealing over $1,000.00 worth of equipment from the gym at school; it had all been caught on camera. Moral of this story?  Some students will NEVER learn.  Ugh.

Alright, moving on.  Today I was in a Science class at the end of the day.  Just as the bell rang at 2:05 and all of the students were exiting the classroom, one student, who had previously been making fun of one of my special education students for the back brace that she has to wear, grabbed the handle to the emergency shower, turned it on, and completely soaked another student as well as the majority of the floor in our classroom before she ran laughing hysterically from the room.  The science teacher I work with chased after her while I was left behind to clean up the mess.

So this brings me to my New Teacher Tip of the Day:  You are going to meet students who are definitely going to go straight to hell when they die.  The only upside to these students is that you get some great stories out of them.

Dealing With A Kid I Can't Stand On Day 14.

I have a student who, no matter what I try with him, refuses to do any assignment that involves writing.  It's not that he is incapable of doing it, he just has absolutely no interest in putting forth any effort.  He is also extremely disruptive and when I say something like, "KidWhoHatesWriting, please stop talking, everyone needs to be paying attention."  He'll say, "I wasn't talking."  Even though I clearly just saw him talking to one of his buddies.  He is also the kid who is constantly making rude comments under his breath after you have asked him to get back on task.  No matter how hard I try, I cannot get myself to like this kid, and I feel really bad about it!  I have been trying my HARDEST to like this kid, but I just CAN'T!

So here is my New Teacher Tip of the Day:  You are not going to like all of your students.  It is just a fact of life, you can't like everyone.  But, for the sake of the student you can't stand, pretend that you do like them.  This will be an extremely difficult task, but trust me, it will make your life easier in the long run.  If a student knows that you do not like them, they will lose any sliver of respect they ever had for you.  However, if they think that you like them, they are more likely to respect your wishes; definitely not 100% of the time, but at least 60%!

Day 13 AKA The Longest Day of Our Career...

Tonight was open house and out of my caseload of 14 students, only 2 parents showed up; pretty much the same turn out as last year.  I explained to them my role as case manager in their students' lives, what our resource room is used for, and how awesome I am.  And I mean, let's be honest here, I am pretty awesome, so it only makes sense that I make my students' parents aware of this as well.  So anyways, I wasn't very surprised in regards to how few of my parents attended open house.  Generally, it is a very sad trend that I see: I co-teach in all low level classes where, unfortunately, there is very little parent involvement.  I have found that the struggling student whose parents you feel really need to be involved are usually the ones who are the most difficult to get in contact with.  Once I decide to go back to school to get my doctorate degree (which I would really do mostly for bragging rights and to demand that everyone calls me Doctor) I would research the effect that parent involvement has on student academic success.  From my experience thus far, it truly does have a huge impact.

So with that being said, here is my New Teacher Tip of the Day for you: Do not become discouraged when a parent shows little interest in their child's education.  Instead, let it empower you!  You may be the influential person that this child needs in their life.  It will become your job to motivate the student to not only become actively involved in his or her education, but to also realize the importance of education.  If they are not receiving the support at home, then you have to be the one to fill that role.