Time Flies When You're Having... Fun?

Christmas is only a week and a half away; I can't believe how quickly this school year is flying by!  I know that it's been forever since I've last updated, but as I had said it my last post, life has been hectic.

Recently there has been a large outbreak of physical fights and assaults in our school.  Many of the fights have to do with rivaling gangs in our town and it's becoming a very serious problem.  A good friend of mine jumped in the middle of two girls to break them up and ended up getting punched directly in the face.  This was the student's second fight of the year and ended up being arrested.  The school, however, only gave her a four day suspension.  This has created a bit of an uproar with teachers.  Every student who has fought over the past 2 weeks, which is probably a total of close to 15 students, have only received a 3 or 4 day suspension.  In my eyes, that is just a slap on the wrist, and in talking with my students, they view it the same way.  My students told me that it has become very obvious to the student body that fighting in school will not result in an extremely negative consequence, so why bother waiting to go do it out on the streets in these now below freezing temperatures?  It's nice and warm inside our building, may as well just handle the business indoors.  In talking with the police officers at our school, the number of fights we've had this year thus far is a 25% increase in the number of total fights throughout all of last year.  We have also had 11 staff members physically assaulted by students in our building this year which, one police officer who has been with us for years, said that he hasn't seen a total of 11 assaults in all of the years he's been here.

It's obvious and it's frustrating that our school is beginning to get out of control.  I had a pretty lengthy conversation (well actually, it wasn't much of a conversation really, I was doing most of the talking yelling) about respect today.  The English teacher who I co-teach with was out , so I was running the show solo.  The kids instantly began giving me a hard time: they wanted to sit in different seats than their assigned ones, they wanted breaks, they kept talking.  I then just stopped and asked, "Do you guys have any respect for me?"  They all looked at me kind of puzzled.  I then asked, "If Mrs. SoAndSo were here right now, would you be acting like this?"  Blank stares.  I then explained to them that from the behavior that they were demonstrating, they were basically telling me that they didn't have any respect for me and only respected Mrs. SoAndSo.  This caused an uproar.  They couldn't believe that I would think that, they told me that they had way more respect for me than they did Mrs. SoAndSo and that all Mrs. SoAndSo does is write people up.  So I then said, "So in order to gain your respect, I have to begin writing people up?"  Again, "NOOOO MISS!!!!"  Finally I explained to them that they were making me feel as if they do not respect me as their teacher.  I explained how much I respected each of them and that I am never rude to any of them unless I have a legitimate reason to be upset with them.  I told them that the only reason why I get frustrated with them at times is because I know that they all can be successful and that I want to see them succeed.  I told them that the reason why I am always making them do their work and "bothering" them is because I care about them. At that point they all went, "Awwww!"  And one student said, "Yo, she really does care about us y'all." I felt like I had actually gotten through to them (for the time being at least) and they ended up behaving for the rest of the class and got a ton of work done.  I was really pleased with how it all went.

At one point during that same class, a student made a comment about white people and I said, "Hey!   I'm white!  Be nice!"  Then one of the funniest things I've ever had happen, happened.  They became totally confused when I had stated that I was white.  Apparently they had all thought that I was Puerto Rican or some "other color" (as they had put it), but not white!  Now if you have ever seen me in person, I am pretty much your stereotypical white girl (or so I thought), so their reactions totally caught me off guard!  One student said, "Miss Anonymous, you're the coolest white person I've ever met!"  Another student then said, "Miss, you're the only white person I like!"  I couldn't stop laughing because I couldn't believe that all this time they hadn't realized that I was white.

Alright, time to go write some IEP's and eat some dinner.  I'm exhausted.  I'll end with my New Teacher Tip of the Day: Your students will respond well when you remind them how much you care about them and want to see them succeed.  Don't be afraid to tell them that you truly care about them (even if you really don't), it makes a world of a difference.