Stories from the first two weeks

1) Monday August 16th - the kids came. By Wednesday, I was miserable. I had one girl in my geometry class who was an absolute pill. I thought about quitting. Every time I opened my mouth, she had some smart comment to make. I moved her seat. She never stopped trash talking me. We had mini conferences - she was still horrible. By Wednesday, I threatened to call her mother. She finally stopped. Thursday, she came to me with a schedule change taking her out of my class. Thank you Jesus - you truly answered a prayer. :)

2) I have an interesting student in one of my classes who insists on standing up for me when my other students are talking. I'll ask them to be quiet and he then turns around and does the annoying, extremely loud and pushed, "SSSHHHH!!!" :) I have to contain myself from laughing before I kindly thank him and then tell him that I've got it under control.

3) This past Tuesday was miserable. I have another kid in my second block class who is huge and mean. I've had mini conferences with him and moved his seat two or three times to keep him from talking. He is mean. Have I mentioned it? After second block on Tuesday, I sat at my desk and cried for a good thirty minutes. High school kids can be brutal man...brutal. I decided that I had HAD it with this kid, so after getting myself under control, I called his mother and told her (nicely) what a pill her son had been. He's been much better ever since. However, when 4th block rolled around, my face was apparently so puffy from crying that one of my students came up to me and asked me what the matter was. I told her that I had just had a bad day with a couple of my students. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, leaned in real close, and said, "Ms James, who was it? I'll take care of them, I'll go beat them up." I laughed and told her that everything was fine, it had just been a bad day. She then leaned in once more and said, "No really...I've got your back. Tell me who it was."
:)

4) My kids insist that I'm at least 28 years old if not in my 30's. I guess that means that I am acting much older and experienced then I look/feel.

5) We were doing a lab one day where the students needed to cut something with scissors. Since it's a rough class, they're not allowed to cut things by themselves - I've got to go around the room and cut everything for them. (This rule was imposed by myself). So as I was walking around, I was cutting this one girl's paper when the girl in front of her WHIPPED around and said to me, "WHAT YOU DOIN?" I said, "uh...I'm cutting her paper?" She said, "That's fine...I just don't trust people with scissors." I said, "yeah, me either but don't worry, I won't cut you." She proceeded to lean towards me and say, "That's right cause I'd cut you back (with a smile of course)." I responded with, "Hunny, I most certainly don't doubt you."
She's another one of my rough ones. :)

6) It's understood that when you enter my class, you should be prepared to put solutions up on the board and explain them thoroughly to the whole class. I asked a kid on Wednesday (of the first week so August 18th) to come up to the board to write up a solution. He refused and said he didn't feel well. I said fine, but he owed me one the next time he was in class (in case he didn't come to school because he was sick). He agreed.

You know what? He hasn't come back since. It's been 6 school days and because I've checked, I know for a fact that he has been in every other class on his schedule BUT mine. In fact, I SAW him today and said, YO BUDDY! Where ya been?! I've seen you now, so you better be in my class today. He said, Yes m'am!

You know what? He wasn't in class. The problem is that I've written him up for skipping but the administration is trying so hard to help him pass that they're not giving him ISS or anything for skipping. In fact, I can't even mark the kid absent anymore.

7)My kids have found out that I have a fiance (insert high school girlish giggle here). One day as the class was leaving, one of the kids said, "You livin with him?" I stopped right there and said, "Heck no, not until marriage." I MIGHT have mentioned something about morals...If I'm fired, it will probably be for that reason. But anywho, when I said it, I honestly heard a few gasps in the room. One of the girls came up to me and said that what I was doing was really hard and that she was proud of me.
Yep...not so hard, because I've got Jesus!

8)In the same class as mentioned above with the interesting SSSHHHH kid, I have two students who go out of their way to take care of SSHHHH boy. They talk to him, invite him to do group work with them, etc. They did something so wonderful today to SSHHH boy that it completely melted my heart so I decided to call their parents and let them know. I got on the phone with the first kid's parent (we'll call this kid julie) and told Julie's dad about how wonderful she was and how proud I was of her for making a special effort towards SSSHHH boy when hardly anyone else would even stand talking to him. Julie's dad stopped me and said, "Are you talking about my daughter?" I said, yes sir. He said, "Julie Bangledash?" I said, yep! He then replied with, "You've got to be kidding. This is absolutely wonderful news - she never does anything good. Thank you so much for telling me!" We then hung up the phone, me stunned of course.

Moral? I'm going to try and call my parents more often to tell them about how wonderful their kids are. :)

Two weeks almost done and I've survived! :)

More to continue later...