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September 16, 2009 - 6:20 p.m.

THE LEAP

Week One

Huge revelation: the packaging of the product in no way reveals or describes the content.

In one week I have developed the most miraculous patience and sincere appreciation for all my other classes.

They are angels in contrast to my other class who are THE DEVIL. (minus two unfortunately placed girls, with whom I share conspiratorial looks of disdain and sympathy)

Day 1: Myles sets off the fire alarm during our scavenger hunt. Because he can't not touch things.

Day 2: CJ horks into the middle of our icebreaker circle

Day 3: Myles and Mitchell:

Myles: He wants to draw you...

Me: oh, are you an artist Mitchell?

Myles: (under his breath) yeah, like in Titanic.

Day 4: we have the 17th talk about how you can't say 'retarded' 'fag' or use racist voices,


WEEK 2

Day 5: "I think I know how to spell my middle name... J-A-M-E-S." Proud look.

Day 6: Dennie loses it and hits Mitchell with a chair.

He swears at the class, at me and goes to the office.

I go talk to him. I know why he's upset. It's impossible, with the barrage of comments and the fact that we can't police every minute of a school day, not to be affected by this.

"I'm sorry I was mean to you"

and I know he is. I understand why he's upset. The problem is in the complete lack of awareness of how they affect eachother. They are a "wasn't me" fingerpointing bunch and see no connection between the treatment of others and the way that they are treated. They are fists up, add my two cents in EVERYWHERE and have zero self-control, scant maturity, are extremely impulsive and have very little empathy.

I am learning more this week than I did during all of last year.

Myles went down to the office for sexually harassing girls in the hallway, being spoken to about it, then laughing about it later.

C.J. has threatened Dennie, saying he will bring a knife to school.

D's mother say's 'no wonder he snapped'...

I say, no wonder we have a room full of problems, because everyone sees only their own point of view and contributes to the problem. No one is willing to break the cycle and say...
I won't engage in this.

Claire A. says that sometimes she would just make her 11s stand up and sit down, just to see how amazing it was that they a) would listen and b) could follow instructions.

Nick and I chat about how we don't know eachother well enough for him to be rude, or for me to be able to assume he's just joking.

Nick: "that's why I say 'just joking' after"

... maybe we also need to have a conversation about your rude face... which also communicates things.

Note: plan lesson on subtext, gestures and thinking about what your face looks like when you speak.

Grown ups don't say 'shut up' to eachother and make threats. They want to be treated like adults; they hate feeling like they don't have choice, aren't being respected (by eachother) and say that this place is different'. But how can it be different when THEY are the same?
How can I change things for them when they forget everything you say the second after you have had that amazing head-nodding moment.

Out in the hall with Josh, we have broke it down:
he wont work, he cannot stop talking, name calling, interrupting, he won't put pen to paper, he did this last year, it's boring, he won't do it again.

"How did you do on it last year?"
"If you've already done it then your work should be easy"

The truth comes out: "I won't pass this class anyways. I can't do this"

So much of this is thick cover for the huge insecurity and lack of self esteem these kids have and the one choice they feel that they CAN make: to disengage, sabotage and act out... to mask their belief that they couldn't do it even if they wanted to.

Astonshingly they all claim to really like the class. (Bronte likes my clothes; shoes like disco balls today).
Amazing how their behaviour can read completely differently and you can leave after 70 minutes thinking, WHAT am I doing wrong?
What happened that let these kids get to this point?
Why am I not good at this?

Then you realize the problem is so much bigger than you and that maybe it will take so so much longer than you ever thought to get to all those out of the box ideas that you thought would be the key to unlock these kids.

 

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