Wide awake at 3:00 a.m., that is...Another day of weirdness and hostility from adolescents. Not that that is all that unique to my situation, just that it is occasionally wearing. We have two students on in-school suspension, one more that is returning from a multi-day suspension of his own, presumably having learned nothing from the event, and two others who are in some sort of nether world that puts them close to suspension. Someone apparently felt the need to burn one in the girls' bathroom, and someone got kicked off of the girls' basketball team. We will be in the third testing event in the third week in a row in a few hours, and we got an e-mail informing us that next week, there will be yet another test to which we must subject our not-too-willing subjects. All that, and it is only Wednesday. My never-that-sunny nature has been darkening in the last couple of days. I kept hearing that kids were asking where I was last week, as if they missed me. I wonder if some of them simply missed their favorite punching bag.
Of course, I know that this is unduly pessimistic. It has been an off week in some precincts of the high school as well, and there are positive stories to tell in the junior high. I have a couple of kids who I believe that I may be able to get through into high school reading in the next couple of weeks, and the kids that have liked me in the past still do. I just am having a hard time dealing with the snotty attitudes, the books pushed onto the floor, and the deliberate defiance. I know that water is stronger than rock, but I do not know whether I have the patience of water. I think that I am going to have to find it from somewhere. I know that I will have to. Maybe it is under a rock.
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