Guess I'll just drop out...

Monday's are bad enough normally, but when it's a Monday when you have to give a state test to students that you don't even know, that's just asking for trouble. You would think that even a high school freshman would realize that it's a bad thing if a teacher that has never met you before knows your name less than five minutes after you walk in the door. This was the case for one of the 21 kids that came in to my room for the English I retest this morning. Somehow, me telling him once that he could not in fact leave as soon as he was done and that he would have to wait until the end of the testing session was insufficient. He asked me three times, I guess hoping the answer would change. It didn't.

Then, he tried to talk after I had officially started the testing session (after delays that already made me irritable, like a late proctor and a missing test which took about 15 minutes to get straightened out). I had to move his seat, because he couldn't figure out how not to talk with people around him.

Next, he had the complaint that his desk wasn't flat enough. Really? He wanted to sit on the floor to take his test. I was sorely tempted to say yes, on the condition that he let me put a dog collar on him. I refrained, however, and told him no. Both times he asked.

He continued to be annoying, fidgety, and potentially misadministration-y for the rest of the exam session. I was so glad to see him leave, and God help him if he ends up in one of my classes (assuming he ever makes it out of English I).


Then, there was the icing on the cake of my student interactions for the day. One of my seniors came by to ask me why he had gotten a 56 in the class. Now, this student had failed to complete his Graduation Project by the deadline, and claimed to have gotten an extension from the administrator in charge of it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt during the semester, but every time I asked if he had gotten it in, nothing. His extended deadline came and went, and meanwhile, his grade in my class continued to plummet as he stopped doing any work in class. So then, this past Monday, over a month after the extension deadline he had been given, he turned in roughly 1/4 of what he was supposed to have done. The AP and I looked at it, and determined that, due to how little there was and the low quality, coupled with how far past the deadline it was, the grade on it essentially was still a 0. This decision was partially based on it being that bad, and partially based on the fact that his grades were so low overall, any points I could reasonably give him for it wouldn't actually effect his overall grade at all.

So, I explained to him that a: his project was no where near what it needed to be, b: with how late it was, he really didn't get any credit for it and c: even if he had gotten credit for it, his grade in the class was so low, he would still fail.

His response: But, I shouldn't have been penalized for it being late! I had an extension!

Um...yes, but it was late even with that. And it sucked. And you still fail. I didn't say the last two parts, though I wanted to. I told him I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do, as he had not done anything in class for the last several weeks.

His response: It's all right. I'll just drop out.

And he walked out the door. Now mind you, I like this kid. I wanted him to pass, but I wasn't about to just *give* him a grade. My students have to *earn* their grades, and he *earned* an F. Pretty consistently. This kid, I thought, liked me, too, as we had some pretty nice conversations during class about things unrelated to school, most of which involved him trying to convince me that WoW doesn't suck. I still think it does. Anyway, he apparently said some choice words that I wish I had heard once he was out in the hallway, because two of my coworkers then came into my room asking, "Was that directed at you?"

Hate to say it to him, and I won't unless he asks, but if you're unwilling to do the work for one final semester to get your diploma, and you want people to just *give* you a passing grade so you can graduate, you're barking up the wrong tree. And that's not just with me, but with all the English teachers. Good luck getting and keeping a job with that kind of attitude...


This rambling post brought to you by: it's my birthday, and it's been a kind of shitty day, so I need to vent. Thank you for listening.