Proteges

Today's (Tuesday) been a mixed bag. I obviously didn't get much sleep last night (as anyone who read the previous post would understand), and there were some really rough spots at school today, but a few decent things happened.

First and foremost, I gave Huntington my two weeks' notice today. I told them that the stress of it plus teaching was just too much, especially as they start to heap more and more responsibilities on me at Accotink. It's not that I mind the extra stuff with Accotink; far from it, I rather enjoy what I'm doing there and see the extra responsibility as a challenge and an exciting test of my abilities as a teacher. But it's tough to do all that and do the tutoring with Huntington.

The situation with the English class that was split between myself and the English teacher came to a head this morning. We had the Dean come down and speak with my half of the class about why we'd split the class up. The kids felt they were being singled out and punished for being bright or on a more advanced reading level, which wasn't our intention. The three kids were very vehement in their displeasure at being separated, and really refused to even try this new setup. When the Dean left our little class, nothing had really been resolved. Logic and common sense were not doing the job, so I tried a different approach: I expressed my own feelings about the situation. I told them that it seemed to me that they didn't think I was good enough to be their teacher, and that this hurt my feelings considerably. I told them that they hadn't even given me a chance to try to work with them, that they'd been so against the whole situation that they'd never even seen that I was trying to present them with material that they might find interesting, challenging, and worth their while. One boy in particular, the most outspoken of the group, sat there for a second, then said in a very subdued voice that he was sorry and wanted to actually give me a chance. So we made a deal: they're going to try to work with me for the rest of this week, to give it their honest best shot. If they still aren't happy with the arrangement at the end of the week, I'll go with them to my boss and we'll discuss putting them back in the classroom with the other kids. We then shook on the deal and he sat down and paid close attention to everything else I said and did for the rest of class.

Ultimately, I think I stand a good chance of reaching them now. I've got some interesting ideas already lined up for them for the rest of the week. We flipped through their English book and found an excerpt from a Tolstoy story that interested them, so we're going to read that tomorrow (they were downright fascinated by my description of Anna Karenina, proving once and for all just how good of a liar I am...though I think mentioning that the title character throws herself under a train at the end of the book was probably what piqued their interest). All in all, I'm very positive about what we can get accomplished in there. Time will tell, I'm sure.

The same kid is also in a couple of the other classes I work with, and during Journalism this afternoon he and I struck up another bargain: we're going to write a couple of songs together. He had a few poems that he wanted to try to set to music, and I told him I'd work on some guitar for them. He was really behaving well for a long period of time today: from the end of second period up through club time after school, which I'm sure must be a record for the guy. He's honestly a good kid; he's very charming and funny and smart as hell. His only problem is that he has no filter; if he thinks something is stupid or pointless, he says so. Loudly. Repeatedly. His self control in those instances is almost non-existant, and so he ends up getting in a lot of trouble because of it.

Another deal we made (hey, we spend a lot of time in close quarters, and this one followed closely on the heels of the deciding to write a few songs together) was that I'm going to try to teach him to play guitar. Admittedly, my own skills are so rudimentary that this may not work. I'm not sure I can teach someone else to play. But we want to actually try to create a music club of some sort, get some like-minded students and teachers together, and maybe put together a school band. It'd be a neat project, if nothing else.

The week is going to be long, yet paradoxially there are not nearly enough hours in each day. The number of things I need to get accomplished in the next few days is absurd. The nice thing is that this weekend is a big payday: Accotink and Huntington. Education Connections should follow close behind. I just have to make it to Friday.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Flaming Lips, "This Here Giraffe"