Homework Capers, Dumbells and Salmon Maki

I have a student who has proven himself to be so untrustworthy and malicious, that even when I allow him to take a drink at the fountain outside of my classroom, I open the door and watch while he drinks. If I didn't do this, he'd be down in the boys' room, terrorizing other kids faster than I could say "inhouse suspension."

I have another student who is one of the most pleasant, hardworking, delightful students I have ever had in my entire career. She regularly comes to see me in the morning to make sure her homework is done correctly or to ask me about a questions she didn't understand the night before. She would never even think of coming to class unprepared or without every single question answered to the best of her ability. She is one of the only kids in the sea of apathetic faces who actually seems, not only to be listening, but to actually care about what I'm saying.

Anyway, the first kid often intimidates the girl. He picks on her for being a good student or for the fact that the teachers like and praise her.

Today, a colleague found the boy at the main office photocopy machine. She asked who had sent him to make copies, knowing full well that nobody in their right mind would send this kid on office errands. He balked and didn't have an answer, even as he was shoving the paper into his pocket. My colleague demanded to see the paper, and within seconds of looking it over, realized that it was, indeed, the gir's homework, perfectly done, of course. He had procured her homework and was photocopying it MULTIPLE TIMES, presumably to provide himself and his buddies with her work to copy.

My colleague took all of the papers, including the original paper which belonged to the girl, and said that she was going to hand them all over to the science teacher, whose assignment it was.

This all happened quite late in the day and the kids had to hussle out for the busses. Follow through was not really possible.

I was in my room at around 35 minutes following dismissal and the girl came to my door. She asked if we could talk. Her opening line was, "I've done something really, really bad. I gave my homeowrk to ______." I felt really badlly for her. She did something wrong, that's for sure. But it is probably the first time in her life that she didn't operate completely above board.

We had a long talk about how that boy does not respect her and that he was using and bullying her.

Then, the kicker was that the girl told me that during science class, while she was with the teacher having her essay reviewed, another female classmate asked to be excused to the restroom. The teacher allowed it, but as the girl walked by, she grabbed the paper of the first girl from the student's desk and took it to photocopy it. The girl said that she was afriad to call the teacher's attention to it because she does not want the other kids to turn on her.

I told the girl not to worry, that she should just talk to the science teacher tomorrow, first thing, and that he'll understand. He is a really nice guy.

But I could tell this poor kid was almost physically sick over it and probably won't be able to sleep tonight.

I really felt so sorry to see her so upset when you know that the jerks who stole her work don't even think twice about it.

I explained to her that these kids are not her friends, they do not respect her and they are looking for instant gratification.

Jesus, I would not want to be a teenager again.



I took a strength training class after the gym today and I don't know if I should have. My back is acting up a little now. I'm relegated to another night of sleeping on the floor with the heating bad.



But to console myself for my busted back pain, I did stop at the supermarket and pick up a tray of fresh salmon maki. Delish!