Kids These Days

Well, I've survived the first 4 days of summer school. The English 11 is class going well, though their writing and analytical skills are quite poor. My English 8 has been a challenge. They're really challenging my classroom managements skills. I had forgotten how much micro management is needed when they're this young and immature. Immaturity I can handle but things took a somewhat dangerous turn today.

Yesterday, I noticed one student making a gesture to a friend of his and mouthing, "I'm going to punch him in the face." He and I had a chat outside and I told him that he better not be thinking of having a fight after school, otherwise he would be expelled and be in serious trouble. He was adamant that he was just joking and nothing was planned. Well, guess what happened? He and another student in the class got into a fight. Fun. I got to sit in on the meeting with the two vice principals. Upon further investigation, we discovered that they had a fight two days before at the bus stop. Guess what it was over? A pair of broken headphones. That's right. Broken headphones. While we were all in the office, I told them what happened in class regarding the punching comment. I also threw in that boy #2 had been using derogatory language in class. We were working on sentence patterns and for his gerund, he wrote "Je.wing people is bad." Seriously? I had to control my anger and challenged him in his thinking. He was visibly uncomfortable (good) and feigned ignorance (yah right). Anyway, during the fight, he called student #1 a "dirty Mex.ican.". My God! What is wrong with kids? Well, despite my recommendation that both students be expelled from summer school, one of the vice principals decided to give them both one last chance.

Truly and honestly I hoped these boys would take this chance seriously. Almost immediately boy #2 started acting out. About 35mins into the class, he commently loudly and clearly to a different boy, "_____ you're dead." Hearing this, I sent boy #2 outside and told him to go to the office. He begged and he pleaded but I didn't relent. I should have escorted him to the summer school office but I didn't. Instead, he thought he would try to outsmart me and he headed to the regular office where the administrators are winding down from the 2011-2012 school year and had no clue what had just occurred the day before. So when #2 returned, boy #1 called me aside and stated that he had heard that #2 was carrying a knife and had planned to cut him. Another student verified this information as well. Really a knife?! I pulled out my phone and called the principal informing him that I have reports of a knife in my class. Moments later, two principals were at my door and student #2 was removed. They found the knife hidden in his shoe.

Why? Why did he do it? Was he scared? Was he trying to be intimidating? A kid doesn't bring a knife to school just because. I know that boy #1 has more to do with all this than we know. He's still on my radar. Here's hoping he learned something from all this and makes it through these next 15 days. Let's hope I make it through the next 15 days!