Idiots of Society

After seven years of teaching (God has it been that long?), I have come across all kinds of students with myriad personalities. You think I've seen it all; but in comparison to teachers who have taught for over twenty years, I think I've only seen the tip of the iceberg. In my short teaching stint, I have come across three distinct types of students that I cannot tolerate:

A) The Apathetic-Lazy Student: this student just doesn't give a shit about anything. They don't have passion for anything, so they don't care about anything. Since they don't care about anything, they won't do work. Teachers ask themselves: why do you even come to school? I can generally tolerate this type of student because they have a tendency to sleep through class. They waste their time by coming to school but do nothing, so I'm not going to waste my time by encouraging them to work. They're usually not a behavioral problem. Why fix something that isn't broke, right?

B) The Genius-Lazy Student: this student is smart and intelligent and talented, but they choose when to do work. They think their intelligence is natural that it does not need to be nurtured rigorously. Deadlines and assignments are optional to them because they think they're above such tedious things that were meant for "regular" kids. They will do work only if they feel their grade is slipping. I hope their intelligence fades like an atrophied muscle, or that their intelligence remains stagnant as they proceed through college, because then they'll compete with students who DID learn and then they'll realize they're not really geniuses.

C) The Irrational Hypocrite Student: this student is immature when it comes to arguing or defending an idea. First of all, they come up with opinions based mostly on their own observations, so they have a narrow perspective on everything. And when I try to get them to open up their mind or make them see a flaw in their argument, they don't like to be proven wrong, so they'll make up some rule that only applies to them (because it proves them right), but the teacher is always wrong (because the rule doesn't apply to grown ups).

Although I cannot tolerate any of these types of students, I have acquired enough patience to put up with them. Two things can happen to the Apathetic-Lazy Student: 1) the student will eventually leave high school and slip through the cracks of society. They'll leech off their parents and become useless couch potatoes; or 2) some of these students are late bloomers, and eventually, they'll find something to be passionate about to get them moving on with their lives.

The Genius-Lazy Student will eventually discover that they're not as smart as they thought and they'll start taking college more seriously. They'll regret that they should have done more to be as competitive as a college freshman, and they'll realize they were idiots after all. On the other hand, a rare few actually become psychopaths.

Then there is the Irrational Hypocrite Student. I despise this student the most. I hate narrow-mindedness, I hate hypocrisy, I hate immaturity, and I hate irrationality. Immaturity can be fixed with age, but narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy can't. Those two things can only be fixed with experience and education. But to the Irrational Hypocrite Student, education is only learning how to read, not learning to understand the world. Experience is limited to what the student only wants to know, not what the world can offer. The Irrational Hypocrite Student will not take the time to see what teachers or other students can offer; they only know their ideas and their opinions and everyone else is wrong. And when they can't win an argument, they'll resort to cop-out statements, like "That's just you" or "That's how I am."

The Irrational Hypocrite Students are the ones that go out into the world thinking they're smart; in reality, they are the true idiots. The rest of American society can only hope that they won't mess with the gene pool. Ignorance breeds ignorance.

The Stripper In Me

Yesterday afternoon, a student came to ask for help on the research assignment I had given. We had a half-hour conversation to discuss her ideas and how to organize them when, all of a sudden, my cell phone blared its ring tone while receiving a call. As the phone sang to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me," my student's eyes widened and she began to laugh.

"What?" I asked.

"You like that song?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"That's a stripper song--" she began. My jaw dropped, but she quickly recovered: "No, I like that song, too!"

"Stripper song?" I gasped with shock. "Nuh-uh. What do you mean a stripper song?"

"I watched them on VH-1, and they said that they wrote that song for strippers. It's their 'stripper anthem.' Seriously! That's what they said."

"I wasn't thinking of strippers when I downloaded this song. I just like the song; it's good rock music."

"I know," she said defensively with a laugh. "I mean, I like it too."

"I was twelve when I discovered their music. The last thing on my mind at twelve years old would be strippers."

"Come on... You're an English teacher. Didn't you read the lyrics?" She proceeds to sing a few words to ruin my innocent interpretation of the song: "Do you take sugar? One lump or two?"

"Stop!" I cover my ears. "A stripper song?" I said with disappointment, and then sighed. "My gosh... how many of my friends--especially guys--have heard this song ringing from my phone and probably thinking I'm a kinky girl? Damn it."

I changed the ring tone already.

Are You Kidding Me?

A prospective student who enrolled in my AP class emailed me, asking for clarification on a section of the assignment. Her email was littered with, what I call, "text message spelling"--the atrocious abbreviated spelling for very simple words. She did not bother to check her other spelling and her punctuation either. Did she text me from her phone?

I simply replied to her email with the answer, and then added that academic emails should reflect the work I am expecting her to do.

I am nipping that dirty little habit in the bud on the first day of school. Somewhere in my eleven page syllabus, I know I covered that rule about "text message spelling."

Educational Experts

You've heard the phrase: "everyone's a critic." Well, when it comes to education, everyone is an expert.

In my six years teaching, I have attended quite a few professional development conferences--most of them trying to promote some new method of teaching or a new product to be tried in the classroom. Everyone wants to market to the schools and these "experts" have the panacea that will correct all the wrongs of educational mishaps.

In this recent training, professional teachers are looking over the California Frameworks, a document on what to teach at each grade level. As I look at certain reading standards and benchmarks at each grade level, it surprises me--as well as other teachers--that some skills are just not taught enough, and some just slowly fade as the grade levels go by. Teachers were appalled at what we discovered. We've been using this book for nearly a decade, but none of us actually traced a skill from the second grade. Admittedly, I only look at skills I have to teach at tenth and eleventh grade; but now I see what is missing or inconsistent in the previous nine years of education before a student comes to me.

This is a document put together by "educational experts" who want sixth graders to apply abstract interpretation in poetry and discern an author's intent in writing emotionally charged verses. If you don't know what that is, don't worry: I can't even get my sophomores to think abstractly. And these experts think that sixth graders can?

This is a document put together by "educational experts" who want sophomores to write a timed-essay within an hour, yet the skill of handwriting is lost by fourth grade. Hardly anyone teaches the physical act of writing, nor do they encourage the practice of it beyond fourth grade. And these experts wonder why so many students score so poorly on the essay portion of the High School Exit Exam and college placement exams for composition classes, two tests which require students to write an essay on-demand without a computer.

There are flaws in this document, and now I question the California Frameworks.

Yet at this training, we were forced to give positive testimonials to this federal document about why they work for us. That was difficult for me now that I saw the shortcomings of this educational manifesto. Reluctantly, I blurted out some optimistic statement about teaching forward and focusing my lessons for the future (and not looking at the ugly mess in a student's blotchy educational history).

Affirmation statements are so cheesy. It's like they want us to praise conglomerate work that is so poorly put together. I'm done with "experts." I, myself, may not be an expert when it comes to education, but I think I know what works for me and my students. If I don't know it, I will ask a teacher who does, not an expert who's trying to sell a book.

To Protest or Not to Protest?

A co-worker once said, "shit floats to the top," to describe how some people are just not fit for management duties. When my students often lament that presidents or leaders are inept, in their target's defense, I often say that leaders do their best within the parameters of their job. People can promise many things, but when certain rules or limitations are difficult to overcome in order to achieve a goal, leaders will look inept because nothing has been tangibly accomplished for all to see.

I'm beginning to feel that way. As a department chair, my priority now has been to revise curriculum and defend my colleagues in the professional decisions we all make. We have many ideas and goals, and I had hoped we would accomplish them while I was department chair. But it's difficult to achieve anything when management conflicts with the ideas we want to try. In real life, I begin to see that there are situations that really demonstrate how some things are easier said than done. I feel like I hit a dead end no matter what I do.

When I took on this position, I just wanted to implement ideas and procedures that I felt would benefit my colleagues and benefit the students. While everyone in my department has been supportive of the decisions I make, there is also a division amongst us: those who want to make change, and those who just want to stay in their classrooms while change happens around them. I guess I'm a radical when it comes to my beliefs, and in the past two weeks, I've opened up my big mouth too much that my department is getting a spotlight of unwanted attention from district management. And as I step up to the plate to defend myself and my colleagues, I'm also getting a full frontal of an ugly beast called "political micromanaging." I hate being told what to do, but when I'm being told to do something just because some inept leader said, "I said so," it is even more aggravating and frustrating; they want me on a leash. I don't like being the mediator for their dirty work.

In the midst of all this, I'm teaching students of American literature--a body of work which is full of patriotism and protest and ideals of nonconformity that shaped America. I'm inspired by this and in my own small way, I want to protest against the district of how teaching to a test isn't really teaching, nor are students really learning. As I read all this protest literature, I also have to think about how much am I willing to suffer for the sake of what I beleive in. Am I ready to be hated? Am I ready to get sent to the office for constant reprimand? Am I ready for embarassment and vilification as my name gets touted as the rebel English teacher from that school? Most importantly, as a leader at my school, am I ready to bear that burden if my department falls down with me, whether they supported me or not?

Upper management is an obstacle that I have to overcome, and at this point, I'm feeling the limitations slowly surround and restrict me. That being said, I find it difficult to do my job--whether it's teaching students or defending colleagues or revising curriculum--when shit floats to the top.

It's been a while since I posted a stupid kid story.

This one is a stupid story and an offensive one.

His name is the Mumbler, because he mumbles in class. He mumbles ad-libs when I teach, and when I ask him to repeat it, he says, "Nothing," like a coward. Like a whining child, he has to have the last word in every remark made in class. When I'm teaching, he has to add something, even if it has barely anything to do with the topic. When another student contributes to the discussion, Mumbler has to add a comment.

To put it simply: he is fucking annoying.

Today was the cherry on top. We were discussing Julius Caesar and his physical flaws, one being that he had epilepsy. The students and I discussed epilepsy before because Simon of Lord of the Flies was also an epileptic. Mumbler declared that he wanted to have epilepsy.

What the fuck?

I told him that I did not find his comment funny and that he should count himself blessed because he was healthy. I went off on him after class and how I found his comment offensive; it was an insult to any person who suffered from a dibilitating disease or illness. He did not understand why I was offended until I told him my grandmother suffered from epilepsy. Then he suddenly had the "Oh, shit! I offended the teacher" look on his face. When I asked him why he made that comment, he said because sick people "have an easy life."

I had to stop myself from going on a morality rant, so I told him he was a weakling coward who can't handle life and that asking for a disease was a cop-out. What a shithead.

Am I cruel to wish something bad happen to him so he'll know how easy his life will be when he's a quadraplegic or becomes mentally incapacitated after a car accident or even gets diabetes?

Hypocrite Pinkies

I find it extremely annoying that my sophomores declare their communist ideals whenever they refuse to do anything "democratic" in the classroom, such as voting. Then they call me a fascist whenever I try to maintain control and take away their privileges. Whenever they bring up the word "communist" and glorify its ideals and philosophies, I am so tempted to tell them to shut up and start glorifying capitalism and America. Yet I don't. I don't even want to begin to argue with them because it will be like debating with religious fanatics who find every fallacy of arguments to justify their hypocrisy. There is no use in trying to debate logically with those kinds of people.

I can't stand fucking hypocrisy of any kind; they are really beginning to irk the hell out of me with their faux genius.

Moronic

To give you an idea of what students are like in the community where I teach, I shall tell you some stories that have been passed around in department gatherings:

I. "No Child Left Behind"

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) laws are really targeting teachers' and schools' accountabilities for the quality of their education. In order to ensure quality education, NCLB weeds out teachers who are not qualified to teach in their subject matter. A math teacher can't teach English literature because they are not competent to teach that subject, and this will result in children being left behind because they are not getting the proper education.

So, a counselor was sharing a story about how this law got misinterpreted by a parent. A student who just transferred into the school had to register with the counselor. The counselor reviewed the transcripts and found that the student is deficient on credits and will not graduate on time. The parent piped, "But what about No Child Left Behind?" because he feared that his child will be left behind by not graduating on time. In other words, this parent thought that the NCLB law was a "free credits if you're deficient" program that will ensure his student will graduate on time. This parent thought that by transferring to another school, our school would give his student all the lost credits that he failed to complete at his other school. Yeah fucking right!

II. "No Grades for Tardies"

A fellow English teacher who teaches freshmen shared this story. One of his students who thought English was too hard decided not to attend English class anymore. This teacher hasn't seen this student for the past two months. Said student was going to tardy sweeps instead where students have to stay quiet and write out standards. He attended tardy sweep for the past two months rather than going to class.

The grading period just ended, and said student went to the tardy sweep supervisor and asked him, "What's my grade in this class?" The supervisor told him that there is no grade in this class because it was a tardy sweep; it's a holding tank for late students. The supervisor advised the student to ask his regular teacher to find out his grade. The student goes back to the English teacher and asked him what his grade was. Given that he did not attend class, he is failing. The student complained that English was too much work, so he went to tardy sweep in lieu of regular English class. He thought copying and writing standards in a holding tank was an easier way to get an A than reading a book and writing essays.

III. "But I Need My Credits!"

This is my own story. I was helping a student after school doing an essay, and we worked on it until about 5pm--well into dark. As she was leaving, I told her to walk home safely (she only lived across the street) and escorted her out the door. All of a sudden, I saw the assistant principal marching down the corridor ready to pounce on anyone walking down the hall. She shouted at my student, "Are you in credit recovery? Why aren't you in class?"

"She's not in credit recovery. She was with me," I explained. My student walked away, and then the principal--the most intimidating (yet much loved and admired) woman on campus appeared, too. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Credit recovery classes have a fifteen minute break from five to five-fifteen. Break is over!" the principal muttered under her breath. "What do these students think? I am tired of giving them chances and they're... " she trailed off with a shake of her head.

Suddenly, in the main hall, we spotted six to seven students walking down the corridor with Jack-in-the-Box food in their hands. They're talking loudly with nonchalance as they head back to class without a care or worry that they were about twenty minutes late. The principal and the assistant principal pounced.

"Excuse me! Get over here!" the principal called out to them.

Five or six ran away (stupid cowards!), leaving one student behind with her hand in a Jack-in-the-Box bag grabbing fries. The principal tried to follow the other students who ran off. As she walked off, she said to the girl, "Don't bother going to class. You are late."

"Awww, come on..." the girl started to whine.

"I already told your teacher to mark you absent and anyone else who is not on time from the break. So you can go on home. Get out." The principal pointed to the exit double doors.

"But I need my credits!" The student said with a laugh, thinking she could ease her way back into class with humor.

"No, you needed your Jack-in-the-Box--now get out." The principal kept on walking to find the runaways who high-tailed it back to the classroom. I am sure she found them.

God save the principal!

Communism is the Answer!

Surprisingly, I'm finding that many of my sophomore students are on the verge of communism. I find this startling, yet a little refreshing at the same time. Startling, for the obvious reason that it's anti-American. Refreshing because, as much I have thought to myself that this generation of teens who practically have everything handed to them on platters (i.e. iPods, PSP, cell phones, DVD portable players, brand name clothing), some of them actually do have this great ambition to actually find equality and justice across social classes. They actually do want to try and help others, but they're so pessimistic (i.e. "what's the point if we're going to die anyway?" or "what's the point if no one listens to teenagers anyway?") that it's detrimental at the same time.

Then again... these are my advanced students. If there's one thing I've learned, and most AP teachers have warned me, is that advanced students are one-sided in all their opinions; never really doing full research. Add arrogance to that--they think they're geniuses just because they're in an honors program--and you have a person who is ready to conquer the world with all the wrong ideas.

I Like Making Kids Cry

Today is Friday. I was extremely tired this week and just down from fatigue, so I was partially glad and pissed off when I had a parent conference at the last minute today... on a Friday!

But this was good: I called up a parent to give her an update about her son's progress in class--which was not very good anyway. We talked and when I told her that her son is still getting an F, she freaked out and said, "You said he was getting a C-, and that he's doing well in class."

"Um... no, I don't remember saying that. Shorty* was absent yesterday and he hasn't brought his book to class, so he's not even paying attention."

"But in your note, you wrote, 'doing good' and that he's getting a C-. Your signature's on this note."

"Is that an old note? He's not getting a C."

"But he gave me this note today."

"I haven't signed any paperwork for Shorty for a long time."

"Are you still there... at school?"

"Yes..." I replied, not liking the sound of that question.

"Can I come over? I'll be there in, like, three minutes."

"Sure," I replied unenthusiastically.

Lo and behold, she got there in three minutes with her son. After a short introduction, the first thing I asked for was the note. There it was: this awful lie in the comments section of a weekly progress report staring at me in the face: "Doing good. C-" My last name was written next to it.

"That's not my signature," I instantly replied. "You never gave me this paper during class."

The student started lying, "Yes, I did. You signed it."

I invited his mother to my classroom and showed her her son's current grade that was posted in class for the last week and a half. The date was written on it. I proceeded to tell his mother what Shorty does in class, his behavior, his progress, his habits, as well as the assignments and homework that were due. His grade could not have jumped from an F to a C- in less than two weeks--not with his poor habits. After studying the fake progress report, his mother noticed that three other comments from three other teachers looked suspicious because all the handwriting was the same. When his mother demanded to know who signed the fake progress report, Shorty started swearing up and down to God that he gave me the report and that I signed it during class. But I refuted that by giving his mother a sample of my signature. As soon as she saw it, she recognized it from previous reports that I officially signed in the past. She started shouting at her son, and at this point, Shorty started crying.

I gave his mother the homework that Shorty should be working on, and he seemed to be weakening knowing that his mother now controlled his upcoming weekend.

It's great to have a parent on my side. It was great to see her get mad at her son and yell at him--because I can't do that. But I am pissed off that he tried to forge--or got a friend to forge-- my signature. Even though it didn't look anything like my signature, I felt violated that some student tried to take a part of me. Strange as it may sound, that's what it felt like. Then he swore to God that I signed it. When he said I did, and I insisted that I didn't, it sounded like a childish "Nuh-uh. Uh-huh. Nuh-uh" argument. That was infuriating!

But I got to see him cry. That felt kind of good.

Go Home!

I had tutorial after school today from 3-4pm. At 4pm, it was actually nice and quiet and peaceful. I locked my door and got down to work. I was working as a busy bee when at 5:15pm, Needy comes knocking on my door. Luckily, it was locked and I was working at my desk where I can't be seen from the windows. A few moments later, he went away.

Only nerds stay at school past 5pm, and Needy is not one of those kids. Oh, he irks me!

A Different Breed

A teacher from San Diego who is also teaching at the same school where I work warned me that "the kids up here are a different breed." I thought that there couldn't be that much difference: kids are kids. They all hate homework ,and they all think school is just a six-hour social gathering.

Now that I'm into the second semester, I do agree with the above statement: the kids up here in Riverside are a different breed. They are lazier than the students I taught in San Diego. (Actually, there was this lower than low moment of stupidity in San Diego...)

Just a few days ago, I was in the computer lab with my class teaching them on how to format their essays using the MLA style. I gave out the handout with instructions. I even went the extra step and cut and paste pictures on the insructions so that kids had a visual when they looked at MS Word. We went over the directions before they started. Then I asked, "Does everybody understand what to do?" I got a resounding "YES" as a reply.

As soon as they logged onto the computers and opened up MS Word, I got a dozen hands up in the air and a bunch of whiny complaints of "What are we supposed to do?" or "I don't know how to do this." The handout of instructions was tucked under their keyboard or thrown on the floor. Some students stashed into their books and back pack thinking it was homework.

"Did you read the directions?" I asked.

"No. Where are the directions?"

I pull out the handout from under the keyboard. "Were you listening as we went over the handout?"

"Yes."

"Then follow the directions here." I turn to the side where there are instructions.

The student still stared at the blank screen of MS Word with a blinking cursor. "But I don't know how to make the heading."

"Read the instructions. They're there." I point to the pictures and the words--God forbid-- the words!

"I don't read. Nobody reads. You expect us to read?" the student whined. "Can't you just show it to me?" [In other words, "Can't you just show it to me by doing it for me?"]

"No," I disgustedly replied. You fucked up little snot, I thought to myself.

They are that fucking lazy to read up here. Reading a paragraph is too much for them. They sleep during a four-page short story. No one reads the daily agenda that I write every day. Every time they walk into class, they still ask me, "What are we doing today?" and when I point to the board to show them the daily agenda, they don't even bother to read it. They bring their books but they stare at the walls. They complain about the homework, which they never do. They turn in low quality work because no one believes in typing or neatness or careful work.

And they bitch about why they got an F.

I'd like to say, "You got an F because you're stupid." Let me define my meaning of stupidity. Stupidity to me, is not the incapability to learn, because all kids can learn, stupidity is when one fails to use common sense. Stupidity is the incapability to see how one's actions and the consequences of those actions are directly related. Stupidity is when one doesn't even use simple reasoning and logic to figure out their own mistakes and to see how everything is connected. Two plus two is four; no homework plus sleeping in class is an F.

"But I come to class everyday" does not mean credit. The kids up here are stupid. They think merely existing or taking up a seat in a classroom means they're passing. Where's the logic in that reasoning?