Karma

(I am sorry ...this is kinda rambling)

I have about ten million things to correct and I am totaling not into it. I have something on my mind and I can't stop thinking about it. I am one of those people that has to sleep to get away from traumatic things that happen to them. I have a feeling that the restless feeling I have now will not go away until tomorrow morning after I have slept and processed what happened to me today.

I have already said that I did something horrible in the classroom a couple of weeks ago. I am still not ready to talk about it, but I am moving on. I made a big mistake, I apologized and all parties are getting along just fine now. I put on my big girl panties and dealt with it.

I have never been comfortable with not being perfect and the necessity of people having to forgive me. I always seem to think that if I just try hard enough I will be perfect and I will never do wrong.

However, I am not perfect. Never have been and never will be. I make mistakes. I screw over people.

I have been thinking a lot about this the last few days....and it hit me in the face today.....

I was printing off my AP independent reading projects. I noticed on one paper that two boys had put their names on one project.

Huh? This was not a group project and never has been. They have done it at least two times before...they know the assignment...how am I going to grade this?....

Then it hit me.

Boy #1 had turned in the paper two grading periods before. He had gotten confused because I told them to create a header and since you cannot see the header until you print it out...he put his name on the paper again. So boy #1's name appears twice. Then when boy #2 read the same book, he asked boy #1 for his paper, changed the name to boy #2 (but not the header which still says boy #1). And emailed it to me.

I searched for the original paper and found it and printed it off. I took all the evidence (including the signed affidavit by the boys that they would not plagiarize) and marched right down to the counselor's office.

And promptly threw both boy #1 and boy #2 out of English AP.

Boy #1 came to my classroom to turn in another project. I showed him the papers. I said "What happened?" I purposely tried not to talk and let the boy talk. He said that Boy #2 asked for the paper "to get ideas" and he sent it to him. Boy #1 was bummed he was getting thrown out of the class and he left.

Boy #2 came to my classroom to turn in his project. I did the same thing. I let him talk. He did not deny it. But he started crying. He said that he should be thrown out of class but not Boy #1. I told him that this situation takes two people and he made the decision and choice to trust him.

Boy #2 cried for nearly an hour.

Thank God I had already spoken to the counselor or else I would have totally gone back on my decision to throw these boys out. I would make a very poor coach of anything. I was actually praying for the poor kid; he was so upset about it. After an hour, I went and got the counselor. I was worried he was going to hurt himself.

The thing I kept telling him was everyone makes mistakes and he is not perfect. He was upset about letting his friend down, me down, his parents down, himself down. He kept saying that it is all over for him...he can't go to college and he cannot achieve the goals he set for himself. I didn't get mad at him or yell at him, but simply told him, it was a mistake and he will pay for it. And it will pass. This was not the end of his life. He was not destined to dig ditches for the rest of his life (not that digging ditches is bad.) But he just needed to find another way to achieve his goals.

I told him life sucks and that life is not fair. (Thanks Mom for that lesson.) But what determines our character is how we deal with life's problems and when we screw up. In other words, our character is evident in the bad times, not the good times when everything is going right.

The thought struck me as I was speaking to him that we are all human. We screw up...but we are almost always forgiven. I am in the same boat as this boy. I screwed up. I owned up to my mistake and moved on. I made amends. The other parties forgave. I feel like the Bible passage, "Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?" I want the kid to move on, so I need to move on also.

Karma. Wow. The universe works in strange ways.

Random Stuff

I know it is not polite blog etiquette to say this...but sorry for the lack of posts. There are many reasons for this. One...the life of an English teacher is stacks and stacks of papers to read. Then, there are stacks of educational books to read. Then there are stacks of fun books and magazines to read.

Some days I can't believe I actually get paid TO READ....and require other people to read what I read...AND grade them on it. What a wonderful job!

Though, some days, (brace yourself Mom...this will sound weird coming from me) I actually am tired of reading. I just want to lay on the couch and listen to my iPod and daydream.

(Yes, Miss A IPods are truly the best invention of our times. I've had my 8GB one for a year and already it is full. Watch out though. Itunes is very addicting!)

Another reason I haven't posted is because of what happened to California Teacher Guy. His school discovered his blog. I don't know the details, but it does kinda of scare me. Sometimes I wonder if the people at school know about this blog. I really don't do anything but vent...but, like everything, people can take things wrong.

And people can find you really fast in cyberspace. Heck, I think it took Science Goddess two minutes to figure it out!

However, I really miss the opportunity to share what is going on in my classroom: the good and the bad. This is really an amazing support tool and I miss talking to everyone.

Well, this is what is going on. While I think this is the best year yet for my teaching career, school politics is really messing with my teaching mojo. And I had the biggest meltdown and said the most embarrassing things ever a week ago in my class. Even bigger than the time I asked a girl if she was pregnant and wasn't (but now, currently is). I won't go into details, but I will say first, I get very tired of student apathy. Two, if you have been in an English/American school for four(!) years and constantly taught in English, you should be understanding some English by now. Three, I seriously had to eat crow (and rightly so.) And four, the whole episode made the class easier to teach. So I guess it worked out.

The good thing is that we had our second benchmark test and 75% of my Juniors passed. Whoooo! & Squeee! (While none of them passed the math and science benchmarks--I really don't understand that.) All my AP sophomores passed this time. And all these students I've had for 2-3 years in English class.

However, they are extremely apathetic. They are not turning in homework or even trying to do it. They laugh when you ask for it and say "Yeah, I probably failing because I didn't do the project" and continue with the same behavior. Some blatantly copy from the internet sites or turn in the exact same work (practically word for word) as someone else. And they don't care. I don't understand...they tell me what they need to improve. But they won't admit they have the power in their hands to change their grades. It's like they know the words, but they don't know the action.

...And, while I love the parents here, if one more parent tells me to give their child extra work if they don't behave, I will scream. I just what them to the work assigned...not extra work!

But, most behave so I don't need to deal with that issue too much. It is very gratifying to have all my students seated waiting for instructions at the tardy bell, while kids are still running into the next room. Or the teacher is yelling for them to settle down while I am giving instructions for the bellringer or going over objectives. And I am realizing that in my on-level classes, I have some kids that are extremely bright and deserve to be challenged. They deserve the best education I can give them and they consistently rise to the occasion.

My AP class is going great. Last year, at this time, I was pulling my hair trying to get sophomores to read. This year, they read and don't complain. *I* find it hard to keep up with them! Then last week the school had a lockdown drill. I was giving a test in the class. So I covered all windows and doors, locked the door and told them to be quiet and keep on taking their test. They did not even bat a eye. They just kept going!