Meet my students!

My job description, when I was offered this job, was extremely vague and no one ever really specified exactly what my role was supposed to be.  As I've been trying to figure out my place in the school over the past five weeks, I've realized that I have gotten really protective over "my" thirteen students, and that my role has become a cross between teacher, advisor, and mother-figure.  I feel a responsibility not only to teach them, but to constantly advocate for them and make sure they know how to advocate for themselves--and to feed them cookies!  Yesterday I brought in a box of rainbow cookies that my aunt had given me to share with them, and they were so excited that I had other kids coming into the classroom asking if they could have (I guess it was better than my usual oreos).   

Since I have such a small group of students that are actually "mine," I thought I'd introduce you to each of them, so when I talk about them in my posts everything makes a little more sense.  I won't do all 13 tonight, but here's a start:

I've mentioned JT already, my ADHD friend who’s awesome at math when he will just focus!!  He’s decided that he wants to go to Pratt when he graduates, and he recently got onto the basketball team (which is hysterical in itself, because he’s only about 5’3”), so luckily I have two huge motivating factors with him.  It’s gotten to the point where all I have to do is give him “the look” and he’ll say “I know, I know, I have to focus or I won’t get into Pratt and I’ll get kicked off the basketball team.”  

James is by far my lowest-level student, and this is probably mostly because he is absent on average 3 or 4 days a week.  I went through his grades with him yesterday, which were almost all below 50 (many below 20), and had a long talk with him about the importance of attendance.  He’s a sweet kid who is willing to take any help you can give him, but it’s hard to catch him up when he has missed entire units in more than one class!  Unrelated, I found out he calls himself "chippy" because he is missing half of one of his front teeth.

Most teachers at my school dread having Amy in their class, and not because Amy is a tough student—but because her mother is incredibly overbearing and calls constantly to tell us that her daughter has to become an attorney.  Amy has been staying in my classroom during lunch almost every day to make up tests and quizzes, and kind of lingers around to talk with me when she’s done.  I realized yesterday that she is the Latina version of my middle sister: smart but ditzy enough that it sometimes affects her grades, and constantly surrounded by boys.  One of the 9th graders was hitting on her in the hallway last week, and as she walked away she said "you wouldn't be able to handle me."

Arnelle—the girl who used to come in really angry and refuse to do any work until the day that I had a one-on-one meeting with her and somehow got through to her—is now one of my hardest working students!  She not only tries really hard and gets all of her work done, but when she finishes early she gets up and starts washing down my chalkboard.  She also has a habit of stealing my stamp and my stickers and covering herself in them.  Today I overheard her tell another of my students that her boyfriend “broke up with her to get with the girl he cheated on her with,” and she was really blah all day.  I asked her if I let her hang onto the stamp for the period if she’d cheer up, and it actually worked J

Anyway, 9:45 is pretty much teacher bedtime.  Next time I'll introduce you to a few more!