July 2008: Catching up, part I

I feel like this post is 5 weeks overdue. I’ve wanted to write (something un-required) forever. I’ll start in a random place, and hopefully some flow will emerge. I have determined that, from here on out, I will call such posts “catching up.” I will keep myself from writing too much, however. I need to learn restraint in writing. I am never concise!

This week began with a stomach-drop. One of our students was expelled because of too many absences. I learned that it was because his mother was in the hospital. As we took him out in the hall to tell him, this look of resignation swept across his face. He only raised one weak protest: “You’re telling me I need to leave?” And I just sat there, watching the event unravel. On the subject of expulsion, I also learned that in the classroom next door (8^th grade English), a girl was expelled because her mother’s check bounced and so the family could not pay for summer school. And this girl was a decent student. “She’s a case where she is bound to fail purely because of family circumstances,” commented my friend, her teacher. What can a teacher do but stand aside and watch these disappointments swell and adversely affect children who otherwise have the ability to succeed? What is the cut-off for a teacher’s responsibility? In some way or another, these are examples of injustice. To be a spectator is troubling.

Calculating grades for students is also an exercise in disappointment. I am surprised when I look at their overall percentages when I type grades in. “So and so, she has a C?” I think to myself in disbelief. “But surely she’s at least a B student...” I wonder how I will deal with this during the school year. Obviously, I can’t just rig grades so that kids get the grades I predetermine they should have.  That’s unethical. At the same time, I feel disappointment in their grades probably more than they do. How do I cope with this? And keep myself from assisting them too much? (Am I asking the wrong questions?)

On a final note: an update that I promised in an earlier post that I’d give: I am, in fact, reading more than I used to. I think time management is improving, slowly. I am making my way through three books: Coming of Age in Mississippi (40 pages left), The Cost of Discipleship and Speak. Oh, part of me does still ache, in fact, it aches more deeply than before, that I won’t be teaching English in the fall (but social studies instead)... At first, new life circumstances and responsibilities tend to agitate me, but with time, I realize that they are good things. So now my task is to learn as much about MS as possible in 3 weeks!