Coupla Things v16 (12/13/13)

Post date: Dec 14, 2013 8:48:1 AM

Dear Parents and Kids,

I usually infuse these weekly emails with glowing reports of students' great accomplishments and impressive incidents from class, but this one will be quite different.

We are nearly half way through the year, and I am growing worried and fatigued by about half of the class -- the half that isn't getting a passing grade in one or more subjects; the half that needs repeated reminders regarding behavior and autonomy; the half that dodges personal responsibility; and the half that takes advantage of freedoms, trust, and my continued investment in their developing maturity and self-regulation. I'm fatigued by going above and beyond when there are so many kids that will barely/rarely live up to reasonable, routine, and relatively simple expectations put upon them; and I'm most fatigued by having to fight against the immaturity and disrespect shown by the kids who make it so hard for me to give instructions, execute potentially good lessons, and get the class to live up to it's tremendous potential.

Lets take today for example: There were four things "due" today and the performance percentages are staggeringly low: Only five kids turned in the "Gift" essay, only six turned in the mold lab report, barely half turned in the permission form, and only four had full rows in my "what you need to have to go on the trip" chart. (As a result, I've decided to cancel the evening part of Monday's trip to San Jose and I'll send out a separate email about that). There were way too many kids who hadn't even read either of the chapters for the history test and two who didn't even fill it in. Kids with headphones on during instruction, playing tech-games under the tables, hiding laptops that were reserved by another class, or even card games during a science video. During a lab in science today, the power of the lesson was overshadowed by me playing disciplinarian, repeating instructions many times, and replenishing materials to groups who just messed up what they had. After school I heard from the other two 7th grade teachers that four kids in our class were making racist comments to kid(s) in other classes. Today wasn't atypical.

Chris