a work in progress

Life is pretty good at school right now, everyday is still a headache but I’ve developed some really good relationships with many of my kids.  For instance there is one student, we’ll call her Missy, she wanted nothing to do with me at the beginning of the year. In class she is extremely loud and obnoxious.   If you remember in a much earlier blog I talked about students running across desks. I was talking about Missy.  The girl is crazy! But she is always happy and doesn’t seem to really care about anything. She just does what she wants when she wants and if she gets suspended…whatever. 

So you can imagine how hard it might be to get a child like that to do some work. Every day I would ask “Missy, you want me to show you how to do these math problems?” “Naw!” she’d respond “you goofy”. So I would leave her be and work with other students. Finally one day I caught her cheating so instead of taking the paper away (I’ve done that to students before, the result is not pretty), I sat next to her and asked “do you expect to get credit on a paper you didn’t do?” She just laughed and said “yeah, Mr. Andy”.  “I can’t do that, cheating is an automatic F.”  Well she was ready to get in a yelling match, but I stopped her and said “Why don’t you show me you can do a problem by yourself, or I can show you how to do it and we can work out the rest of the problems”  “ ’ight, Mr. V show me how to do it”  So I did, and now she lets me work with her, and she’s always talking with me and even asked me (jokingly) if I’d be her godfather. So now that’s what she calls me. We definitely have our off days and she is very disrespectful to my other teammates and her teachers but at least she’s willing to try and learn. A HUGE improvement.

I’ll tell you all about a young man who gave me almost as much trouble in my next post.

Love ya! 

Ugh. the ACT

Was just listening to a senior talk about her ACT score (a 16) and she has a 4.0 GPA. How is that possible? This girl is in all the advanced classes that our school offers and she goes above and beyond in class and yet she scores below average on the ACT.  I think the fault falls on a lot of people but obviously not the students. How are we supposed to tell this girl that although she is one of the schools star performers she still doesn’t qualify for any significant scholarships? So so so frustrating.

The good news is that my relationships with my students are constantly improving and the kids are no loner embarrassed to say they enjoy having me around.  I feel like a lot of these students are friends of mine, I miss them on the weekends and we never run out of things to talk about. (with some of the students, to get others to talk its still like pulling teeth)

Of course I know I need to be careful there is a fine line between mentor and friend and every once in a while I have to put my foot down. The job hasn’t lost its stress factor but it is becoming more and more fun!

Until next time

-Andy

rumors rumors rumors

So, the student I like so well that I thought had been dropped was in school today. I was pretty excited when I saw him and told him the rumors I had heard. "Nobody can keep me down Mr. V you should know that" was his response. We talked for a bit and he told me how his friend (another one of my favorites) was hit by a drunk driver while walking across the street over break. He will be ok, but out of school for 2 weeks recovering.

There are a lot of rumors of students who were shot over break, but I think most of them aren't true so I won't share any of those stories until I know the facts! 

back to the grind

Well I’m back at school, last week was training (well retraining) and a retreat at a place called camp Duncan. It wasn’t half bad. I was a little disappointed because there is a lake and from what I hear most years its cold enough that they play broom ball; a game that is like hockey only you play with brooms.  However, this has been such a warm winter it wasn’t possible.

Some sad news, a sophomore was shot and killed over the break in a gang related shooting, I didn’t know the student but news like that is never very easy to take. Another student, who thinks I am cool, therefore he is one of my favorites, was dropped from school. So it seems I will never see him again.   I really did like this kid a lot and I know he’s affiliated with a gang so I’m pretty worried about so if you all could keep him in your prayers (and everyone here for that matter) it would be greatly appreciated.

Other than that it’s business as usual around here.  It’s almost like I never left only now I actually feel well rested, I hope that feeling lasts me a little while at least! I miss all of you back home, the visit I had was such a tease :)

Love,

  Andy

i'm still here

I hope you haven’t given up on my blog! I almost did. This past month has been nothing short of insane and when I have free time I just am not in the mood to sit down and type. But I will be seeing many of you soon and I should probably update you a little bit.

But I have a meeting in about 2 min so this may be pretty short.

Not long ago I realized how much I really do care about the students I work with, it started with my 6^th period math class.  A female student who gets distracted pretty easily, but does what I ask her to unless she’s having a really bad day. This particular day she was sitting very quietly and looked close to tears so I asked her what was wrong and she just shook her head, because if she tried to talk I think she wouldn’t have been able to hold the tears back. Then I saw folded on the corner of her desk her progress report.

“Is it your grades?” I asked, at that point she pulled her sweater above her face and began to cry. It took all my effort not to cry also. I started recalling all of the times I was in the same position; frustrated with school, my grades, afraid to show my parents and thinking that there would never be a way to understand the material (especially math). I started telling my student about this and reminded her about our after school homework help. She still couldn’t talk but shook her head yes and now our relationship is better than ever.

But that wasn’t the moment I realized how much I loved my kids. That same evening we hosted what is called a “Family Engagement Night” where we invite the whole school and there families to come and participate in different games and activities and then we provide them with dinner and give out prizes.

One student who came stayed afterwards to help with clean up. I really like this kid, he gets bullied a lot because he wears nail polish and reads all the time. He is a little odd, but he’s in my drama club and very respectful and we joke around a lot, some times when he has a lot of aggression I let him punch my hands for awhile and that actually seems to help him a lot.  Anyway, I’m digressing.

Turns out the reason he stayed so late was because some students have been threatening to shoot him as he walks home (he lives about 3 blocks from the school)

I cannot comprehend a 14 year old having to stay late after school because gang members are threatening their life.

Also the weekend before another student I work with was shot and missed a week of  school because he was recovering in the hospital. I have so much more to say but there is still a ton of work to be done before I can finally come home. I love and miss all of you, God bless and I’ll see you soon!! 

no pictures

sorry for the lack of pictures, I was unable to go to the museum as planned so I will have to postpone the picture update. This weekend however, I'm looking forward to the tree lighting ceremony and will most definitely bring my camera for that. This week is pretty nuts; we are planning for a "vip lounge"
The "vip lounge" is a lunch we will be providing for students who started out with poor attendance but have improved a great deal. This first "vip"is introducing the incentive, we are providing them with pizza, putting on a skit and playing some games with them. It should be a lot of fun but we are having problems getting food donated for the event, originally we were going to get wings for the students but the restaurant backed out at the last minute. Now we are trying to get pizza before Thursday...yikes. donations are hard to come by.
Here's another crazy story that happened a couple of weeks ago. I didn't witness any of it so it may be exaggerated but here goes-
A student was misbehaving in a classroom to the point that the teacher decided to call the parents. Well apparently the father did not take the news well because in 6th hour the dad came into his sons classroom and started hitting his son (the term I heard was "beating") in front of the teacher and all the students. A few moments later the child's mom came into the room and started hitting the father until the security finally had to come and get involved. I have never heard of such a thing and I think it's safe to say that situation was a first at our high school.

new experiences keep coming

I don't have any new pictures for you yet but this weekend I am going to the contemporary art museum so be on the look out!
Now before I tell you this story, you should all know that so far I am having a terrific week and I am safe here at this school!
but...
 Monday in my first hour class things were going a little less than ideal but Mr. E and I were managing. After about an hour I heard some yelling and desks being moved in the classroom next to me. My friend/coworker is in that class and through the brick wall dividing our classrooms things sounded pretty serious. So I ran out of my room to see what was happening. All the doors are locked so I could only see in the window. There was one security guard in the room already who had a student in a headlock. I shouted for more security and two came running, unlocked the door and grabbed another student. Apparently there had been a fight between a guy and a girl. The situation seemed handled so I went back to my class. Unfortunately, because my class could hear what was happening they became riled up and wouldn't calm down. It was a bit of a mess. Then a junior girl who had obviously snuck out of her class was looking into our classroom and throwing gang signs at my students.  So I opened the door and asked her to get back to her class and said "don't ever throw gang signs at my kids again, you know we (the school) has zero tolerance for that"
Well she freaked out and started cussing me out saying "F***you, you don't know me and I don't give a f*** who you are! So you better watch your back cuz i finna f*** you up next time I see you" she continued to cuss at me, the  security guards were occupied so I just smiled at her and said "I just want you to leave my students alone, so you need to walk away" I was ready to go get a faculty member to bring her down to the office because use of gang signs is an automatic suspension; but then my coworker who was in the classroom that had the fight came out of her room and I thought she might need someone to talk to. So the student who threatened me walked away and there was no more trouble from her.
It's crazy to me that a 16 year old girl would threaten an adult (or anyone) like that. I don't know if I handled the situation as well as I could have, but my skin is sure getting thicker.
I have to keep in mind that I don't know what is going on at home (if they have a home) with these kids and when they react so quickly with hatred its a defense mechanism, and it actually does work pretty well.  Who wants to talk to a student or try to get a student to do their work if they are just going to yell at you and become violent? Not me!
...but I've got to get past that, some students have lowered their wall a little for me and let me sit, talk  and work with them and it doesn't take long for them to become somewhat attached to me. The first step is to break down that wall!
God Bless and love you all!