The Week from Hell January 23rd

It actually started the week before this one. On Thursday Johnny was in and out of my class and he was copying work so I gave him a zero for that. Friday he skipped the last two periods. On Monday I knew I was going to have to get him in trouble. I was busy and forgot until mid-morning when one of the teachers came up to me and said, "One of your students is smoking outside." Johnny and Stevenson (another trouble kid) came around the corner at the next minute. I had them breath in my face. Stevenson did, and smelled like smoke. Johnny wouldn't even. One of the other teachers came by about that time and said he saw Johnny smoking so he took them to the office. A few minutes later Mr. Grant came in and said Johnny was being suspended. The next day he wasn't in school and the next day was an in school suspension where he worked all day.

The first couple days of the week the rest of the guys would sneak out of class and go hang out somewhere. I talked to them and it didn't help, as always. If you don't assign a punishment, they just don't care. Wednesday and I told them that every time I turn around that side of the room has almost no one in it. I said, "If you are gone, I'll write your name down and give you detention." They were a little better that day but still taking off so I gave them detention. Stevenson just took off and didn't do his detention. That's his standard thing. He seems to think that running from your punishment will get you out of it. Unfortunately, it does work sometimes.

Thursday we were doing reading and I look up and one of the smart kids is out playing with a basketball in the hall. I asked him if his work was done and he said yes. I asked him where it was and he said with the guys. "Are they copying your work?" "No, umm, I mean yes." I told him to never let people copy his work or I would count him off points. I found his work but several kids and already "finished" the assignment. I took the ones I knew were copied and told them they had a zero unless I saw them doing their reading. They didn't care. They started gambling with pocket change.

After lunch those same guys came back 30 minutes late. I knew they had left campus, which is a big no-no. I waited until the next day and sent five guys into the principals office. He told them if they did anything else they would be kicked out. They were good on Friday, but they have all heard that before. They'll probably be good for awhile. I sure hope so. Next week has to be better.

After that constant conflict all week I was so drained. To top it off our class had chapel on Friday. The kids did pretty good up front and I told two stories. They really liked the stories because they stayed quiet for them and paid attention. That never happens in chapel.

After chapel and saw some of the girls and invited them over to my place for Ramien. I cook up the Ramien and we sat around a talked for awhile. At first they talked in Marshallese but they switched to English and we had a good conversation. We talked about all kinds of things. Then we got out a deck of cards and played some games. We played a game I have never heard of but it was so funny. We were all yelling and laughing. The girls had a really good time and thanked me several times. I had a really good time and it was a very nice ending to a crazy week. It reminded me that I really do love my kids even though some of them make me want to get a baseball bat out and start hitting people sometimes.

It got me to thinking. I need to break through to these guys. I've made friends with the girls and they've responded really well. It's a lot harder to make friends with the guys. They just run around and push each other around all the time. They also make strange jokes that I don't get a lot. But if I could make friends with them maybe the class would go easier. That's my mission for this week.