Day 77: The Praxis of Pedagogy

Yesterday was work on your final project day. It was made harder by the computers going on the fritz. We have a problem with the district, updates being sent and this program we got called deepfreeze. The program wipes out anything the student download and put on the computer but it also is wiping out the updates being sent. We have to change the update configuration. At least this is what we think is going on. But the symptom is that the computers are constantly restarting. Anyways, for the most part students were really good about actually doing work. This was also a time for me to get some rest and grade as many papers as I could. It has been a long week what with progress reports, back to school nights, and teacher credentialing classes.

So what was hard about the day was my CTM. I got this one student that I got into serious words with. The kid doesn't do shit. He's got incredibly and I do mean incredibly low skills and he's hyperactive. He also doesn't do shit. He just talks to people and distracts them. I talked to his mom and was just stunned when I asked her what she was doing at home to help him learn to read. Was she making him do extra work or what. She said that was the school's job. Your fucking kid can't read or write and you are just going to say that his education is all the school's job. The system is broken and the student isn't getting the help that he needs. You need to take some responsibility for your kid's education. Then she started venting to me about how he went storming out of the house with his little temper tantrum. She was saying that he was a lucky kid and that she took good care of him and he has $7000 worth of electronics in his room and that he wasn't spoiled or anything.... $7000 worth of electronics, your kid is spoiled. Why should the kid do anything with school when he's got a room full of fun? I wouldn't have. Shit I was talking to this kid and he was giving me major attitude and whining about this and that. I just straight said to him that he was the whiniest little kid I'd ever met and that he was now in high school and he needed to suck shit up.