Summer School

I know it's been awhile. I've been a bit overwhelmed with the end of the school year and all my craziness. I ran a half marathon and chaperoned prom...then I finished the school year and... got a nasty cold. Seriously, I was sick for more than a week. I'm not sure if I should be angry that I got sick on my one week off or if I should be glad that I didn't get sick the last week of school (that would have sucked).

Anyway, you might have noticed that I'm teaching summer school. The fact is: I need the money. I was unassigned from summer school from last year, and it's really hard to find a last minute job for 5 weeks. REALLLY hard. I hate lying. HATE. I'm too damn scrupulous.

So, I had my first big moment in class today. Oh, sure, I have some shitheads. And there's this one kid who's been showing up late and not doing his work. When I went to collect his signed Course Poicies (you know, you and your parens sign that you know and agree to the rules), he said his parents didn't sign them because they weren't talking to him.

Hold up.

Did I understand this right?

They are so mad that they won't talk to their son, not even to sign paperwork for school. Like most of my students, he is an English learner, and he mumbles and slurs his English. This is a trait of second language learners: they are scared of gettin the target language wrong, so they try to hide everything by talking quietly and not enunciating.

But let's get back to point at hand: they are so mad that they will not talk to their son. I got enough out of him that it was a very serious infraction that he didn't feel comfortable telling me (that's fine), but he knew what he did, he did have someone to talk to, and he didn't know when they would start talking to him again.

Wow.

I can't help but remember a conversation I had with a friend's father who is a family court judge. He told me that he tells parents that no matter how angry they are, they should never lock their child out. He knows it's tough; he knows how infuriating misbehaving teenagers can be, but the fact is that when they are running away and messing up and making bad choices is the EXACT moment that they NEED their PARENTS. As angry as you are, he told me, you need to take them back in and keep them safe. He said this not only as a family court judge, but as a father who had a son who struggled with drugs and had run away from home as a teenager.

I know that I don't "connect" with my students in many ways. I am not a touchy-feely person. It's not that I don't hug or shy away from human contact, but it takes me time to develop really deep relationships with people. A single school year doesn't really lend itself to my kind if friendship. Those of you who are my good friends know that I do care deeply about my friends: I'm not sure my students see that at the start of the year. (I did have one of the biggest pains in my ass stop and chat with me today -- a school year later, we might not be bff's, but we're good.)

So they don't always know, but I do feel deeply. I feel for my student whose parents won't talk to him. But not just that, but he is making choices that force them to that point. They must be beyond their limit (his limited conversation hints that whatever he did or didn't do was big). So here I am, trying to teach him English.

Big sigh.