Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

Mercifully, this school year has come to a close. I stopped writing about it because of how atrocious the parents and children had become - well, one particular parent and child. It all started with an email I received from a mother who basically said that I was picking on her son and taking the side of (and I quote) all the "colored boys. I think she was calling me a racist, but we share the same race.



Her son was one of those problem students - I could never catch him doing anything, but he was always the one getting the finger pointed at him. He was sneaky and mean. He was a bad seed. And with that email, I figured out how and why.



Our favorite custodian had to speak to badseed at lunch shortly thereafter and all hell broke loose. Our favorite custodian is African-American.



His mother then sent a KRAZY email to my favorite superintendent. (I'm all about emailing the superintendent - just keep my name out of it.) With that, local administrators leapt into action. There was a meeting with the parents and me and the guidance counselor, and the principals. I kept notes because that was the only way I could keep quiet. These parents (and their child) were angry not only over some clashes that this student instigated with students of other races, but they launched into a diatribe over standards which required that we teach the origins of slavery, the Civil War (we apparently teach it biased, down here in the South), the civil rights movement. They criticized our music teacher and her program of "biased" music. They went on and on until they finally, finally, ran out of steam.

I can't convey the venom they released. Their hateful diatribe would have been funny if it hadn't been their honest feelings.

We had to implement a plan to make certain that this student was "having a good day." Thumbs up/thumbs down. Seriously. "Honey, are you feeling all right today? Are any of the big, bad "minority" students that you have incited picking on you?" Silver lining: one day, I heard the music teacher blasting some country tunes in her room. Of course, it was for our special problem child.

I had a crappy year. Dealing with this kid and then the disaster that was springtime summer school was horrible.

Someone wanted to know if we were sad to see our class leave. I've never been happier to see a group of kids hit the road.

Flood Day!!

School is cancelled tomorrow because we are stuck in the middle of a deluge. An Old Testament-type rain continues to fall and flood and cause much consternation around heah.

Hence, the free-day tomorrow.

Personally, I thought the county would wait until 4AM to call it. That's how they roll. But an elementary school flooded today, and parents were HOT. So, they thought they'd better get a handle on things - you know, with the roads being out and all , so they have shut down the county. We are thrilled. Unforetunately, Prep and BrownBear's school is so wet, the football field is underwater and Homecoming is Friday. No word on how they are going to address that mess.

So, think of me manana; we never get snow, but sometimes, we do get a break.

Lysol, Anyone?

They think BrownBear has mono - and that means fun times around here. We went to the pediatrician (again! - only this time, the good one, the one who has known the girls since they were born and not this Dr. Newgirl who ordered blood work and didn't order the complete tests for BB, so we got to go get more blood drawn!! At the children's hospital!! After the strep test!

Fun times, I tell you. I have now missed four days since the beginning, not counting the half day I was out for teacher rounds. But even being out, I was able to screw up. I was checking my e-mail and opened one from a parent who wrote that she had received her daughter's graded work out of the order we had originally intended to send it home. We had said that we were going to send it home with the lowest grade on top and her daughter's work hadn't come home that way. The 87 was in the middle, not on top. I forwarded this to my best friend in the building who promptly replied something smart-assed to me and then sent it to the parent. Holy crap. The mom wrote back to her wondering what the hell was going on. Ever clever, my friend said that the county email was acting up - our first names are exactly the same and sometimes, she gets my email.

As my great uncle used to tell me, I could screw up the Lord. I didn't understand him when I was little, but I got a handle on it today.

Unhappily Ever After

Last week during our conferences, we met some true characters. Geniuses, as Cupcake has often called them. However, I am referring to some of the parents. Most of the time, I have found that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

I don't even know where to begin with this story. We got a new kid sometime in the middle of October - let's call him HickoryBoy because he hails from Hickory, NC. As far as we could tell, ours was the third school he had been in this school year. (Let that sink in for a minute.) He wasn't in my homeroom, just my English class. He was of slight build and always wore some kind of skeleton clothing. Cute curly hair - too much for me, but cute nonetheless.

He did nothing for me. He liked to talk, talk, talk. As far as I could tell, it was a mechanism he used to get out of doing anything. My special ed teacher had to show him how to hold a pencil. She assured me it was just his way of getting out of doing work. Well, of course. He was in fifth grade. You should know how to hold a pencil by now. Another mechanism to get out of working.

I saw him start assignments and he could never produce them the next day to finish them. He was always re-starting them. He restarted more things than the kids in my room ever finished. I think he restarted the same Vocabulary Contract about 85 times. I don't know what was up.

The quarter ended at Christmas vacation and we all averaged our grades. Well, HickoryBoy had a 21 in English. And I was being generous. He had done just as well in all his other subjects. I figured that once his mama saw those grades, all hell would break loose. We sent those grades home the first week of January along with conference notices.

We didn't hear anything and believe me, we heard a lot from lots of parents who wanted to know what happened to their kids during the second nine weeks. (Uh, they stopped doing and turning in their assignments. Just saying.) We had a come to Jesus meeting with invited participants the second week of January. We invited HickoryBoy and his parents. No shows.

The third week of January, I just had it with this kid. He got called to the office with another student during my class and while my student teacher was correcting a homework assignment, I threw his backpack up on his desk and started to go through it. (Don't get all hyper on me. Students don't have any Constitutional rights. I already checked. Besides, I was helping HickoryBoy by getting his homework out and correcting it for him while he was gone.) Anyway, there wasn't any work in his backpack, just his grades from the beginning of January, the conference note and the invitation to the come to Jesus meeting, along with his agenda which looked practically brand new.

As I was unfolding the grades and the conference note, he came back into my room and almost yelled at me. And I told him I was just looking for his homework for StudentTeacherChick. But, alas, what was this? And where was his work? There was nothing there - just blank paper. I was thinking about getting loud - you teacher guys and gals know that feeling?- when I said, " How old are you? You are in the fifth grade! You should know better than to keep your backpack like this..." when he said, "Twelve."

Twelve. BrownBear - my gifted, talented blue-eyed baby is twelve. My seventh grader. Is. Twelve.

I took him outside and listened. He has been bounced around - moved around and he doesn't know why. He has failed a grade and he doesn't know why. His father is gone and he doesn't know why.

The special ed teacher called his oldest school from the beginning of the year and they faxed their records - the ones we didn't get in his move from school two to school three. The ones that said he was ADHD, on a 504 plan and taking medication.

I love my job.

We pulled his brother's perm record and read the summary our clerk had written about the family trying to register. She had written that they had told her that their house had been broken into twice and the robbers had taken their registration papers. Twice.

All righty.

We called the mother six (6) (SIX) times to try to find out if she could come in for a meeting or the conference we had set up for her. If Prep's or BrownBear's school had called me six times in one day, I would have driven over there to see what in the hell was wrong. Was someone dead?

In the meantime, StudentTeacherChick, GuidanceCounselorGirl and I make up a plan to stay on top of HickoryBoy, get him to be accountable for his work, get him to do his work, seat him with me and just get him to make a bond with somebody. It started to work. Holy crap, Batman, he was starting to get it.

On conference day, this imbecile of a mother shows up and starts in with her crap of how she keeps up with HickoryBoy and she knows what he is supposed to do. She lays on the biggest load of bull I have ever witnessed. My teaching partner had to write "shut up" on my notepad to keep me from coming undone.

Well, mama made all the obligatory promises about keeping up and keeping him on track and won't life be rosy when we're all in glory together.

Fast forward to today. She took him out of school and moved again because we didn't know how to teach and he didn't fit in the big city. HickoryBoy told GuidanceCounselorGirl he didn't want to go. GuidanceCounselorGirl cried. He didn't tell me goodbye because his mother came and got him before he came to my class.

I love my job.

A Cold Dose of Reality

Monday was a bear - not because of the start of conference week or Prep's court appearance because of her October wreck - but because I found out about the tragic death of the son of one of our friends from a lifetime ago.

Garrett was only about five days older than PrepGirl; I remember when he was born and waited anxiously for Prep to follow. Garrett's parents were dear, dear people; there wasn't anything we wouldn't do anything for each other.

But they moved to the outlying suburbs and we grew apart; Garrett grew up to be a high school athlete- both a football and basketball player.

Early Sunday morning, his car crossed the center line - apparently going too quickly and possibly drunk, but that hasn't been determined yet - and he died upon impact with another car.

Dead. A dead teenager - 16 1/2 years old.

When I told PrepGirl goodbye yesterday morning, I grabbed her and hugged her hard. Usually, we all just tell each other 'bye and love you - the girls are usually still in bed when I leave - but Prep was up, getting ready Monday morning, so I grabbed her hard. Hard. And she wanted to know what was up. She could see right through me and my transparent self. So I explained what had happened and she was smart enough to reassure me that she was careful, not a curfew breaker, and she absolutely didn't drink. But I reminded her that there were other people who didn't.

Last night, LawyerBoy and I tried to go to the funeral home. Tried, but there were thousands(and I quote the news tonight) thousands of people at the funeral home. We couldn't get near the place.

What a disaster.

Hug your babies tonight.