Tuesday, January 25, 2011

We Love Our Students, But Not In A Pervy Way

We have had an influx of new students this week and last at Newmentia. Normally, we get a new kid about every three months, or maybe four. The three we gained in the last two days don't seem like anything to write home about.

The girl, I will excuse for not showing up for class during lunch time, and spending an hour in the library. Sure, most kids would know that their schedule has a class every period, not a free time in the library block. And perhaps, if unsure about where they should be, would just pop into the office and ask. It's your first day, you know. Nobody would begrudge you an escort to class. It's not like Newmentia is a maze of outbuildings and ivy-covered stone walls and secret dungeons. It's ONE long hallway. You can see from one end to the other. The office is in the middle, right across from the open cafeteria. Floor plans don't get much simpler than that.

Today's dude I don't know well enough yet to criticize. But I will give him credit for sitting at the end of a lunch table, alone, instead of with the rabble-rousers who usually glom onto the new kid before New Kid knows what hit him. You know. The Sex Club.

Yesterday's new kid apparently crafted a masterpiece on SciMathCrony's desk. An uncommissioned work of art, if you will. And when called on his creative faux pas, just snorted and said, "So?" Which earned him an audience with Mr. Principal, who requested that Mr. Clean find some scrubbing supplies. But Mr. Clean takes his job seriously, and magically erased the classic graphic. Mr. Principal bemoaned young Rembrandt's fate, and Mr. Clean announced the most scathingly brilliant idea: "Let him clean all of the classroom desks." And that was that.

We won't go into the old new student who decided that he was not going to do anything. Not only decided, but voiced to one and all. Including Mr. Principal. Who was having none of that. You can't enjoy the show if you don't buy a ticket, so DoNot was dispatched homeward to do nothing without an audience.

We really do appreciate our homegrown students. They would never try such shenanigans. I can't imagine what those other schools must be like, for students to think this outlandish behavior is acceptable.

5 comments:

Kathy's Klothesline said...

They are just trying to see what they can get away with. I was never brave enough to do that ....... back in my day, if you were new you tried to impress the new taeching staff with wondrous feats of asskissery.

knancy said...

Somebody just needs to stuff them back in the handbasket to hell from where they fell and send them on their way. Invariably the hard working, love to learn students are deprived due to the do nothings. It goes back to punishing the whole class by making them put their heads down on the desk for the actions of one student. So wrong! Lazy butts take valuble time from students who want to progress in a timely fashion. Being bored in school waiting for a non-learner to be reprimanded is very frustating.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Kathy,
If they came from a school that didn't put up with those shenanigans, they wouldn't think to try it at Newmentia.


knancy,
Yes, the squeaky wheels revel in their grease, as the hard-working, silent wheels dry-rot.

Mommy Needs a Xanax said...

I love how the head honcho at your school makes them do a punishment that fits the crime. At my school, I would've been told I was wrong for being upset at the kid for using my desk as a canvas. He's from a bad neighborhood and nobody loves him and he was just expressing his need for...something...by writing on my desk. The fact that I got upset about it is why white people should never be put in charge of anything, because we don't understand young black teenagers and their special, special, very special yet equally equal needs. For special treatment. Then I would be sent back to my corner of GhettoMentia to face the class who knows I just got chastised by the principal, and I might even be a little more prone to a write-up next time I'm 35 seconds late because I was waiting on the same train the other 10 late teachers were waiting on, but none of them got write-ups because they understand our children and their special, special, very special yet equally equal needs to write on desks, smoke weed in the bathroom, and never do homework.

Can I come work in Newmentia?

Hillbilly Mom said...

Mommy Ann,
That's one specific problem we don't have yet. But once upon a time a principal told me that I didn't understand the 20-year-old new kid who kicked a volleyball through the gym ceiling. Apparently, it's stressful when you have to move in with your grandma and re-enroll in high school at 20. So you have to alleviate the stress in gym.