If I have to do it, why don't you?

Random comment from a sixth grade student yesterday as we were talking about school rules: "I don't understand why we have to wear uniforms and the teachers don't."

Now, many of my peers and I wore uniforms from K-12 grade and, not once, can I recall any of us questioning why an adult didn't have to wear the uniform, too. It was just accepted that there were things they could do and things we could do. Period. And I attended high school in the grungy, "f-authority" mid-90s, not the 50s, mind you.

Couple this comment with the fact that our 10th graders have begun calling our AP by her first name -- and she seems fine with this -- and I am officially too old to understand this generation.

Tim

All of the teachers are expected to keep notes on one male student at my school, let's call him Tim. The boy in question has an IEP and is labeled with an emotional disorder. I can't explain what happened from September until now, but it seems he has been getting progressively worse in my class.

At first, he started out making ridiculous noises and whistling and being generally annoying -- which you get used to very quickly as a middle school teacher. But the first time I asked him to stop whistling, he looked straight at me and denied he did it. Okay. Next, he fell head over heels with the idea of throwing paper balls all over my room. "Tim, please stop throwing paper and pick up what you threw -- thank you." His reply: "I didn't throw it. God threw it." Totally deadpan too, by the way. Excellent.

From there, the problems have only escalated. He doesn't want to sit in his seat sometimes so he spends the first 10 minutes of class doing the worm on my floor. He'll crotch in the corner and put his hands over his face, shouting, "you can't see me!"

Did I mention he scores higher on state exams than most of the other students in his class?

Positive reinforcement seems to work for a minute or two, and then he promptly forgets the attention and begins acting out again.

So, we continue to keep records and logs. A bizarre part of the job, I must say.

Candy and Lessons and Trying Too Hard = Getting Nowhere

It's the third month and I am still unable to keep students in seats. I still over plan and dread those few minutes where I have to transition from one topic to another. Because I'm new, the transitions are never effortless, the way I've noticed they can be in more experienced teachers' classrooms.

Every day, at least one kid in one class will get up out of his seat, shuffle over to the door as if he were at a bus depot, and gaze out the window. I call their names and they say "yeah," but keep looking out the window or talking to a friend or folding paper into origami airplanes.

I spend hours thinking up ways to grab their interest. I lesson plan each Sunday and then run out to CVS to buy packets of Butterfinger Bars and Tootsie Rolls, in an effort to teach them how to write a thesis statement about the best candy in the world. I spend oodles of my own money on trinkets and tokens meant to motivate and inspire. I am constantly exhausted and frequently annoyed. I vow, constantly, to replace candy bar lesson plans with straight-up reading and writing assignments that will NOT cost me an arm and a leg to fund.

And then I just run right back out to CVS again.