Notes From The Education Underground: The TeachWonk Diaries

Just Another Brick...
Yesterday, I discussed how one of my seventh-grade students had yelled to the class, "Because I'm Stupid," when I asked her why she did not do her homework. This created a major disruption of the day's lesson. I then asked her to come see me after school, and (of course) she chose not to.

I also said (yesterday) that our school's administration does not consider this type of defiance to be serious enough to warrant sending the child to the assistant principal's office. In fact, we have been told that when this happens, we are to give the student "another chance."

Only if the student fails to report the second time can we send him or her to the office.

And now the rest of the story...

Today, the same child again failed to do her homework. Again I directed her to report to our classroom after school for detention.

Incredibly, the child showed up. I sat there with her while she did today's homework. She couldn't help but grumble about how 15 minutes of home-work every day cut into her valuable social schedule.

Now if only I could do something with the 9 out of 34 students in one of my eighth-grade classes that failed to turn in yesterday's homework home work assignment, which consisted of writing 9 simple sentences describing the ways that the colonists protested England's taxation policies just before the American Revolution.

Latest Posts