stuff in school today

[xfer]

some kids:

- tried to convince me to take some of my female students as wives
- offered me $50 to help him cheat on the state midterms
- when that failed, offered me "a little something" (drugs)
- confessed she hadn't read a book since 6th grade (one of the brighter/more receptive students; none of her real teachers know this. she's going to BC or BU in the fall)


some teacher:

- threatened to shoot and kill my cooperating teacher, making her cry, because of a video we screened on wednesday as part of our activism class, which was critical of Brighton High

 

[lizard]

the youth of today...I hope you can salvage some of them.

 

[avi]

man, I seriously need to leave this damn country

 

[inkybmistro]

You paint a picture of a class entirely made up of rambunctious/out of control nincompoops!

 

[xfer]

no, they're great kids!

 

[inkybmistro]

How does it feel having the real teacher sitting in on classes? ...Or is it all you...

 

[Josh Seipp]

- threatened to shoot and kill my cooperating teacher, making her cry, because of a video we screened on wednesday as part of our activism class, which was critical of Brighton High

whoah WHAT? you need to expound upon this.

 

[xfer]

i haven't taken over yet, so she's still doing most of the teaching. probably another week.

 

[xfer]

hmmm well

one of the classes is called "leadership" which sounds like some retarded corporate thing, but it's actually a stealth name for what's basically "activism 101", teaching kids community organizing, grant writing, canvassing, surveying, etc. and other things related to social change. the class is broken up into five groups addressing issues they wanted to change within the school (for example, one group is trying to get music classes reinstated...another is trying to modify the "8:00 rule" where kids are locked out of school and told to go home if they arrive later than 8am...et al).

on wednesday night the class hosted a screening of a video that they made last year (but hadn't publicly shown yet) which was very professionally done, hundreds of hours spent interviewing students/editing etc....the video is about the inequalities between urban and suburban schools and includes a bunch of things students don't like about the school and hope would change, including criticism of teachers and administrators (not by name), like "low expectations" and stuff.

the administration was not really happy about it but honestly reacted not ridiculously in some ways (so far) and said they preferred it not to be shown outside BHS, but it's too late because they sent copies to a lot of people (not that they would be stopped anyway). but some teachers, especially, took it really personally, especially the coaches/military/disciplinarian types.

 

[mousewings]

Sounds all fun.

Have pity on the kids for the first one (but not *that* much pity). Some of them do have crushes on you. I know it.