Hey Lady! is Ms. Frizzle for a Day

I hate it when those nagging life/career lessons show up in the classroom and cause me to walk back to my desk with sinking shoulders, biting my lip and feeling like a total sack of crap. A sack of crappy crap. It’s also raining today, and I look awesome—but now I am having a hard time enjoying those two things (just sayin’).
As I mentioned in my post before, it is mid-term week and I am done marking (Hallelujah!), and compiling all the grades for term 3. Most of my student’s marks are considerably lower this term because many bombed the exam (they always go into the exam thinking it’s too easy so we kind of slammed them this time-but in a healthy way…)-well they bombed heinously, made sloppy mistakes and rushed outta there. We also introduced a few new skills this term, like essay writing and a hefty novel study and more speaking tests-so their marks were lower in the assignments/testing areas too. It was a hard term, okay!
So I decided the marks should be posted by student number and after my mini lecture on grades being lower, and how they should light a fire under they asses for term 4 because universities look at their grade 11 final grades etc etc…(same lecture I heard in high school, yes, I know-shoooooosh!) I put their grades on the wall.

Well I must have forgotten to remind them to not cry until after I left the room, because holy mo it was heavy in there. My 11-4’s are needy anyway and they think they are absolutely brilliant (all needy people do)—so I was expecting some dismayed looks—I mean, and let’s put this in perspective here—they all scored over 72, so tears are a little dramatic and as they quickly discovered, an ineffective way of earning my sympathy. Naturally I invited them to speak to me after school and work harder than ever in term 4, and come see me for help as much as possible—but many just refused to even acknowledge me in the room. Fine. Play your game. I’ll be waiting for you at my desk with a chipper smile and a little candy in the jar for you.

I did the same song and dance for 11-11, and there were more 50’s and 40’s in that class because though I love those kids, many are lazy, or cheat, or sleep. Beggers can’t be choosers…what? Anyway...**Lucy scored 1% higher than Helen and Helen hit the roof (to the point that I had to remind her that I am the teacher and she is the student and if she wants to speak to me about HER grade, she needs to be polite and respectful and stop demanding my mark-book and poking my arm). Actually it was more like this, “Helen, stop being crazy and stop poking me!”

So my crappy sack of crap lesson is that it’s tough to give out grades and become the most hated person in the room, but it’s true that I’m not their friend—I’m their teacher and teachers have shitty jobs. Wait—no—that’s not the lesson. I need to feel okay about being hard as nails about their grades this term-and being hated for a little while. These kids get the best of me, everyday—my roommate would be happy to confirm that for you. They get all my patience, my leniency, creativity, generosity, smiles and sarcasm. The rest of the world gets my nuggets. Sorry world.

But it is time for me to be more firm (here we go): a deadline is a deadline and yes I give zeros if you waste my time or hand something to me that was due 2 months ago just because you failed the class. I will not tell you your essay is great if it reads like a bunch of chinglish sentences on a T-shirt sold for 30 cents beside the sugar-roasted rat stand. If you get a 58% on the midterm exam, I will make you write a whole other exam to try to score higher, but that is the pinnacle of my leniency. You will work hard and type everything, and ask for help for every assignment until you are blue in the face because I notice those who ask for help and those who don’t, it’s true—and it matters to me. I will spend hours with you after school practicing your English and I won’t even complain about how hungry I am and how my ears sometimes bleed from listening too closely, and I do this because I like you and I know you can make it to university because I have never seen anyone so young want something so much. We have crazy classes where we build and mold and watch and record and create and explore and laugh and share-but if you ever stop reflecting on what you are learning from the assignments, I will notice you slacking and don’t you dare utter the words, “The E.L. midterm is so easy, teacher, we don’t have to study” because I will make sure you spend the rest of class with duct tape over your mouth. GREENZO OUT!! (Thank-you Taylor Mali and 30 Rock for that moment).

Holy-I’m not even kidding-Helen and two other students came by my desk just now and apologized for what happened in class and promised to work harder. I gave them cute Canada pencils and used encouraging adjectives. I love these kids and the ones with low marks keep me awake at night, but upping their grades into the 80’s doesn’t do them any favours down the road. It’s just for some of them, they work so hard and they really want to master English and go straight to university in Canada and make their families proud and have the prosperous lives they were promised—so when they only get 72% and they look at me like, “how could you betray me like this? I worked hard for you!” I get all messed up and crappy-feeling.

So why is it that I work my butt off all term to motivate and give them the skills they need, they end up with low marks and disdain in their mouth anyway, and I am awake until 3am asking myself, “Am I doing enough?” “Does this get easier?” “Is now the time to have children?” Wait—that last one is a digression and completely off-topic.

It’s really hard.

I only have 70 days left with these guys and 70 days left with this blog.

Okbye.