Sunday, October 10, 2010

Unknown Blogger

My first guest post, written by another blogger and posted here anonymously.  I'm looking forward to having mine published as well.  I've gotten a few offers already.

Bonehead
I allow the kids listen to their I-pods while they work. I used to listen to the radio when I did homework, so I understand their music is important. I specified no phones and emphasized that if they tell anyone, the deal is off.

Bonehead took his phone out during a quiz. I told him to put it away. He could have just done that, but no, he had to be difficult. He said he needed his phone to pass the quiz. I wrote him up. He said he was going to tell the administration that I let the kids listen to music and he would get me fired. I calmly turned around and told the class that they could no longer listen to music.

Bonehead refused the one day of punishment he was given, cut school, cut class, mouthed off some more. He was suspended for 2 weeks. He sat out another 2.

When he returned he was angry that he was failing. Every time I tried to do anything with the class, he was in my face, demanding that I do things to raise his grade.

Finally, finished with the rest of the class (well, I had them working and they were not happy they couldn't listen to music), I gave him things to do (things I had sent home with him that he had thrown away) so that he could bring his grade up.

We had a long talk after this - he actually apologized for threatening me and we have gone back to listening to music.

I have no clue what the moral is.

6 comments:

Mrs. Chili said...

The scary thing is that there may not BE a moral. Clearly, Bonehead doesn't see (yet) that his behavior has repercussions beyond himself. Until he figures that out (my hope is that one of his affected classmates will give him a good talking to at some point), he's not going to really learn anything.

He has no idea, I think, how lucky he is in that he's able to make up work he missed (or, rather, didn't bother to do) while he was suspended. In our system, you take those zeros.

Good luck with this...

Pissedoffteacher said...

Bonehead is lucky he is not in my class.

mathematicamama said...

Silly me- I thought "bonehead" was the teacher. We get seriously in trouble for allowing the rules to be bent, broken, or manipulated. This is why- it comes back to haunt.

Pissedoffteacher said...

I'm a firm believer in bending rules. I do it all the time and hope for the best.

Moriah Untamed said...

Bending the rules isn't the problem. It's when they get put through the shredder and tossed onto the landfill that need to get concerned.

Sonja said...

Ever feel like we're being held hostage to these types of kids?