@Grumpysmrf - just curious, in all your years as a teacher, did you ever have any kids you were “worried about”? Any anti social loners who you could tell were having a really hard time fitting in?
Well, maybe 2 but definitely 1, that was this last summer. That’s pretty good for being in education for over 10 years.
I say maybe 2 because the first one was an 8th grader who killed himself (5-6 years back) but he never struck me as the violent type not even to himself. So, I suppose he was a possible sleeper. He had friends he wasn’t hated but not popular either, and dumb as shit. I don’t mean just not book smart he wasn’t common sense smart either. Probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but it is what it is…
But this last summer I had a kid in summer school that actually put me ill at ease. He was 18 had the credits of a freshmen (first year of highschool for you Aussies) and the kid was seriously out of his mind. He shouldn’t even have been enrolled (but my boss sometimes isn’t that bright and enrolls people he shouldn’t) apparently he lived away from his mom (had serious problems with her) (all of this unbeknownst to me at the time I had yet to meet him) but still had her listed as an emergency contact. He left a message saying he wasn’t coming in to test he was going out of town (to fullerton) for an emergency and he wanted 4 extra days. He was really vague about his “emergency” and kids try to pull that “emergency” shit all of the time when they slack on their work and don’t have it complete.
I didn’t know anything about this kid. He was another teacher’s student so no way was I gonna let him slide on anything, as far as I know he was some kid who was just trying to dodge out of doing his work. So I try to call him back, I’m sent directly to voicemail. So I call his emergency contact (his mom) I ask what the big emergency is, she says “I don’t know, he doesn’t live with me but he is expected at his gma’s 72nd b-day down in fullerton on Sunday.” (nice lady on the phone)
I said "Sunday? when were you all leaving for this?”
she says “saturday afternoon…(this conversation is happening Friday morning) we are carpooling…”
So, I say, “Well, Ma’am he has got to come in today to turn in his work and test otherwise he’ll be dropped from summer school.”
she says, “ok I’ll try to get ahold of him…”
cut to 45 minutes later the door violently swings open into the school, this skinny, dirty looking, greasy haired, smelly, gross motherfucker is standing there with his arms folded and this deranged look on his face.
“can I help you” I say
“Yeah” he says “you can tell me who the motherFUCKING asshole is who called my mother.”
the secretary flips out (rightly so, he was fucking creepy) “you’re going to leave right now” she says
“I don’t think so.” He says, “Some asshole, probably you (he says to the secretary), called my cunt mother, and that fucking cunt called me to come here and take some stupid test even though I called and cancelled”
at this point I stand up (I’m 6’2 230 lbs, I tower over him). I tell him "this is school, you don’t ‘call and cancel’ school. We’re not the hairdresser, and I am the one that called your mother because when I called you, you sent me to your voicemail and your mother is on your emergency contact list and there is no note saying not to contact. So I called your emergency contact.”
he says, “well mr. Asshole i sent you to voice mail because i didn’t want to talk to you, obviously.”
I said, “look, you turn in your work right now and go in there and take your tests. if not, get out!”
he turns around throws his work out into the lobby and trots off into the computer lab to take his test.
I go into the lobby grab his work off the floor and absolutely none of it is complete not even started in fact. I let him finish his tests and he scores a combined score of 23 between US History and English. Scored a 9 on history and 14 on the English. I tell him there is no way he can pass summer school with no work completed and these pitiful test scores. He stomps out, like literally stomps. He hits the glass door full on with his fist and the loudest smack rings out through the whole building. We thought he broke the glass door. He didn’t
Whatever, glad he’s gone, but 2 hours later I get this 3 minute rambling message on my work phone from him, about how it’s my fault he’s not gonna get an education (mind you he’s 18 with maybe 30 credits and he needs 220 credits to graduate) and the next time I hear from him I had better pray it’s not in the “dead people section of the newspaper” and “his blood is on my hands”
Usually the anger (even the really bad ones) from kids is mostly scripted (for lack of a better word) it’s really shallow and mostly for shock effect even if they don’t even know it themselves. This kid I just told you about was different he seriously lived in a different world. He seriously gave me the weirds. I wasn’t sure if he was gonna come back with a gun and shoot the place up. And there was nowhere in his mind that he did anything wrong he was the victim here. freaky dude.
I know that was probably longer than you wanted but there it all is.
Late,
grmpysmrf