Here & there

Vacation

Ahhh, vacation. One of the delightful perks of this job. This week I've been able to see some friends, spend time in Boston, buy more books, and today I went for a nice hike in the Blue Hills. Yesterday I finally went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for the first time. What a beautiful place! The garden is breathtaking....oh, how I wish I had money. That is the type of garden that could inspire poetry (and probably has). I enjoyed a lot of the art, though at times I found it annoying that the museum has to keep everything exactly the way Gardner had it, because some pieces were difficult to get a good look at. Plus, not all of them were very well lit. Nevertheless, it was a worthwhile excursion. I also saw "Titanic" in 3D. That movie first came out when I was 9 years old, and my sister was 5. My mom wasn't always very good at paying attention to why movies carried the ratings they did, and thus took us to see some things that were a little inappropriate (like "Stepmom"), which I recall once commenting on to her. (I'm sure that those of you who know me are not the least bit surprised by this.) I thought the 3D added to the grandeur of the film, and it was great to be able to see this on the big screen again. I've seen it in bits and pieces on TV for so many years, but that kind of waters down the effect of it (please excuse the horrible and unintended pun). Even though I practically have it memorized, seeing it in the theater was like seeing it with fresh eyes.

Capote

This week I've also been reading Truman Capote's Music for Chameleons, which is a collection of short stories, some true, some fictional, some a combo of the two. With Capote, sometimes it can be hard to tell. But I absolutely love his style of writing. These stories are from late in his career when he was experimenting with a new style. The result is almost like a screenplay, consisting largely of dialogue, something for which he had a great talent. Anyone who has ever seen and loved "Breakfast at Tiffany's" should read the novella--the way he writes Holly Golightly's dialogue is so distinctive that you can actually hear Audrey Hepburn's voice. One story in Music for Chameleons, "Handcarved Coffins," is made up of dialogue along with descriptions relegated to parentheses. It's about 80 pages long, and had me at the edge of my seat, racing to unlock its secrets. Recently, when I offered to let my students borrow my books so they could have something to read if they finished the MCAS early, In Cold Blood caught the eyes of one of my CP1 boys. He returned it last week, and said that he loved it. He seemed to still be a little bit haunted by it. Once I finish this book, I'll have to see if he's interested in borrowing it. It's always fun to get kids to read something they ordinarily would not pick up, and then see them get hooked by it.

Yom HaShoah

Today is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. I've mentioned before in this blog how I teach Elie Wiesel's Night in my World Literature class, which is for seniors. Next year, our school is re-shuffling our curriculum, and World Lit is going to be for sophomores (I currently teach four classes of sophomores). This means that they'll be missing out on some great books. A few of us decided that we would teach Night to our sophomores this year, as it is often considered one of the most important books students will read in high school. It's amazing what an impact it can have on them, learning of the atrocities that human beings are capable of committing against one another, as well as how strong and enduring the human spirit can be. 

I assigned the memoir to my honors class to read over break. A couple of weeks ago, a few of those students were asking me what they would be reading after Macbeth, and I told them that this would be assigned, and they were pretty excited. Then, early last week, one of the boys came in, excitedly saying, "I read that book!!!" At first, I had NO idea what book he was referring to. He went on to tell me that he had already finished Night (even though I had not yet officially assigned it or even passed out the books), and he loved it. He buzzed on and on about how great the writing was, and said that he couldn't put the book down, and in fact was afraid to put it down because it was so sad that he wasn't sure if he'd be able to pick it back up again. He even said, "I almost cried." After class ended, he talked to me some more about it, his enthusiasm just spilling over. To put it in perspective, this kid is a member of the football and wrestling teams. He's smart and a good kid, but can be kind of a yahoo sometimes (to steal Ms. K's word). I've blogged about him before--he's the one who ate the spider. But like I said, he is a good kid, and when he's not being a goofball, he's pretty bright. To see him so enthusiastic and so affected by this book was fantastic. The next day, when I did my lecture on the Holocaust and WWII, whenever his classmates started getting a little noisy, he'd tell them, "Quiet, I want to hear this." WHOA. This is one of the students that I usually have to remind to quiet down! But he was riveted and wanted to soak up every bit of information. His classmates were also very interested and asked some good questions. I also showed some photographs from a book of my dad's, some of which are kind of graphic, showing starving or dead prisoners. Some students, including the aforementioned boy, had to avert their eyes from those pictures, unable to look at the horrors I warned them about.

The assignment I gave with Night was 2-3 pages on the following question: "From a 21st century point of view, what does this book mean to you?" It's very open-ended, and I'm extremely interested to see what sorts of responses I'll get. I didn't want to give a literary analysis with the book this time; I think the more personal responses will be more impactful. I'll be sure to write an update once I collect the assignment. I hope the students are all at least half as moved by this account of the Holocaust as that one boy was. Today is a reminder of just how important it is to keep the memory of that terrible crime against humanity alive, and to use our knowledge and understanding to create a better world for ourselves.

Hoops, horrors, and hope

Last week, I experienced two of the most powerful days of my young teaching career. On Wednesday, Chris Herren was a guest speaker at school. For those of you who are not familiar with his story, Herren was once the next big thing in basketball. He was a local kid from Fall River who decided to play for Boston College, and eventually ended up playing in the NBA, including for the Celtics. However, his career was derailed and destroyed by his drug addiction. It started off with “just” smoking pot and drinking beer as a teenager, which eventually led to him getting hooked on cocaine, which led to oxycontin, which led to heroin.

Herren was a very powerful speaker. First off, he looked and sounded like someone the students could relate to, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt and speaking in his Boston accent. Then there was the content of his presentation. He began his story by talking about how in his freshman year at BC, he was required to go to a lecture on drugs, and he was one of those kids who laughed at it. As he said this, sure enough there were a few students in the audience laughing to one another. He pointed and whistled at them and asked if they were following him, effectively demanding their attention. From that point on, you could hear a pin drop in that gym.

One aspect of Herren’s talk was that he didn’t hold back. I’m sure that there are a lot of parents who are upset that he didn’t censor himself, but I think that the grim reality is exactly what these kids needed to here: stories of sleeping on the street, of having his heart stop and get restarted on two different occasions, of having needles hanging out of his arm, of an Italian man pulling a string of heroin bags out of his mouth, of dragging his children into the car so he could go meet his dealer, and so on. One of my students said that he knew that drugs did bad things to your body and life, but he had never before realized just how much damage they could cause. That kind of shock and awe may have been controversial, but it was effective, so censorship be damned.

The real turning point for Herren was when he left rehab to attend the birth of his third child, and was high just a few hours later. His wife finally told him to leave and get away from her children. When he returned to rehab, someone there told him that he needed to call up his wife and tell her that he was going to drop off the face of the Earth and to tell the kids that he had died in a car accident, saying that he was scum and that this was the best thing he could do for his family. This was the push Herren needed to finally get sober. This part of his story was extremely emotional, and I found myself tearing up.

What was even more moving, however, was the students’ responses afterwards. During the question time, some students asked good, thoughtful questions. One kid said that going into the presentation, “I thought this was going to be crap,” and then said that he wanted to thank Herren for being there. One of our school’s biggest thugs, a kid who’s always getting into fights and has been arrested a number of times, actually asked a question (“What’s the hardest part of your day?”), and the shock in the room was palpable. A couple of students also shared personal stories of friends and family members who have struggled with addiction, and another said that he was writing a book about his past addiction, and passed down a few chapters, asking if Herren would give them a look. For those students to feel comfortable speaking up in front of their peers like that was amazing. One thing that I think helped them was when he talked about kids who had trouble speaking up at past presentations he had done. One girl at another school felt pressured to put her hand down, but emailed him later and told him about how she was bullied at school and was cutting herself. He wanted these kids to know that they could tell him whatever they wanted, and that everyone else had better be respectful about it.

The presentation ended up going past the time we had originally allotted for it. Someone, I think it might have been his assistant, told the administrators that Herren spoke more passionately, emotionally, and longer than he usually does, and that when he thanked the kids for being an amazing audience, that wasn’t just a throwaway line—he doesn’t usually say that to the crowds he speaks to. Students remained in the gym talking to him and asking questions for the next half hour until after school had ended. He later tweeted about our school: “Words cant describe what I just witnessed at  __________HS ... Emotional and powerful 2hrs with the kids !! THANK YOU forever grateful..” He felt a great connection to our kids, and vice versa. Of course, some kids still left this laughing and will go on making bad decisions, but some were truly affected. Herren also made sure to give us his contact info, which I passed on to my kids, and noticed many of them writing it down.

The next day, I barely did any teaching. All of my sophomore classes ended up talking about the presentation throughout the whole class. I had them circle up and discuss it. In a couple of classes where they were a little more reluctant at first to talk, I just had them go in a circle. If they weren’t sure what to say, I just asked them to comment on something in the presentation that they found powerful. A lot of them spoke very passionately about how powerful they found Herren’s talk. But some kids did have personal stories that they wanted to get off their chests—stories of family members who struggled with addiction (some of whom lost the fight), stories of themselves overcoming problems with addiction or self-mutilation. One student even cried, as did I a little bit. I had to contact some guidance counselors to follow up on some of what I heard, as I am a mandated reporter. One of the cases I had to report required immediate attention: during one class, a girl said that because of Herren’s words, one of her friends said that he no longer wanted to do drugs, but that with that taken away, he felt like he no longer had anything left to live for. I pulled her out of the room at the end of class and asked if she would give me his name, which she did. She asked me about it the next day, and I assured her that the counselors were working to get him the help that he needed. I am so proud of her for having the courage to speak up and tell on her friend. One thing I told all of the students that day was that telling on a friend who is doing drugs is not a bad thing. Yes, the friend might get mad at them, but saving their life is more important. I talked about how their teachers are not looking to just get kids in trouble and make this a “gotcha” kind of thing—we genuinely want to get them the help that they need.

Throughout the day, I really made sure to reiterate just how much I, along with the other teachers, care about our students. We may often be looked at as the people who make them do things they do want to do, but first and foremost we want to ensure that they are happy, healthy, and safe. The learning can’t happen effectively unless that other component is taken care of. I talked about how much we worry about them, and discussed the resources they have at school to get help.

In these discussions, the students also expressed a lot of frustration. There seems to be a big fear of telling their teachers and guidance counselors about their problems, and a lot of them, for various reasons, do not trust their counselors. They also are very cynical about the lasting power of Herren’s words; they said that they believe that soon enough, people who were initially inspired to change will just go back to their own ways. I asked them during the conversations if there were things we could do to change our school’s culture and ways that we could keep Herren’s message alive, as I believe that the question of "what's next?" is very important. Also, the next day, I gave the students a brief questionnaire asking what we as a school community can do to achieve those goals, and also asked what they would like their teachers and guidance counselors to do to better help them. I told them that I didn’t want our discussions to just have been nice little therapy sessions—I want them to truly have a voice, and for the faculty and students to work together on this issue. I promised that during vacation this week that I would read over those questionnaires, type up a little summary of the comments, and pass it along to the principal so that she can know what is on the students’ minds. Some of them remained cynical, while others were appreciative that I had truly listened to their concerns and wanted to make their voices heard.

I am so greatful to Mr. Herren for using his terrible experiences for something positive, and my kids were very touched by his words. The drug problem at my school and at others is not going to ever be completely eradicated; I am not so naïve as to believe that. But I hope that we can start to make a change. If Herren’s speech changed just a couple of lives, I will consider it a success. But I hope it does more, and starting a dialogue and keeping it going is important in determining how much of an effect it will have. And we the faculty need to do more to make sure that our students feel that they can trust us. We need to all work harder to make connections with our students so that they truly understand just how much we care about them and so that they can all feel special. I hope that this can be a turning point at my school. Perhaps that is foolishly optimistic, but nothing great was ever achieved with pessimism.

Creativity in the classroom

Here are pictures of some of the cool projects my kids have done in the last several months.

Macbeth newspapers:

Macbeth bumper stickers:

 Macbeth product w/ advertisement and product label:

 From the Night "Art of Witnessing" project:

 Lord of the Flies comic strip:

 LOTF symbolism art projects (the first two are students' renderings of the 'beast'):

 Animal Farm:

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Since everyone is talking about the film version of "The Hunger Games" these days, I figured I'd blog about my take on it. First off, for those of you who have not yet read it, DO IT ALREADY. I know, I know, you don't want to be yet another person jumping on the bandwagon, because you probably think these books are just another Twilight-esque craze. Well, you are wrong there. Okay, I didn't actually read Twilight, but I did see two of the movies and wanted to jump out of a window. And I was reluctant to read The Hunger Games at first, because it just didn't sound like my type of book, and I thought it might be a lame teenager thing. But so many of my friends and colleagues recommended it, and even my students insisted that I just HAD to read it--including some of my CP2 students who usually would rather have a root canal than read a book. So I decided that I needed to see what all the fuss was about, and boy was I hooked. It was so difficult to put it down, and soon enough I had read the entire trilogy.

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of the film version of the first book. One of my colleagues decided that a group of us English teachers should go to the midnight showing together, so a few of us agreed, despite it being a school night. We had a great time, and I enjoyed the movie. I thought that Jennifer Lawrence, though maybe not the appropriate physical type, made for a pretty good Katniss. Josh Hutcherson was great as Peeta, very believable. Elizabeth Banks was an unexpected choice for Effie, but it worked, though I'd like to see her character's growth to be shown in the next installment, as they left it out of this film. Woody Harrelson was a lousy Haymitch, failing to show the character's bitterness that is a result of being used by the Capitol and having to mentor tributes for so many years and watching them all die. Playing down his drunkenness may have been a result of this being a "family film," but it was still disappointing. One of the best parts of this film was probably Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman. It is a small role, but he did a fantastic job of using it to show the decadent attitudes of the Capitol's residents. I believe that he is truly one of the best actors in Hollywood. Though he plays mainly supporting characters, they are always memorable.

The film was overall very true to the book. It covered all the important points and tapped into a variety of emotions. The look of the film was spot-on, and I felt transported into the world of Panem. I also liked that they didn't play up the love triangle too much--it was touched upon, as it needed to be, but was not made the main focus in order to pander to the teenagers in the audience.  Despite these successes, however, some important elements were glossed over that perhaps a more daring director would have further expolored. First off, in order to really stir up anger in the audience, there could have been a couple details put in here an there (I understand that they have to be time-conscious, so I know that only so much of this can be done) that would have better illustrated the oppression of the Capitol. This would have made such moments as Peeta's speech about wanting to show the Capitol that he's "more than just a piece in their Games" more poignant. They also could have shown this oppression more through the scenes with the character Rue. The connection between her and Katniss was not portrayed as powerfully as it needed to be.

My other big criticism is the film's lack of attention to the book's commentary on the role of technology and media in our world. The book discusses the great enjoyment the residents of the Capitol find in watching the Hunger Games and their intense lust for blood. Even the people in the districts are glued to their screens, though it is a more painful experience for them. Katniss understands the how to play on the emotions of the audience, and thus makes her strategy in the game not only physical, but also an intelligent manipulation of her audience. The book serves as a really interesting commentary on our society's obsession with "reality" tv, how we enjoy watching real people suffer and become incredibly invested in what we watch. It's one of the more gruesome (and fascinating) aspects of our culture, but the film barely touched on this theme. I wish the filmmakers had been more gutsy and made the audience see themselves reflected in what was happening on-screen, but they missed that opportunity.

I was told that originally, a TV series of the trilogy had been proposed, and I hope that this will happen in the future (so long as it is put in the proper hands). I think that would be a really great opportunity to allow the audience to explore the psychology of the characters and the elements of the books that the film only touched upon.

Final verdict: "The Hunger Games" is nowhere near as fantastic as the book (as is usually the case), but still good in its own right. It is entertaining, exciting, emotional, and, despite some missed opportunities, thought-provoking. It could and should have taking all of this to greater heights, but I still recommend seeing it.

Words, words, words

While chatting with my friend GJ last night, he sent me the link to this OpEd piece by Jhumpa Lahiri entitled "My Life's Sentences." (We read her stories from Interpreter of Maladies in high school, and he remains fascinated by her.) I highly recommend reading the entire thing before proceeding here, but for those of you who aren't interested, I'll just copy the first couple of paragraphs, which I am most interested in, here:

In college, I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page. They were not necessarily the same sentences the professors pointed out, which would turn up for further explication on an exam. I noted them for their clarity, their rhythm, their beauty and their enchantment. For surely it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do.

I remember reading a sentence by Joyce, in the short story “Araby.” It appears toward the beginning. “The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed.” I have never forgotten it. This seems to me as perfect as a sentence can be. It is measured, unguarded, direct and transcendent, all at once. It is full of movement, of imagery. It distills a precise mood. It radiates with meaning and yet its sensibility is discreet.

As I read this, I thought, "That's ME!" Every now and then I will come across a sentence or phrase that I just find so lovely that I have to linger over it or even underline it. In college I took a course with my favorite professor where we read Marilynn Robinson's novel Gilead (many of those of you who know me well have already heard me speak adoringly about this novel...please forgive me for repeating myself here). She is an amazing writer (I have since read one of her other novels, and bought the third), and Gilead is truly the most beautifully written book I have ever read. When I read it, I envision and almost feel sunlight, the way it is at around 6 o'clock on a summer's evening. Her words just radiate this soft warmth. While reading this for my class, I used those little Post-It flags to mark passages that contained important information or that I wanted to discuss in class or use for my essay. However, I found myself getting so caught up in the beauty of the words that I began underlining and flagging passages that might not have been "useful," but that I just simply loved and wanted to be able to revisit.

Robinson writes phrases that almost beg to be read aloud so that the reader can taste their sweetness. I've experienced this with a few other books, but never so consistently as with this novel. I wish that I could write like her. Like Lahiri put it, Robinson has that power to artfully arrange words and stop time with them. A few of my favorites:

Ah, this life, this world.

I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness.

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.

Reading this book felt like such a profound experience, and sometimes, when I am feeling lost or sad and need a bit of guidance or warmth, I open this book and revisit it like an old friend. Besides being beautiful, and also contains some wonderful wisdom. One of my friends once said that sometimes, when she gets to the end of a good book, she gets the urge to kiss it as Jewish people kiss their siddurs (prayer books), and that once in while, she gives into it. That's how I felt with this one.

If any of you, my lovely readers, have read a book that has had this effect on you, or wish to share a sentence that struck you as being so perfect, please leave a comment below so that we may all enjoy it.

Learning from and with students

There are times when teaching the same text over and over again can begin to feel a bit dull. One way to overcome this is by mixing things up--trying new ideas, examining the text from new angles, using different projects, etc. And I absolutely LOVE it when my students teach me something new by coming up with ideas that I had never considered before. Today was a great example. One of my students asked if he could stay after school briefly to bounce ideas off of me for his paper (what a lovely question!). He said he was interested in my suggestion of analyzing Shakespeare's use of equivocation in Macbeth and arguing what his purpose/message is with this. He had some thoughts on the subject, then I asked a couple questions to push his thinking further, and we kept on tossing out ideas and building on them. Suddenly, we were thinking about this in ways that neither of had considered before, and getting increasingly excited about the possibilities that this topic had. It was great to see the wheels in his head turning as he pushed his thinking to new levels, and he kept expressing how he liked these new ideas and thought they were cool. I know that students aren't big fans of writing papers, but he actually seemed to be looking forward to exploring the ideas that we had collaboratively come up with.

The student left my office with a positive attitude and a much clearer notion of the direction he wants to go in, and I came away from this with a new perspective on a play I have read many times over. Something I want to always remember is that being a teacher doesn't just mean teaching others--you also have to be open to continuing to learn and grow. My students love to ask me, "Well what do YOU think of this?" And I remind them that that's not really so important, and that just because I interpret a text a certain way, that doesn't mean that they have to agree with me. I have definitely learned some great things from them, and it's so fun to say what they have to offer.

Humorous odds and ends: Shakespeare edition

Student, during a discussion about Macbeth's speeches in Act V ("My way of life is fall'n into the sere..." and "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...") which mark his downfall: "Oh, so it's like how old people complain."


Compare and contrast:
























I want this Shakespeare T-shirt:

Brawling and bystanders

My school definitely has its fair share of fights. Usually the week before the week before a vacation, a few fights will break out, and some of them have been pretty nasty. What is just as troubling, though, is the fact that the students get so excited about them. They stand up to watch, making noise like they're at a WWE fight, and won't stop talking about it for the rest of the day. Before February break, there was a brawl between two boys that, after it was broken up, ended with a racial slur being spit out. I was the first person to spot the fight and beckon for the male teachers to come over (since they just stand in the corner of the caf and gossip, oblivious to the world), and after it was over I shouted at the lower level of the caf to sit back down, as they were all standing up and gawking. 

My next class was all excited: "Ms. Greene broke up a fight!" "Who won the fight?!" I told them that nobody wins that kind of a fight, that both people make themselves losers. But the class would not stop buzzing about it until I finally had to raise my voice. I told them that this was not something to get excited about, that it was disgusting, and that I do not want them creating a culture of excitement and sensationalism around violence. These kids are so thrilled to be the bystanders at a fight, and that is the breeding ground for this kind of violence.

Today, I read a little editorial from the Boston Globe : "Schoolyard brawl: Essay beats suspension."  It talks about how after a fight at Lynn English High School, school officials didn't just punish the girls involved; they also punished the bystanders. They chose to make these students write an essay about Kitty Genovese, who in 1964 was stabbed to death and raped on a public street, her cries for help ignored by dozens of neighbors for approximately half an hour. I remember learning about this in a psychology class in high school, as this case led to the investigation of the "bystander effect," which says that the more bystanders there are, the less likely anyone is to intervene. The article points out that Genovese's case and the fight in Lynn are not exactly the same, but the idea behind the essay assignment is admirable. I don't expect my students to stop a fight. But I do want them to be responsible and alert a teacher about one, and I want them to stop watching fights with such giddiness, egging the fighters on. The next time this sort of situation arises in the school, I think I may just do a little lesson on Miss Genovese, and hopefully get them to reconsider their attitudes.

"Fantastic Flying Books" and more

The Oscars were this past weekend, and despite dragging on, there were some truly funny and wonderful moments. Plus, I absolutely love looking at all the dresses (and judging them, of course). I haven't yet seen many of the nominated films (right now I am dying to see "The Artist," as I am a big fan of old films), but one that I just watched was the winner for animated short film: "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore." It is a lovely little film that, in just 15 minutes, captures the magic and wonder that books possess. I highly recommend it to all of you who are bookworms and bibliophiles, or even those of you who just appreciate good filmmaking.

In other news, last week was vacation week, which was why I didn't get around to blogging. You would think that vacation would leave ample time for writing, but this was actually one of my busiest vacations ever! I went on a couple mini-trips to visit and stay over with friends and family, had a rehearsal with my cast (the play is coming along quite nicely), played soccer (we were in the playoffs!), and various other things. I think I only had two days with nothing planned other than grading papers. But it was good--I had lots of fun and didn't get to the end of vacation feeling as though I had wasted it. In fact, it felt as though I had been away from school for ages. As much as I love what I do, it was really nice to have that break. Especially since this Tuesday, I collected two class sets of essays...so at least I've got a bit of energy stored up for that now.

the itsy-bitsy spider

Quote of note: “I think they kind of complement each other in like a psycho way."--Student on the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

16-year-old boys are gross. This is stating an obvious fact, but on Monday I saw further validation of it. In the middle of my honors class, a student ate a spider. I just need to take a second to first say EWWW. We’re not even going to pay attention to the fact that I was already freaked out due to my fear of spiders. Two boys spotted one floating in front of them, and plucked it off of its silky thread. The other kids expressed their disgust at how close it was to one student’s mouth. The boys squished it on the floor, and then one of them picked it back up, and as I watched open-mouthed in horror, placed it in his mouth. One girl had her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide as saucers, and I would have laughed at the comedy of it if I hadn’t been feeling physically ill.

The class was going nuts, and I sent the bug-eater out of class. Afterwards, I informed him that he needed to serve detention with me the next day. (There are many times as a teacher when I find myself doing things I’d never imagined or stringing together words in a very unexpected combination, and this was certainly one of those times.) When I asked him what the heck he was thinking, he said he felt like the people wanted it, so he did it. I told him no, you just wanted to show off. At his detention, I told him he needed to write a letter. There had been a couple of other incidents in the last couple of weeks, and so I requested that he write about how his behavior is sometimes disruptive and unacceptable, and how he can go about improving it. He wrote a nice little letter, complete with diagrams.

I talked to the student at the end of the detention, and told him that on his last report card, I wrote that he talks too much, but also that he is a pleasure to have in class. Interesting combo, huh? I explained that while he has his obnoxious teenage boy moments, he’s also a nice, bright kid who shows a lot of enthusiasm for the material. That enthusiasm is wonderful, but he needs to harness it a bit and show it in a more appropriate manner, and stop with the antics and outbursts that become distractions. He agreed, and said that he would try. Our talk ended with smiles, and I hope that now, when I cue him to quiet and calm down, he will be quicker to adjust his behavior and will not allow it to escalate to such disruptive (or gross) proportions.