Kryptonite

Teaching can be full of mighty triumphs, though what I may consider to be a mighty triumph, some may consider being pitiable examples of daily expectations. The tragedy to teaching is, you can think you’re getting through to somebody, and they can end up being a bag of charm with no intentions of following through. You can literally bend over backwards and they’ll turn around and pull the carpet right out from underneath you. Teaching has forced me into becoming this superhuman capable of putting up with extreme amounts of what used to be my kryptonite: bullshit.

It used to be that if somebody was bullshitting me, I would just turn my back on them, because I’ve never been able to deal with dishonesty. Playing games is not on my resume. Being a teacher has made me immune to this evil type of social interaction, because let’s face it, kids bullshit, A LOT. I did it all the time. Example:

Dad: Carley did you finish your homework?
Carley: Uh huh.

Consciously, I knew I had been on instant messenger for the past two hours, inhibiting me from doing my homework.

Dad: Carley, if you don’t pass in your assignments I’m turning the internet off for the whole summer
Carley: I did.

After 5 months of missing assignments, I was still furious with my dad when he turned off the internet for the summer, and the brilliant thing was IT WAS HIS FAULT my internet was turned off, not because I didn’t hand in my assignments, but because he was in control of the internet cord.

I think I've caught onto the fact that kids have a set vocabulary for assignment related conversation: “Uh huh” “I understand” “I will” “Don’t worry” “Yup” “Okay” “I promise”

Scenario:
Identical twins in my class “Allan” and “Jimmy”, whom I’ve mentioned before, have quite the repertoire of suspensions, police run ins, and missing assignments, and the school has decided that it has had enough of their “bullshit.” Letters were sent home to their parents, signed, and returned to class on Tuesday. The remarkable thing about “Allan” and “Jimmy” is that these boys are sharp, witty, and likable characters, they’re just lazy and a bit manipulative. All week during class we have been working on final assessments for the film unit we are currently on. I have given the entire class multiple chances to work on their assessments in the computer lab where I can help them individually and answer specific questions. Last Friday, I noticed the twins struggling so I pulled a chair up between them. After 80 minutes of struggling, I had successfully gotten the twins to type a paragraph each. “Jimmy” and “Allan” both had 6 substantial, thoughtful, original sentences which made up the introductory “recap” of the film before they write the next 3 paragraphs of their film reviews. I’ve never been fantastic at math, but that’s roughly 13 minutes per sentence. If it took the boys 13 minutes to SAY every sentence on a daily basis, particularly during my class, they would spend a majority of the class in silence. However, they were so proud of themselves and I was proud of them as well, and in my eyes it was a mighty victory.

However, they came into class 4 days later with glum faces and notices from the office. They asked if they could speak to me and I told them to each pull up a chair while the rest of the class worked on their assessments. The first thing they told me was that they didn’t understand what they were supposed to do.

“Boys, you didn’t do your work, it’s as simple as that.”
“Yes miss but…we don’t know what we have to make up!”
“Do you boys even WANT to pass? Because I want you to pass, but you have to want to.”
“Yes miss!” They both said eagerly and simultaneously the way twins do.
“Look boys,” I began “I’m going to be 100% honest with you, because I think you’re both very smart and very capable, but you’re both very lazy, and very good at not encouraging each other to get work done. From what I understand one of you is BARELY passing, and one of you is failing. I will do whatever is humanly possible to help you pass, but I need you boys to step up to bat. I won’t do the work for you but I’ll work WITH you,”

here comes the set list of vocabulary...brace yourself

“Am I being clear?” I asked after my pregame speech was over.
“Yup!” One of the twins answered.
“Can you two come in for lunch on Thursday?”
“We will.” The other replied.
“Okay, come see me in the faculty room and we’ll start getting you caught up.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t disappoint me, I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t worry” One replied
“We promise” the other added.

Today was Thursday.
I waited for 10 minutes.
The twins never showed up.

My brain said wait longer but my stomach said feed me, so I let a fellow intern know where I was going and if the twins happen to stop by to tell them to wait in the computer lab for me. Walking back from the canteen where all the students eat, I heard familiar voices chiming out my name.

“You look very nice today miss!” The twins were standing with 5 or 6 other boys from my year 11 class, one nonchalantly sitting hunched over his meal and the other standing.
“I thought we had a deal?” I asked
“What deal?” Jimmy let out a Cheshire cat grin. Allan laughed. All the boys at the table laughed.
“You were supposed to come see me.”
“Aw Miss, you can see us now, here we are!” Allan added.
“Not today boys.” I smiled, and walked away.

When I returned to the staff room my fellow intern told me the twins never stopped by.
“Of course they didn’t I just saw them on the canteen.” I laughed.

Now the human Carley would have grabbed onto her pride for dear life in frustration and said “Make ME look stupid? Keep ME waiting? I don’t think so! You’re on your own.” But with this new found tolerance to kryptonite (aka bullshit) I find myself suddenly having a rapidly developed amount of patience, which somehow keeps me from pulling my hair out or giving up. I’m not looking for a palpable ‘white American girl from wealthy town comes to save lower socioeconomic “below standard” English students’ storyline, but I just believe I’m both persistent and clever enough to get through to these guys, even if it means making them so sick of me that they do their work just to get me to shut up, but when (not if) the twins pass, I will add it to my list of mighty triumphs.

That’s all for now
Stay tuned
~Carley B