I'm Not As Senile As I Look

I had the most bizarre conversation with one of my high school students on Friday.

First a little background:

He's new to my class this semester, and all I know about him is that he is off to a bad start. On the first night, he had the audacity sit with another boy and talk while I was trying to lead them through a lesson. There are only 15 students in that class! Boy, this isn't one of those overloaded classes at a day high school where one kid whispering to another in a class of 45 is more easily overlooked. Duh!

In two weeks, he's turned in one assignment and missed three days of school. When he's there, he is still more inclined to goof off.

So, he came to class on Friday, after being gone for two days and greeted me by saying, "Miss! You're on time today!"

"Uhm, yeah. I have a class before this. I'm always on time. Do you mean that I'm in the hallway between classes today?"

"No, Miss!" He smiled at me, "Sometimes you're late. Last time we had to wait outside the class for like 10 minutes."

Clearly he was confused. "No, seriously, I have a class just before this one. I'm always one time." I did not mention that I'm on time to my previous class, too, because I'm paranoid about being caught in rush hour traffic, and so I leave early enough that I'm usually on campus 30 minutes before my class starts. And then, if I'm not in my classroom when the bell rings, it literally takes me 1 minute to get there from anywhere else on campus.

This kid was adamant that I am sometimes late to class, and that recently, I made them wait outside the class for 10 minutes until I arrived.  Was he just confused? The monitor stands outside my classroom between classes. She would cover my class if I were really late, but honestly if that were to truly happen, the principal would cover my class. We're a small school. He sees everything!

"You must have mistaken me for someone else," I finally told him, trying to end this strange debate with the student.

"No, Miss--"

"Dude! What have you been smoking?" That was the problem, wasn't it? The kid had to have been high. He didn't look particularly different, but what do I know about his regular expressions and behaviors?

"No, Miss. It was you."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever."

That conversation just made me dumber.

Seriously, though. He really believed his own story!

To Meet

It's kind of strange when we teachers are pulled from our classrooms to attend trainings, isn't it? In other industries, it makes sense to take from the contracted time to receive training, and as thankful as I am to not have to spend more of my personal time to receive more training, it is frustrating to be out of my classroom.

I drew the short straw among the 8th grade English teachers, and tomorrow I will be out of my classroom for a few hours for a meeting on how to have better meetings.

What?

Really?

Indeed, this is exactly what I need. I need another meeting.  I will hold out for hope that it will indeed help in making meetings more productive. I would really like to get some wasted time back.