you were bad once...

Today for some reason felt kind of emotionally difficult. Can't imagine why- not like that ever has happened other days. Nope, every other day has been happy and cheerful and I've left work postively perky. Chirping with joy about the innocence and wonder of childhood.

Another teacher told me today that sarcasm doesn't kick in until seventh grade. Sixth grade a lot of the kids get it, but not quickly, and there's still some who go, "Wait, really?" and have to be told explicitly that you're messing with them. By seventh grade, the cynicism they've built up in their teachers has become more obvious.


Found out today that Gamer's (I think I called him Farter in previous posts...) dad is schizophrenic. I was on the verge of calling DHS on his family; he comes in with dirty clothes, poor hygeine, and gets hysterical if anyone mentions contacting his parents. Old anecdotal record logs in his file show his previous teacher had the same suspicions I did. Now I think maybe he's manipulating us, which is a hard thing to think about a kid, but I feel a lot more sympathy for his mom. Not going to go into more details now, but I think she just felt defeated, and I actually felt an honest conversation with her which I've never felt with him. Also found out that one of my girls was hospitalized a few days ago for a mental breakdown (actually the girl who Gamer enraged to the point of beating him over the head with a social studies textbook. those babies are big), along with one of L's kids who was in my after school program (not together, it just happened at roughly the same time). And had a conversation with Jamie that made me wonder if he's got a tinge of sociopath in him. It was a terrific morning.

I actually had a wonderful conversation with one of my seventh grade resource kids- the one his teacher was afraid was in a gang. I haven't seen him in a few days, so she called to tell me he was present. I saw him at the end of the day and did some IEP testing with him. In the middle he mentioned he had just passed a math test- and actually, he didn't only pass it, he got a B, which, for him, is terrific. And he has another test tomorrow, and had the study guide to it in his pocket, and could explain to me all of the stuff he was going to be tested on. I was so excited I kept hugging him and offered him a period of anything he wanted to do on Friday if he got an A on the one tomorrow- and it's a hard subject for kids his age, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions (with unlike denominators! and he knew about numerators and denominators! I almost died of happiness. I'm going to go hug his math teacher tomorrow. I think the only honest form of positive communication I have these days is hugs. not so much a good thing in my job, as I could probably be fired for it). Computer time, cake, whatever. It was pretty much the first and only positive thing to happen today. He's right on that brink between where my sixth grade wannabe-badasses are and my eighth grade actual-badasses are. Most of the time I spend with him is really doing self-esteem stuff; he told me last week there's nothing he actually likes about himself. It was kind of heartbreaking. We've been working on journaling, with a list of things he likes about himself in it that he can add to whenever he wants. Of course LJ came down while I was with him. LJ comes to see me more than any of my other students, I think. He told me today that BJ was in love with me.

"You know, J is in love with you. He says you're dazzling."

I shrugged.

"Somehow I'm not convinced. If he loves me so much, how come he doesn't come to school to see me?"

This apparently hadn't occurred to him.

"You actually want him to come to school?"

I guess they don't hear that much, or at least not that they think is sincere. I don't blame anyone for that; if they were in my classroom all day I probably wouldn't want them to come to school either. But it occurred to me that LJ might actually have a crush on me. Not just the lust that his friends have rather crudely remarked on that they seem to share, but an actual crush. I barely even talked to him today, and warned him of that.

"I have to do testing, so I'm going to be kind of boring today. You're welcome to hang out, though."

He shrugged. He wanted to help my seventh grader with the test, and actually wanted to take it himself. LJ is actually kind of ridiculously smart, I think. I wish there were some way to channel it that I could see, in the next 30ish days of school that he might actually attend. I told him he would make a good teacher, but he laughed at me. I would too if I were him. Who wants to take that kind of paycut?