So, this week's been pretty brutal at school. In general, the kids have been raving lunatics. The kind I don't like - mean and disrespectful. Be apathetic, but don't be an asshole. Anyway, I got a rare chance to go out into the field today. Actually to the same wetland I was talking about a few weeks ago. But this time we weren't going to pick up trash on the beach. This time we were going to literally, cut out an invasive species of plant life from the wetland so that the folks who are trying to restore it can replace it with indigenous plants. Of course in my van, the kids were complaining, teasing, ignoring my directions, hitting...my kids back at Hillside behaved better. I'm serious. We get there and they're still whining. Of course I gave them the speech (again) about how freakin lucky they are for THIS to be their school. A couple of kids I literally told to get away from me because I was tired of hearing them complain. Then, we got down to business. Here's some pictures...
Just for the record. It's not like the kids show up for school, we stick 'em in a van and make them do manual labor. Before we went out we studied the issue of invasive species, development, etc. But then we get to the hard labor. Actually, I got tired of taking pictures and "supervising". Someone left a set of clippers laying around so for the last hour I was a clipping fool. I have cuts from the branches all over my arms and neck. It was pretty cool.
So, we get back to school and the kids are still whining and being little brats. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know people say that it's an "age" thing, but I'm starting to disagree with that. First of all, not all the kids are like that. They don't have the personalities to behave that way. They're not manipulative, rude and mean. Second...well...I'll show you the second reason...
Tonight, we had a parents' meeting. The first quarter was ridiculous. There are a lot of kids who really aren't buying into this program. They don't belong here. This isn't a special ed school or a day treatment facility. By our charter, we're supposed to be focusing on high-level science, math, engineering and technology. Thus the name STEM. And legally, we can't turn kids away. It's a "school of choice". But some of the parents are choosing this school because their kids couldn't make it in other public schools. And some of them were homeschooled up until now. I don't have a problem with homeschooling per se, but they were homeschooled shittily (OK, that may be a made up word, but you know what I mean).
So we had our parents' meeting to tell them about the changes we're implementing - grading, discipline, etc. Jeez! They started going off on us. Well, no. The parents of the kids who are assholes did. It was a simple case of apples not falling far from the tree. And not a single parent said that maybe their kid wasn't doing what he/she was supposed to do. They actually had our math teacher ready to just give up and start teaching from a textbook (which we don't do at this school).
Basically, we ended up taking their crap for the whole meeting and when they left we decided to do what we intend to do and as a "school of choice" they can choose to put their whining, little brats elsewhere. We do have a waiting list of over 24 kids who want to be in this school.
I can see this school working - for the 25 or so who get what we're trying to do. The problem is there are another 20+ kids who should be in therapy and away from their clueless parents. But that's my humble non-professional opinion. And it really feels like I've been here forever already, but it's only been 3 months. I know it's going to take time and I've always had high expectations of others anyway (which probably explains why I'm on 2 blood pressure medications).
So, yes, being around this group of kids hasn't made me swear off getting a vasectomy, but I look forward to weeding out the kids who don't belong (or the parents who don't belong is probably more accurate) and kicking some academic ass. And when I get to go to the County meeting (last week) or to physically work on environmental stuff that before I only wrote & protested about - I'm pretty down with the gig.
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