It never ceases to amaze me how ridiculously students behave. It also never ceases to amaze me how big of idiots they can be. I mean, I understand that adolescence is the time for testing the boundaries of thoughtless actions, but the impulsiveness with which many of my kids act on a daily basis continues to manifest itself in new and exciting ways.
Take my (least) favorite male student for example. We have been working on an election project in Government the entire week. Students have very specific roles within their group (candidate, running mate, press secretary, etc.) with very specific jobs (submitting daily campaign briefs, designing the campaign website, etc.), and they must work together in effort to elect their group's candidate. This specific student's role was Marketing Director, a title in which he undoubtedly thought it could excel because of his painstakingly constructed faux-hawk and tested success in spewing absolute bullshit.
On the first day, the MD was given the task of head designer of the "large campaign poster", aka a large piece of colored roller paper decorated with crayons and markers. There were other students available to help with the logistics of the advertisement, but the MD was the primary author of the slogan and had the final say in any artwork. The candidate for this student's group, a female, has a last name that rhymes with "oh". This student took it upon himself to begin creating a poster that said "vote for X cause she's a ho" and claimed to be quite confused when I nearly choked after reading it. He then had to start over with a new piece of paper because I had accidentally stomped on and ripped his poster. whoops.
On the third day of the project, many students were working on computers to direct and record a series of short videos. These videos were supposed to represent TV commercials, one with a biographical purpose and the other two as "attack ads". The MD was instructed to work with the Press Secretary to write and record these videos, using the webcams on the laptops to film. (Least) favorite student was working individually on his computer, apparently looking very busy, but then suddenly stood up as if he had just sat on a cactus. His laptop in his hands, he shouted "hey *Bob*, catch!" to the classmate next to him and proceeded to actually toss the computer at the other student. Thank the big Guy above, Bob actually caught the computer, looking at it in his hands with a look of mixed surprise and pride. As much as I wanted to pause and praise the superb hand-eye coordination of the innocent bystander, my attention instead went to the gleeful and sickly satisfied smile on the mug of my (least) favorite student. The sting of anger swept over me like a fiery mess, a ball of which I wanted to absolutely hurl at his face. I rarely shout at students, but OH DID I SHOUT. I think he first thought I was kidding, but perhaps the certain color of purple that my face undoubtedly turned gave him a hint of my true intentions. After spending some quality time in the hallway, receiving a zero for that part of the project, and having a short but meaningful conversation my (much more calm) self, I asked him a single question as he was walking out the door.
Me: "LFStudent, what are you NOT going to do tomorrow?"
LFS: "uhhh.....throw computers?"
Me: "Oh no, let's be much more general than that"
LFS: "abuse things in the classroom?"
Me: "nope, still too specific"
LFS: "umm i honestly don't....."
Me: "ANNOY ME. YOU WILL NOT ANNOY ME."
LFS: "Oh, yeah....ok....heh heh...no problem Ms. Rab...<runs out the door after his classmates>".
I long for the days when I was at least paid $9/hour to deal with stuck-up, sassy, diaper-wearing brats. Seemingly, the only difference now is that the shit spews from their mouths instead of their asses. And that I get paid nothing.
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