First the tears. I have a student who needs to graduate this year. He's 18 and is more than ready to move on. After some initial stumbles in his high school career, he has worked incredibly hard during his senior year to get himself to graduation this spring. This has included going to night school 4 days a week for an entire semester. But there's this final hurdle of the state reading test. He has to pass it to graduate. He's been taking it regularly since 10th grade. He's Somali. English is his 4th language. He started learning it in third grade when he moved here and went to school for the first time in his life. He's learned it so well, and been here long enough, that he has been 'exited' from the English Language Learners program. Meaning he has to pass this test in English to get a diploma. He's a good reader and determined to pass. He created a plan to work with an adult at Avalon most days for several hours on reading strategies. Now that night school is over, he stops by his old school on his way home at least once a week to get extra tutoring from a teacher there. He's good. But he gets tripped up sometimes. Dumb things get him, like one set of questions was based on an add for a chili cooking contest. He had no idea what chili was. Didn't know that it was spicy. Got all the questions wrong. Then there was the section about a girl who wanted to get a gift for her sister returning home from college for the holidays. So she made here a scrapbook. My refugee-camp raised student had no idea what a scrap book was, nor was he connected to a world where siblings left home- all 9 of his live with him still. And he certainly didn't know that if you wanted to learn more about scrap booking you would: C) go to a library to check out a book about crafts. Come on. I have trouble thinking that scrapbooking would be in a craft book. How would my student? So he gets tripped up. And then the pressure of having to pass adds anxiety. A few weeks ago he took the test again- his second to last opportunity before graduation.
My student was so nervous he hardly slept. Neither did I. He spent three hours working on the 40 questions. Then came out of the room, sweaty and tired. I waited nervously for results. The testing director passed by the room I was in and gave me a sad thumb's down. Two questions from success. But it's an all or nothing situation. Damn. Now I had to tell my student. He was sitting at his desk in the advisory wringing his hands. Telling him felt like kicking him in the balls. Then punching him in the gut. Then slapping his face. He shrunk with the news. Got teary. So did I. Damn. One of the worst days of my teaching career. We have a plan in place to make it through this hoop at the next opportunity. I hope it works.
Good thing my job also brings me to tears of joy. Shortly after this sad testing experience I overheard this conversation between two burly, mechanically-minded, fabulous boys: "You know, I've tried them, but I've found that skinny jeans just do not fit my lifestyle." "Yeah, I know what you mean." They were all serious. I could not keep a straight face.
Another laugh came when a student was reading a section from her essay in class. She had decided to write about the problems associated with school aged girls being sexually active. But then got into a section that was clearly plagiarized. Because it was all about a study that talked about 'sex during the golden years'. I figure she thought she was living the golden years. She about died when I told her that her paper was interesting, but I didn't know when she changed her topic to being about sex amongst old people. Favorite plagiarism busting ever.
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