Illegal Things

I wish I had some delicious tidbit to share or new analysis on the adolescent brain to share today, but I don't. I'm left with a bad taste from today because moments before leaving my classroom (again the last person besides the janitor to leave the building), I discovered that $18 had been stolen from my wallet. I never carry more than $20 in cash to a school site and prefer not to even take that much. I have been overly-vigilant with my laptop, locking it up in the file cabinet every time I leave the room, locking the door to the room when I have an errand to run. Most of the teachers leave their doors wide open and I've felt a bit like the paranoid newbie. But, I have too much to lose. It is not the monetary value of my laptop as much as it is the content of my writing files. But for now it's my only solution if I want to use a computer at work since there is no working computer in my room. So, I'm $18 poorer. Things could be worse, but it still makes me mad. I can't think of when or how it was stolen. The truth is I was away from my room much of the day for PE, but my door was locked. The assistant principal had his LCD projector and laptop in my room, but it looks like cold hard cash is more useful.

This is just another test, I'm sure. How much can we get away with with the new teacher, they must be wondering. Last week, I was assigned a senior to my prep period. I was told he was a good kid who just wanted a quiet place to study and I was the only one with second period free. I said yes reluctantly even though it is my only prep time. I was told I could use him as a TA if I wanted, but the one time I asked him to punch holes in the handouts for my freshmen, he tried to punch all the holes on an entire class set and it was not helpful. The day after that, he came in and put his head on his desk for a half an hour while I busied myself with grading and frantically trying to get everything ready for the next period. About ten minutes before class ended, he got up and walked out of the classroom and as he walked out I called his name. He ignored me. I had an errand to run and was told that it would be okay to leave my room as I needed to and leave him there unattended. So, I went about my business. When I returned from my errand he was in the room again, staring into nothing. The room reeked of marijuana, but always being the last one to detect the sent of marijuana at concerts, I didn't trust my gut at first. And then I couldn't deny it.

So, I said, "It stinks in here."

"It does?" he responded in a classic fashion.

"Yeah."

"Like what?" he asked incredulously.

"I don't know... why don't you tell me?"

"I have no idea." With that class was over. I immediately went next door to retrieve the math teacher to do a smell test of my room. He confirmed the smell and then confirmed that when he'd gone to the bathroom five minutes prior, he had run into this student of "mine" in the far stall.

Needless to say, I reported this to the principal who said she'd caught him smoking pot in the alley last year and would talk to him. Over the weekend I decided I didn't want him in my class at all because my life was stressful enough without feeling like I couldn't let my guard down during my one prep period of the day. And here's the success in this. Where students are testing me and trying to take advantage and where I usually fail to say explicitly what I want or need, I succeeded in telling my principal that I did not want him in my class anymore. I did not apologize. This is victory!