Skip to main content

Notes on a Scandal

Last Wednesday marked the beginning of a new trimester at my school. Naturally, this was a high attendance day, as most students come to school to pick up their schedules and renew their free NYC MetroCards. Sadly, some of these students will never show up to class for the rest of the term.

I began day one with a brief lesson on perimeter and circumference, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two students passing a note back and forth to each other.

I looked away and grinned: this was going to be too easy. I progressed through the lesson and as students continued to do a problem on the board, I pretended to make my way around the classroom, checking their answers. As I made my way around to the students writing the note, I quickly snapped it out from in front of them. Then, I began reading it out loud to the entire class:

Exhibit D: Actual student work. Do note the somewhat decent penmanship.
As you probably guessed from the racial slurs, this exchange was between a Hispanic and African American student.

Three things:
  1. The student who asked how many minutes there were left in class is currently in her third year at my school. My school is a two-year transfer school.
  2. The other student actually received an 85% in my class last trimester. He's a funny guy.
  3. My favorite phrase in this note? "You ass whole..."
Labels:

Comments

Mr. T said…
YO mista! it could be code you know!
I'd look into that.
Keep up the good spy work ass whole!
December 12, 2011 at 6:41 PM
Yo Mista! said…
@ Mr. T:
Double-checked. No code.

Apparently they are too used to words being underlined in a red squiggly by MS Word to determine if words are spelled incorrectly.
December 13, 2011 at 3:53 PM
Anonymous said…
Tell them that next time they want to pass notes that they need to proofread them or else they will be sent to MY class (I'm sure you know who I am).
December 13, 2011 at 9:48 PM
Anonymous said…
Wow...
December 13, 2011 at 10:05 PM
Anonymous said…
This is too funny!!!
December 19, 2011 at 8:14 AM
Anonymous said…
You need to share some of the responses from the school-wide tests...
December 28, 2011 at 10:54 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Need to Talk About Tenure

The idea and privilege of "tenure" in public education has garnered a lot of attention as of late. Most people who have never worked in education a single day in their lives seem to feel that tenure is unfair and teachers should work under the same expectations that other "regular" and hard-working Americans work under. At least, that's the narrative being presented in the media. Three years ago, I would have agreed, but I didn't know any better. At the college and university level,  tenure  is difficult to obtain and can take 4-8 years. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from what I think I know, the candidate usually needs to have published some sort of research and have demonstrated a strong teaching record, among other things. Before becoming a high school teacher, I understood why tenure was necessary at the college and university level as it protected academics when they published work that went against the mainstream, and thereby prevented profes...
16 comments
Read more

The Two Brothers

Two years ago, two brothers enrolled at the alternative school where I worked. Colin and Ken, at 16 and 15 years old respectively, had just come back from spending two years in the Dominican Republic. They were now living in a foster home in the Bronx away from their birth parents. During the years they spent in the Dominican Republic, Colin and Ken were in and out of school, but mostly out, working on their family's farm as free labor. Beyond the trauma of separation  from  their birth parents, Colin and Ken experienced a significant amount of trauma  with  their birth parents. They were two teenagers who had already lived a lifetime. Silent with a dark sense of humor, Colin kept quiet during the school day during most of his first year. His entrance test scores placed him in classes at about (or slightly under) grade level. In those classes, Colin excelled. During his first year in this alternative school, Colin accumulated credits, earned rewards based on academ...
2 comments
Read more

Teach for Pakistan

I've been visiting Karachi every other year since I was six months old. My parents were both born there. The bulk of my extended family still lives there. It's strange how my perspective and investment in the country has changed over the years. I hated going to Pakistan when I was younger. My mother dragged me there for two, sometimes three months at a time over the summer. The heat was miserable and the humidity was unbearable. My family wasn't well off, so it's not like I was in a huge mansion of sorts living in the tropics, eating cold mangoes. That would've been nice. The only things I enjoyed were the company of my cousins, the food and the taste of Coca-Cola made from real sugar. Besides that, I really never did anything else. I was pretty quiet: my aunts would compliment me on my lack of communication. Heh. It was not until I was a teenager that I truly began to appreciate my experiences in Pakistan. I started engaging in the family functions, weddings an...
15 comments
Read more