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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..."
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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
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