So, where do I start? I think I'll do the introductions and then go from there.
Tick Tick
Truck
HandF
Stimes2
Quiet
WideB
VerbalD
Silent
Unfortunate
So, who are these scholars you ask. Patience! I'm getting there.
The subject was broached a couple times previously and I remained non committal. On a Monday morning, just prior to the scholars arriving, the subject came up again. Czar talking, "I'd like you to go across the hallway and be the instructional assistant that will support the middle school and high school teacher. I think having an adult male in the room will be good for those scholars." So, with the Czar standing right in front of me, with the instructional assistant that was in the middle school and high school classroom immediately next to her, and Gnu sitting at her table at the front of the room I asked one question. "When would you like this change to start?" "Right now," said the Czar. With little thought I stood up, walked to the back of the classroom, pick up my lunch, exited Gnu's classroom, turned right, walked about fifty-five feet down the hallway, turned left, and walked into the high school classroom.
In the process of doing so, the Czar didn't even bother to come with me. When I entered the classroom TOR greeted me and said, "are you going to be my assistant?" I replied, "yes." TOR continued, "would you like to be the assistant in the middle school classroom or the high school classroom?" Knowing that the scholars in the middle school could easily match the "bat shit" label that Gnu gave her scholars, I said, "the high school."
Here is some background information before I proceed. The middle school classroom and the high school classroom are two separate classrooms that are connected by an interior door. As you already know, the high school classroom has nine scholars. I believe the middle school classroom has five scholars. There is only one teacher for the two separate classrooms, that is TOR. There is only one instructional assistant for the two classrooms, that is me. Again, two separate classrooms, with scholars ranging from the seventh grade through high school seniors, and only one teacher.
So, how is this going to work you ask? I'm not sure it will but we'll see. TOR will be in the middle school classroom as those scholars attend school all day and she will have to develop lesson plans and actually teach. The high school scholars only attend school for half of the day. There are five scholars in the morning and four scholars in the afternoon. No teaching is actually required as all of their academics is done on-line using an academic software program that the school community purchased. With no academic responsibility I initially spent a lot of my time doing very little. After being totally bored for a couple days I started to get involved with high school academics.
As this might seem a bit unusual, I have to make an adjustment to the scholars listed as one actually disappeared before I arrived in the classroom. Gone is Tick Tick as this scholar went BOOM. That is a little inside play on words and we'll see if a certain reader picks up on it. The reason for the sudden departure, Tick Tick, in a outburst of anger threated to cause greatly bodily harm to the siblings of an adult in the real high school and was expelled. Yes, just like I have for the past five years and seven or so weeks, I'm working with scholars that have anger controls issues and this time some of them are bigger than I am.
I'm going to delay the discussion about academics until the next blog posting and instead I'll give you a brief description of the scholars. There are now four scholars in the morning, Truck, HandF, Quiet, Stimes2, and I like them. With the exception of a couple minor incidents, they've been quiet and I've been pretty bored. The four afternoon scholars, WideB, VerbalD, Silent, and Unfortunate, on the other hand have been very active and animated. Bored is not a term that I'd used to describe my afternoon. WideB and VerbalD are immature, imbecilic, blibbits* that banter on all afternoon. Unfortunate, despite being in high school, has the maturity level of some one in elementary school and pretty much idolizes VerbalD.
One quick story about Unfortunate, a definition of the word blibbit and I'm going to call it a day. I was with Unfortunate at the end of the day waiting for his bus to arrive. As we were standing at the door waiting, he asked me if I knew how he could get five hundred dollars. "What do you need five hundred dollars for," I asked him. "My parental unit is in jail and I need the money to bail him out." After Unfortunate departed, I walked over to our main office and mentioned my conversation with Unfortunate to our school door guard. "I hope you didn't give him any money," she said to me. "Nope!" "Good as he is a manipulator and so you know, his parental units seem to rotate going in and out of jail."
In 1968 and 1969, I worked second shift in a factory called Kuhlman Electric Company. One of my co-works, his name was Eugene, frequently came into work half liquored up. As I was talking to him one afternoon he looked over at one of his co-workers and said to me, "Virgil over there is a blibbit." "He's a what," I said. "A blibbit. You mean to tell me you don't know what a blibbit is." "No," I replied. "A blibbit is ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag," he informed me and that is a perfect description for WideB and VerbalD.
It's time to call it a day. Before I do, if you know anything about Francesco Petrarca, let me know as you may be able to help me with high school academics. Thanks for following along. See you next week.
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