Attempts to Turn Around

By now, most of you have heard about me having to take down a student in the hallway last week, and the fight I broke up in front of the office, and the kid I got expelled for suspicion of pot, etc.

You've all also heard me complain about not knowing what to attempt to teach the kids. There's nothing I can think of that will motivate them, even beating on "anything but not another human being" in my room to learn rhythms won't get them to participate. I ask them to clap a rhythm, and it goes like this: "Ok, 1, 2, ready go......*crickets*" What do I do?

The point of this post was to post this article in the Indianapolis Star about the school I teach at. (the sentence ended in a preposition was brought to you for Nagi) Our principal is a great guy, and making some progress at turning the school around, slowly, but surely. He started here last fall, and put the smack down, you'll find as you read the article. So here it is in all it's glory, the pictures at the top are also video links. The student Tierra, I have in one of my classes, she's one of my 5 or so good kids.

Also, just to let you know what kind of family/home life these kids come from, they were asking about my family and I told them I had a brother. Their response? "Only one brother? Does he have the same last name?" It's sad. And sadly, I would feel more for these kids if they WANTED to learn.