Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Inappropriate Classroom Conversation

Academic classes late in the day tend to have an interesting mix of students. 6th period is always a question mark for me. I wonder what kind of group I'll get.

Today I covered 11th grade English. They were listening to chapter 2 of The Great Gatsby. (I love books on CD. I think the kids prefer hearing the book to reading it, too.) That took about half the period. The second half they had questions to answer.

Some classes did more talking than working. I was heartened to hear actual conversation related to the assignment. Then there was the off-topic conversation...

When Joshua walked in to 6th period, he got more than one startled greeting. Everyone wondered where he had been. He had been out for the last two weeks (I saw this on the roll sheet). He had no idea where his seat was anymore.

They asked him where he had been. He told them he'd been smoking weed.

The comment passed by so quickly that I didn't have a chance to react. But later, when they were working on the questions, Joshua made another drug comment. He was seated near the back of the room, yet I heard his comment clearly. I strolled over to his table.

Joshua didn't realize that I heard him. I warned him to change his topic, suggesting that perhaps he might want to do the assignment. His reply: something to do with sex. And then he turned it around on me. He wanted to know if I "smoked" in my younger days.

I usually run into these conversations at the continuation high school. Although, considering his spotty attendance record, I may have a similar conversation with him there before too long.

3 comments:

  1. I'll say it's inappropriate. He's been gone for two weeks and his reason is "weed"? Yeesh. I'm guessing that doesn't bode well for his future.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So disturbing. My follow-up would've been "and where were your parents?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would have sent him to the principle's office. what a loser.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.