Procastinating

I am having a family birthday party for 3 of my 4 boys and my husband on Sunday. It is just his family and mine, but that is 23 people. So, I need to clean and cook tomorrow. Tonight I am procastinating.

I have some students at school that have such sad stories. We live in a very wealthy town where people think there are no problems and all is well. I have a boy whose mom is addicted to drugs and his dad has tried to make it work living with her, but now they are getting a divorce. The boy decided to leave home and was living with a drug dealer. This kid is emotionally disturbed and has so many issues, but his smile will melt your heart.

I have a girl that labels herself so much that she limits herself. She has ADD and that is how she identifies herself and why she won't do any work. All she says is that she wants to marry rich. I hope I can get her to wake up a bit.

I have another boy that was in my middle level 2 class and really struggling because he is a year older than most of the kids and felt dumb. He was absent often, very quiet in class, and never did homework. Come to find out he was living in a car with his sister. I think he is back home now. I talked him into moving down a level in math and he is in a smaller class with me. He was thriving. He got a 98% on his past two quizzes. I even overheard him say, "I love math." I said, "I heard that." He said, "it is so much easier now, it makes sense." That is a huge cry for smaller class size. Anyways, he has been out all week. I guess he now has so many absences that he will be expelled. Just when I was getting him to like math.

Another girl I have really doesn't belong in the lower level 1 class. She is very capable but doesn't want to be challenged and sort of plays dumb, but I can see it in her. Then, I heard her say the other day that she wants to be a math teacher, always has. I was thinking, how will she become a teacher in the lowest level math class, but if that is where she will learn, then that is where she needs to be. Plus, I don't think she wants to teach high school math. She would do great with little kids. I hope I can keep her inspired.

Oh, this other boy. The "I can't do this boy." I have had him for two years now. He has all the labels. He is also OCD and I think I know all his annoyances by now and we work well together, but it is his defeatist attitude that is wearing me down. I can't do this. Well, pick up the pencil and try. It is hard to motivate kids that don't want to be motivated or don't want to learn.

This other girl, another one that moved down from level 2 to 1, absent all the time, quiet. I think she was battling some depression issues and her therapist told the school that she only had to be at school each day until 11:30 each day. With our rotating schedule, that was tough. Then, the school finally took her to court for truancy. That scared her for a bit and she was actually in class and learning. Now, she is back to being absent again.

That takes me to another girl that is absent all the time and plays the special ed card. She has lots of issues, only lives with her dad, no mom in the picture that I know of. She is a beautiful, bright girl but absent all the time. She was out at the beginning of the week, came to me to get the makeup work and said that she misses so much when she is out, she won't be absent anymore. Well, she was out the past two days.

Oh, and another boy with Tourette's. He controls it pretty well and socializes very well. Actually, I didn't know he had it for a while. I thought maybe he wasn't paying attention all the time. Apparently he is trying to control the ticks. But, he hides behind this label too and doesn't work to his full capability.

I love these kids, but I just want to shake them and say, don't hide behind your labels, don't let the labels limit you. You can be and do so much more.

I am trying to teach them so much more than just geometry.