Thursday, February 23, 2006

Principal and S.G.L.- A Team?

The first thing I did this morning was call the principal at home. I should've known better.
According to her, it was all my fault everything happened. I still don't know what happened, but apparently, it's all my fault.
It turns out that S.G.L. had gotten caught running around the halls, and when the principal asked her what was going on, S.G.L. handed her a letter.
S.G.L. told her the entire sob story of how she wasn't doing well, and how I hated her, and how I never helped her and only made life harder.
I know she does this to her Hebrew sessions. She makes trouble, gets her teachers to yell at her, then she claims that her teachers don't like her, and that's her excuse for flunking life.
She cuts Hebrew classes, and really gets on everyone's nerves, and now she's trying to do it to me.
S.G.L. is a shrewd child. She knows exactly where everybody's weak spot is, and then she uses it to her advantage. She is now crying to the principal (who is known to give in to students,) to go hard on me. She knows that she herself can't really do anything to make me let her get away with things, so she's targeting me through the principal.
I must say that I admire this girl's way of thinking. She is brilliant. The one I hate here is the principal for the way she's choosing to deal with it. (Which is precisely the thing S.G.L. has in mind.)
She even lied to the principal about me, telling her that I embarrassed her in class by giving her an easy test in plain view of the class.
Of all the lies, this is the worst. It's because of HER, not any of the other "easy" girls, that I am so careful to staple the "easy" tests to the back of a regular test, so that no one should notice who gets what. I was even the one who gave the other teachers that idea!
The principal kept insisting that even if it was a lie, we had to make allowances for this girl.
Allowances?!? Any other girl caught cutting class would be suspended, and now, when she's cutting class and lying, the principal won't do anything.
She told the principal that the notes were too hard for her, so I explained my point of view to her.
The nerve of that principal, she insisted I make up special notes just for her. How thin do you want me to spread? Butter can only be spread over a certain amount of bread, and personally, I've more than reached my "buttering" limit.
I told the principal that I wanted to confront the girl myself. I wanted to have a meeting with the girl, and have the principal there as well. I wanted to see if S.G.L. had the guts to lie when I was there, and what she would tell the principal about it.
Listen, I'm not out to get S.G.L. I really want to help her. But when the principal is getting involved, and falling into the traps this girl so carefully planned for her, I need to establish my position here. I hope it will work.
Anyway, the school is implementing a new program for the teachers called Kesher. It's a division of Project Y.E.S. which deals with at risk teens.
We had a very nice orientation meeting with the two people of Kesher. They explained that they would have hours in the school where teachers, (Hebrew and English,) would be able to privately talk with them about specific students or problems in the classroom.
I didn't really get any feelings about them just from the orientation, but I'm sure that as soon as we begin doing one on one sessions, I'll figure out the way I feel pretty quickly.
What irked me the entire time, was that during their presentation my principal kept raising her hand and asking questions, and pushing her techniques. She was acting all chummy with the people, and the teachers were all sick. She acts so nice to everyone, but she treats us like dirt. There's a reason we have problems with kids in this school. The principal gives them everything and the teachers aren't allowed to do or say anything.
But when something goes wrong, it's always our faults. Or to be politically correct; my fault.
When we got to our classes it was already half an hour into the period, and both classes were busy taking a math test.
We had realized that the meeting would go into class time, so my co and I had decided to give her math tests to both classes at once so that we didn't waste any time.
I proctored the test in 7a, handed back their history tests, and passed around a picture of my "German friend" for the girls to look at.
The girls were so excited with the picture. I'm glad I brought it in. It made the whole Holocaust discussion more "real" to them. Instead of just reading an interview, they got to see the person behind it as well.
Thanks, German friend!
After recess, my co and I spontaneously decided to combine the classes, and I took them for the rest of the day.
I had the girls begin writing their picture books. Most had no problem, but there are always the few that do.
The class was pretty rowdy, but they got the work done, so I didn't mind that much.
I wrote a note to S.G.L. telling her that I really wanted to help her out, and if she had any questions she should call me up. I gave her my phone number and the hours she could call. I think she was thrilled when my co gave her the note and she discovered it was for her.
I think I saw her writing a letter for me, but I guess I'll find out.
I have to play it by ear.
For now though, I have to get started on my report card marks. They're due next week and I didn't start.

No comments: