Student of the Month

I teach an intervention reading course to sixth graders.  It is for kids who are slightly behind grade-level in their reading.  My classes are small because it's intense and also because the kids have a lot of behavior issues.  Sometimes it's frustrating, sometimes it's hilarious, and sometimes (but not as often as you'd think) it's rewarding.  Lately it's been mostly frustrating and hilarious.  I asked a kid yesterday to show me what he had written as an answer to the journal question.  All he had written was a girl's name about 500 times, trailing sadly down the page, getting smaller and smaller.  While I was looking at that, another kid came up to me and said, "MEOW!" for no reason whatsoever.  I lost it.  I started laughing and could hardly pull it back together.  The meow kid looked insulted and said, "What are you laughing at?"  I said, "You people are WEIRD."  Meow kid was afronted and said, "No we're NOT!"  I said, "You just went out of your way to walk up to me, get my attention and say 'meow.'  Nobody was even talking about cats or anything.  That is, by definition, weird." 

I pick a kid from each class to be student of the month every month.  They get a poster, a can of pop and some special privileges as a reward.  I was having a really hard time choosing a student of the month for one of my classes because they've been so difficult lately.  Mitch said, "Just pick an inanimate object."  Brilliant.

The kids are going to be so pissed.