THAT student

I have a student...we'll call her Sally. She is a case and a half, I tell you. I don't know fully what's going on at home, but I know that she doesn't like it there and she brings her anger and bad attitude to my class quite often. She lashes out at classmates and me at times. But when she's not having a bad day, she's the most inquisitive, lovely girl you'd ever like to have in class.

Last week, on one of her bad days, she used her free-write time to write to me in English about how much she hates my class. She doesn't understand why I won't let the other students help her (read: translate what we're saying to English). She doesn't understand how she's supposed to learn French if I won't allow her to speak English. She went on and on about how unfair my class was and how much she hates it. All of her points have been addressed in class and the rules have been agreed on as a whole. I tried not to take it too personally, because I knew that she was not angry at me, but at someone or something else.

Today, she came into class and wrote on the board, underneath my "agenda" for the day (an administrative requirement that I find tedious most days) 5. Story time. She asked several times before class started if we were going to have story time today. At the end of the hour, somone else asked her why she like that so much and she said, "I like sitting on the floor like it's kindergarten and just listening." Aha! my inner voice said...she DOES like my class, or at least she should like it, because that is essentially all we are asking our students to do...sit and listen. I can imagine how my class should be a wonderful place to come at the end of the semester when so many other classes are cramming curriculum down the students' throats to try and get everything covered before the final exam. And we allow them to just sit and relax and listen...