Sorrowful Day

Today we learned that a student has died. He was a young sophomore who suddenly fell ill the day before in gym class. He went to the bathroom and returned, letting his teacher know that he had been sick. His legs felt numb and two students took him to the office. A friend of mine later said that she saw two kids dragging a boy who looked unable to move his legs. This was the case and an ambulance was called. He went to Highline and finally at Children's. There was internal bleeding in his stomach, surgery was performed, but failed. Sixteen and now his future has disappeared suddenly; no one saw this coming.

First period I made the announcement, and throughout the day I saw students crying, some uncontrollably. They were able to go to the career center for counseling, but for some this choice was too difficult since they'd be surrounded by grief. It was difficult watching students, who didn't want to leave, with red eyes and tears streaming down their cheeks, trying to work in class. How do you comfort them? What words can make it all better? As a teacher, what is the right thing to do? We worked so their minds would be too busy; we worked so that they could get a break from the sorrow; we worked, but was that what they needed? Today we learned a boy passed away, and we will never be the same.

WASL and Mixed Up Shoes

Last week a student came to class with two different shoes on his feet. On his left foot was a highly polished black dress shoe while on the right he rocked a gray and red running shoe. He chuckled and pointed it out on his way in the door, but it was I that christened it the Mullet shoes. Business in the front and party in the back. He laughed and reversed the shoes the next day. (He wanted the two pairs of shoes to receive equal wear and tear.) Unfortunately, the style has not caught on with the general public.

In other news, math WASL week has recently come to a close, which is good since I was tired of staring at the youngsters for two hours each day. The room was deathly quiet except for the sound of pencils moving against the pages. Once in a while I'd move around and see how far they were on the test, but besides that I'd watch. I had to be careful that cell phones and I-pods didn't sneak their way out of their pockets since that's grounds for disqualification. Do you know how difficult it is to tell teens that they have to be disconnected from the outside world for two hours? It's like asking them to cut off a limb, but worse! But thankfully they survived and can now live to tell the cell phoneless tell.