SICK DAYS ARE NO FUN

I went to school Tuesday while sick (because the district will dock your pay if you miss a day following a holiday, unless you have a doctor's excuse--I think). The students informed me that I should not have come to school to spread my germs everywhere and insisted that I needed to go home and focus on getting well. In fact, one student told me that she was going to tell the administrators that I needed to go home because I might have T.B.! (I do NOT have T.B.) They told me that I should take yesterday and today off, and I decided that their suggestion wasn't a bad idea.

I must say though, taking a sick day when you're actually sick is no fun at all. I spent most of yesterday coughing and sleeping and wondering if my students were terrorizing the substitute. I learned from one of the teachers that my students, who have been complaining that I need to occasionally miss a day, actually complained that I picked a bad day to miss because so many of the students were pulled from class for one reason or another. Well, excuse me for being sick on a day that was not convenient to my spoiled students.

At six o'clock this morning, with me still coughing and my voice still too weak to actually teach, I decided that I would rest another day. Hopefully I'll feel well enough to go to work tomorrow. Hopefully my voice will have returned. And hopefully the next time I take a sick day it'll be of the "mental health" variety - you know, those days where I am physically well and actually able to somewhat enjoy the day.

MY MOST REGRESSED STUDENT

I recognized one of my students as one of the brighter ones in my math class near the beginning of the school year. She would occasionally miss days of school, but when she did attend class, she caught on very quickly and always outperformed most of the students who had been there every day. For the most part, she turned in her homework assignments, and unlike most of my students, her homework assignments were relatively accurate. She made a high B during the first term.

During the second term, the student began to miss many more days of school. Because the material was getting more complicated, when she did come to class, she was lost and unable to make up for the days missed. She began to put her head down in class and seemed to have become very uninterested in what was going on. I discovered that she was doing the same thing in other classes and that part of the reason was that she had gotten a part time job.

Due to the student's sporadic attendance, the student failed both the second and third term. During the third time, I began to inform the student's mother when the student was not attending class. Apparently, the student was cutting school without the mother's knowledge. While the mother's involvement caused some improvement in the student's attendance and performance, much more will be needed in order for the student to pass the class.

This situation has made one point very clear - by the time a child is an upper-classman in high school, he/she should already have developed the character needed to be successful in life. It is very difficult for parents to control the behavior of a 16-18 year old when the parents are working and cannot keep their eyes on the child all day long.