An Observant Mind: summer school

i laughed at the crazy thought of teaching summer school. with the sound of the cash register running through my head, along with the thought that 4 short hours each morning can't be so bad, i signed up to teach 6th grade math to a group of students hoping to make it to 7th grade.

with absolutely no break from the regular school year, i walked into the building not really knowing what to expect. the summer program was completely unorganized on all levels. "the board" (as the individuals with no faces nor names downtown are referred to) and the administration at the school really had no idea what was going to happen for six weeks. the only thing that was known was that a group of students would be showing up at the door to walk through the temporary metal detector.

now with summer school half over, i have a few observations to report:

three-fourths of the students have absolutely no desire to be there. they could care less about attempting to learn something in order to be promoted to the next grade.
12 & 13 year old adolescents are horrific. they have absolutely no respect for any type of authority figure. they are completely egocentric and have no concept of anything outside their own being.
students who are clueless respond in one of two ways; 1) they sit silently with their head down, hoping not to be called on, or 2) act up, making ridiculous comments to get a laugh out of their peers.
every students owns a cell phone which will be used to text friends, ring in the middle of class, or ring to announce an event for which the alarm was set.
summer school is a complete waste of time. most students will be promoted regardless of their effort or "gained" knowledge during the six weeks.
parents of summer school students could care even less than they did the previous 10 months of the school year. their apparent lack of support is a contribution to their child's lack of success.

now, for some mr. hahn comments:

"if you think you're funny, you're not. in fact, you're annoying!"
"if you want to see something funny, you can come over here and i will show you your grade!"
"if you don't want to be here, leave. i don't care. i'm not going to come in here and waste my time everyday. you're just wasting my time and those who actually want to go on to 7th grade!"
"yeah, it will be funny when you're sitting in 6th grade again next year."
"listen miss attitude, i just spent the last 20 minutes explaining that. i'm not going to spend my time explaining it again whenever you choose to listen." (this was accompanied by a slight roll of the head a la shanikua)

my motivation to get me to july 28th: