Rather than post pics of graduation, I figured I'd share a story from my final day of student teaching. Of course, before I tell the story, I have to explain a little bit about Casey. Casey is the A-Number-One, Oregon's Most Wanted "problem child" in the fourth grade... actually, in the whole school. First off, he's been held back once, and is none too happy about it. Second, this is his first year at our school, so to start the year off right, Casey found the biggest, most-feared fifth grader in the school and picked a fight with him. He got thoroughly pounded, of course... but the point was made that you don't mess with Myles or Casey o_O Third, he's become the subject of both a school-wide anti-bullying campaign AND an ESD-level threat assessment... simply by making an offhand comment to a staff member that he was planning to bring a gun to school and that he already had 3 people "on the hit list". And then there are all the little day-to-day joys of life with Casey... such as him warning me that, if I didn't handle his most recent disagreement with a classmate properly, he would have to take care of the matter himself, and that I wasn't "going to like the results 'cause there's gonna be lots of blood and concrete and somebody would probably be going to jail afterwards." Rather considerate of him to warn me, all things considered... o_O Casey's not at all stupid, though he seems to have a lot of people convinced that, because he refuses to do most of his schoolwork, he must be a slow learner. Personally, I think he's just got the system figured out already... which tells me a lot about his intelligence that I wouldn't get from looking at his grades :-)
When he's not terrorizing his peers, though, Casey can actually be a pretty funny, sweet kid. Such as the time when his classmate Yesenia was told by another student, "Well, at least I'm white...", and Casey went out of his way to comfort her and make her laugh again. Or the incident that happened on my last day in the classroom:
That morning, I busted Casey with his iPhone in class again... third time in four days. After first refusing to put it in his backpack and then stuffing it in his back pocket and lying outright about it ("Whaaaaat? It IS in my backpack!!!" "Yeah, OK, so what is that in your pocket, then?" "That? Well, it's NOT my PHOOOOOONE... it's my iPHOOOOONE! Hahahahahahaha..."), Casey eventually did go and put the phone away like I had asked... yes, we celebrate the small victories here... ^_^
... and came out of the coat closet with two fistfuls of candy and both cheeks stuffed full besides...
... which became really interesting because it was his turn to lead the class in the Pledge of Allegiance. Which is a little difficult to do with a mouth full of Starlight Mints ("Ipfffawwjttdffphguv d Oontdfdd Stttsuvv Mrrrguhh...") Natural consequences FTW ^_^
The day progressed normally (this was the same day as Casey's oh-so-considerate pre-warning about the blood and concrete and all that... pretty typical, all things considered o_O), until about half an hour before the end of the day. At that time, Casey was headed out to one of his Special Ed classes, when he suddenly turned and ran over to hand me two Starlight Mints. "It's a good-bye present."
"Oh... OK. Thanks!" How sweet of him :-) Really, it was actually pretty sweet... no kidding :-D
When Casey returned from his class to get his things at the end of the day, he came over to my desk, where I was starting to pack up my things. "Here," he says, and gestures for me to hold out my hands. I do so, and he dumps a couple of handfuls of Starlight Mints into my hands and onto my desk.
"Um... Thanks. By the way, where did you get all of these mints from?"
"My backpack. Duh..." And he shows me that the bottom of his backpack is filled with about the same amount of mints as he's just given me.
I laugh. "Okay, yeah, 'duh...' I meant before they were in your backpack... Where did you get so much candy from?"
"Oh, from the restaurant."
"The restaurant?"
"Yeah, the restaurant. My mom said that, for 50 bucks for dinner, we deserved as many mints as we could carry!"
Lovely. Just... lovely :-D Wonder if they take away your teaching license for accepting stolen goods from your students...
