On Wednesday, my ace student Maria asked if she could sit in the back of the room to take a test. I said sure, as I'm such a swell guy. Maria wrote her essay in record time, and it really wasn't good at all. But boy, did she get it done quickly. She clearly had something of more importance to get to.
My student teacher, who observes this class, later told me Maria was texting someone back there, and that she'd instructed her to stop. Maria obligingly put away the offending cell phone, only to draw it out a few minutes later. Now the second time it came out, the student teacher was wary of confrontation. Really, she gets paid not one dime, and for that, why should she have to fuss and fight with uncooperative kids who don't listen anyway? After all, isn't that my job?
Well it is, of course. But she didn't relay this story to me until after class, when Maria had already gone her merry way. I regretted not confiscating the phone, which I'd certainly have done if I'd only known about it in time. But I was pretty sure Maria would ask to sit in the back again, and then she'd feel the wrath of a highly uncooperative NYC Educator, in front of whom she'd be sitting for the rest of her natural life, if not longer. What could be worse that that?
But yesterday, just as I was about to dispense justice, I looked around and Maria was nowhere to be found. She'd cut my class, and all the clever remarks I'd prepared for her were alas, for naught. If she cuts today, which she's likely as not to do, I won't see her till Monday, and her texting will be so far back in ancient history that she won't even remember why she's never sitting in the back again.
I truly hate it when the diabloical calculations of teenagers, inadvertent though they may be, thwart my evil plans.
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