I’m teaching not at my school, but a different school for the summer.  It’s in a program for student who failed three out of 4 major subjects in ninth grade.  The school is trying to figure out if these students will make it to the next grade.  Right now, I’m not sure that it will happen.

There are kids who are chronically “sick” (though I’m thinking it could be anxiety or crappy home lives)  who need to sleep and aren’t completing work.  There are two kids who I’m fairly certain are high as EFF, and came in to get breakfast cause they had the munchies.

The real issue, as I’m seeing it, is that these students don’t know how to be students.  Come to class: do your work; don’t talk on the phone IN CLASS; heck, don’t have the phone in class; don’t talk over your teacher giving instructions; complete your work.  I think that my next 22 days (after they finish the pre-test today) will be working with these students on how to be students, not as much on what they need to complete academically.  My guess is that the latter begets the former.

Thoughts?