A kid named Dylan
A few weeks ago Q-13 had parent teacher conferences at the middle school. I was talking to his advisement teacher and she went on and on about how focused he's become in reading, she feels he's going to be at a whole new level at the end of the year. I have to say, I was relieved because I'd been a bit worried about his reading dropping off recently.
You see, when he started middle school, he and T-12 got into the Maze Runner series big time. They blew through the whole set quicker than I've ever seen him read anything before. But I noticed he was dragging out the last book and here's why. He has to read 4 books a semester for his advisement class and then take a test on them. So he didn't want to read anymore since he'd already taken 4 tests and he wanted to save the last Maze Runner test until this semester. That kid has goals!
Anyway, he finally had no choice but to finish and he moved on to a book by a man who survived the sinking of the Titanic (written about 100 years ago.) And I'm no math wiz but it seemed to be taking him forever and it was a small book, less then 200 pages. Ugh. So to hear he was doing so well was pretty reassuring, I thought he must be reading a different book at school.
When I got home, I told him how his teacher gushed at his focus for reading and he immediately started laughing.
me: What?
Q-13: I'm not reading.
me: I KNEW IT!!!! (seriously, it's like he was averaging 2 pages a day)
Q-13: I'm watching the show. Advisement is my best class. The teacher has no control and the kids are just running wild. Especially this one kid, Dylan. Today, he spent all of Advisement army crawling in and out of the room. And because of where his desk is, the teacher can't see him, but I had a perfect view. So I prop the book up and get entertained.
Perhaps I should focus on his reading goals, but he finished Titanic on Monday and I gave him "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson (which will be interesting to see if anyone at the school objects because the first recommendation on the back is from Jesus and starts with "FUCKING", lol). Any anyway, this Dylan kid actually is pretty entertaining so I'm keeping a list of the shit he does because he's clearly declared war on this teacher and she is not finding the humor in it at all.
Antics of the Entertainer:
You see, when he started middle school, he and T-12 got into the Maze Runner series big time. They blew through the whole set quicker than I've ever seen him read anything before. But I noticed he was dragging out the last book and here's why. He has to read 4 books a semester for his advisement class and then take a test on them. So he didn't want to read anymore since he'd already taken 4 tests and he wanted to save the last Maze Runner test until this semester. That kid has goals!
Anyway, he finally had no choice but to finish and he moved on to a book by a man who survived the sinking of the Titanic (written about 100 years ago.) And I'm no math wiz but it seemed to be taking him forever and it was a small book, less then 200 pages. Ugh. So to hear he was doing so well was pretty reassuring, I thought he must be reading a different book at school.
When I got home, I told him how his teacher gushed at his focus for reading and he immediately started laughing.
me: What?
Q-13: I'm not reading.
me: I KNEW IT!!!! (seriously, it's like he was averaging 2 pages a day)
Q-13: I'm watching the show. Advisement is my best class. The teacher has no control and the kids are just running wild. Especially this one kid, Dylan. Today, he spent all of Advisement army crawling in and out of the room. And because of where his desk is, the teacher can't see him, but I had a perfect view. So I prop the book up and get entertained.
Perhaps I should focus on his reading goals, but he finished Titanic on Monday and I gave him "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson (which will be interesting to see if anyone at the school objects because the first recommendation on the back is from Jesus and starts with "FUCKING", lol). Any anyway, this Dylan kid actually is pretty entertaining so I'm keeping a list of the shit he does because he's clearly declared war on this teacher and she is not finding the humor in it at all.
Antics of the Entertainer:
- Army crawling out of class (day my recording events began, teacher never caught on)
- Clearing his throat (every few seconds, a small cough which caused his teacher to glare, but remain silent)
- Tapping his leg against his desk for an hour
- Making a short, soft whistle that everyone could hear, but no one could pinpoint, all class long
- Blessing every sneeze super with a loud, "GOD BLESS YOU!" (the class caught on and it was a day of sneezing for all)
- Listening to music on his phone (this one got him a referral. He was listening to music from his phone with headphones. The teacher doesn't like this, but allowed it. So he turned the volume up. She told him to turn it down. He faked like he couldn't hear her. She repeated until he complied. He waited until the next song, then turned the volume back up. She took his headphones away. He played music without them. She confiscated his phone. He waited until she was back at her desk and took out an AUXILIARY PHONE HE HAD HIDDEN ON HIS PERSON and started playing music on that one. She took that phone away, wrote him a referral and never laughed!)
- Not showing up for class (The teacher thought she'd out smarted him and so she moved his desk so that he's in a corner facing a wall. She was very proud of herself and waiting for him to show up. He never did)
- Showing up for class (The next day, he did show up, but she was absent so she didn't get to see his face. She also missed the hour long protest about his civil rights and fairness)
- Throwing trash away. I guess this was yesterday. He started ripping teeny-tiny pieces of paper from his notebook, then getting up and slowly walking to the trash to throw them away. She said nothing, but was visibly unhappy.
- A student walked into the class about halfway through, stopped dead and asked, "Since when does Dylan not have to wear a shirt?" "I'm hot!"