Things that make you go..."You need to calm the &%$%$# down"...
So today was a first in my teaching "career". I had a student say she was going to kill herself because I wouldn't give her the answers to the pretest for the test we are having on Thursday. That's right...the pretest.
I basically went over the entire test and couldn't have made it any more obvious what was going to be on the real test. But, yet, the same four people who are so fluent in English that they couldn't place out of my class still found a way of turning the class into a three ring circus again today.
But that wasn't even the best part. At the end, after I was done handing out the take-home practice tests, one woman comes up to me and asks if she can have the answers to the practice test so that she can study it at home (keeping in mind I have basically told everyone what was going to be on the test). I say no because students should be using their books in conjunction with the test to find out the answers for themselves. She says she don't have a book. I say that it is now the third week and that she is required to have a book by now. She starts the sob story to try and get me to sympathize with her.
...and actually I would like to take this time to break from the narrative and point out one thing. I'm pretty hard headed (though I also like to think that I am level-headed. That is, if presented with info about why I am wrong, then I'll be the first one to admit I was wrong). But I love how people mistake my laid back-ness, or easygoing attitude, or whatever it is that people see, for weakness. That somehow I am going to cave in and give that homeless guy a dollar because gosh darn, doesn't he look down and out on his luck? Life is hard isn't it? My experience has been that people get mad when they realize that I'm not going to budge or that getting me to do something wasn't as easy as they thought it was going to be....
I stand my ground and say that you should have a book, that she is not getting the answers to the test, and that she should study what we went over today. To which she thinks she is going to make *me* feel bad by saying, "Oh yea, life's pretty hard I know, I should just go home and shoot myself"..and walks away. Of course I know she wouldn't be doing this..so I'd like to post a response to her should she ever stumble across my journal here...."Yes it is. No you shouldn't, and you still not getting the answers to the pretest. Why don't you just calm down, go home, do the work your supposed to be doing, and stop trying to make me out to be the bad guy / lay some guilt trip on me because I happen to not be a pushover.
There. I've said my peace. I feel better. Now it is time for Calgon to take me away.