Not a High School Musical

Summer school for the Brooklawn boys started Thursday (and I started going in at 7 am...blah). I'm assigned to High School 4, a group of 9 guys in the 9th grade. My job is to supervise their classes and try to keep the horseplay down...um, yeah, the whole "having authority" thing is a work in progress, but it's getting there. They actually do listen to me for the most part, so life's not too bad. Their schedule includes Gym, Science, Social Science, and Art. Overall, it's a fun time.

I have a couple frustrations, though. Forgive the ranting.
1) The Social Science class is very poorly taught. The teacher is a sub for the summer, and I feel like he's really got these kids wrong. Yeah, fine, a lot of them do have lower-than-average IQs, but that doesn't mean they can't learn. He doesn't even seem to be trying to teach them anything. Classes have included useless crossword puzzles and piss-poor movies that put everyone to sleep. TEACH THEM! Don't give up on them. Enough people in their lives already have.
2) I have a boy who's regressing. He's in my unit and my class. Before school started, I thought he was a model kid. That's far from the case now. He's very disruptive in class, and what's worse, he's a leader and a person many other boys look up to as a role model. He's also on track to go to public school off-campus in the fall, but if he can't pull it together in summer school, if he can't focus and stay on task, it's not going to happen. I know he's really frustrated right now (the only reason he's still at Brooklawn and in state custody is because his father can't pull himself together), but he's needs to pull himself together or all the progress he's made will have been for naught. I'm going to talk to him Monday morning before school. I hope he'll listen.

-cy