ah, adolescence - a play in two acts

Scene One:
I had to reprimand one of my students yesterday. It was Michael, the infamous son of “Hairy” who I’ve blogged about before.

When I showed up, I discovered that he STILL hadn’t done any of the ISEE homework I’d assigned him. Two weeks ago, I asked him to write a 20-minute practice essay based on one of the questions in the test prep book. He didn’t do it.

At our next lesson, I helped him write an outline and asked him to finish the essay for homework. As soon as he showed me that he knew how to do it, I’d get off his back, I promised. He turned the outline into one, six-sentence paragraph. Not good enough, I told him.

He told me he had a hard time with the essay question. He couldn’t think of an answer. So I gave him a different question and told him to write another essay. He didn’t do it.

“Basically, there’s no point in studying for this test anymore.” He whined. “I just suck at it and I’m not going to get better before Saturday.”

“Uh, first of all, you don’t suck at it. But how do you expect to improve your score if you don’t practice.” He didn’t have an answer for this. “So you’ve just decided that you’re not going to do any more work I assign because it’s a lost cause, right?” He nodded.

“Honestly Michael…” Now I was starting to get annoyed. “This is a waste of my time and your parent’s money. If you don’t want to do any more prep, that’s your choice. But you should have the guts to tell your parents so they can call me and tell me not to come.”

“But my parents don’t listen! They’re going to make me do this even if I don’t want to!”

He has a point there. His dad IS the main problem. We have a company policy that when a student doesn’t complete their homework, the tutor is supposed to leave. The parents still get charged (and, of course, tell the kid never to pull that again) and the student learns some responsibility. It’s a little harsh the first time, but ultimately, the student does the work and gets more out of the tutoring. But the one time I left early (Michael didn't have any assignments to work on and I told him I'd credit him for the time) his dad called and yelled at me.

“Ok, that’s fine. But I’m trying to help you. If you don’t prepare, you’re just wasting my time. When you act like this, I feel like you’re treating me with respect.” He sat there glaring at his shoes. “Do you disagree?”

“No.”

“Ok, well then, would you apologize to me?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” He actually sounded sincere.

“Thanks. I feel much better now. I’ll tell your mom that we’re done with test prep tutoring.”

We left it at that and had a pleasant rest of our session together. I got heard and he got the chance to make up, in part, for his bad choices. He actually seemed a little relieved.


Scene Two:
Michael had to write a book report on Last of the Mohicans for his 8th grade English teacher. He had a hard time even finishing the book (which is quite long) and now I’m wondering if he really finished it or was simply fibbing. He admitted that he’d looked at Cliff Notes’ website for help and insisted he HADN’T plagiarized it.

When I read his essay though, I was skeptical. His essay was sprinkled with phrases like:

“Fort William Henry, which is besieged by the French near Lake George…. the villainous Huron escapes…. the Huron coldly proposes to Cora…. Hawkeye effects his escape and Alice's through disguise….
Tamenund sadly comments upon the worsening historic plight of the American Indians and particularly upon the tragically accomplished demise of the wise and noble race of Mohicans.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know a lot of 13-year-old boys who write like this.

I told him that I thought that the writing sounded too mature. He insisted that he hadn’t copied it. I told him I was going to check the website when I got home. He said, ok.

I checked tonight. He’s right. He didn’t copy it word for word. But otherwise, it’s almost exactly the same. Sigh.

I called his mom and told her that he should re-do the essay completely. She was nice about it. I guess this is yet another chance for him to learn a lesson about responsibility. If only I thought his dad wouldn’t come down so hard on him.

I like it when my students learn… but I hate it when they insist on learning the hard way.

images: N C Wyeth, "The Last of the Mohicans" (1919)