Which High School Grade Has the Most Morons?

Today there were a few incidents at school that led me to think of this question, and at the same time also come up with an answer.

My school district has what is supposedly a cutting edge “deployment” of students. Our sixth graders go to our middle school, where the teachers want them segregated from the 7th and 8th grade students. Our ninth graders go to the high school where their middle school maturity leads to all kinds of interesting situations and the upperclassmen wish they were segregated from them.

This year we have been required to institute a half hour study session that actually runs twenty minutes for students in grade trouble. I have sophomores and seniors while my neighboring teacher has freshmen and juniors. We have been telling our students the expectations for three weeks. Many of the freshmen have no idea what is going on. Some of them have decided they don’t care if they are failing everything. Others are angry because they can’t go “hang out” with their friends who are passing everything. They have to stay in the “study hall” and do work.

Meanwhile, in my freshman science class, I had an interesting “moronic” incident. A boy was playing with a tennis ball and fifteen minutes before the end of class he shoved it down the front of his jeans. He then turned in his seat so the two girls to his left could see what he was up to. Somehow he thought I didn’t notice what he was doing. I was going to wait until the end of class (I was lecturing) to have a “chat” with him. But he kept playing with and adjusting it, so I told him to come up front. When he did, I told him I wanted the tennis ball. He had to reach next to his crotch and work the ball down the inside of his leg. He handed it to me with a smaile that disappeared real fast when I told him he was being reported for inappropriate sexual behavior. After class I explained to him that using a tennis ball to make a bulge like a big penis or large testicles was inappropriate and doing it to girls was a sexual harrassment.

When I asked him if his mother would be upset, he said it wouldn’t bother her. I said “We’ll see later tonight.” Ten minutes later I called his home and spoke to his mother. She had just talked to him and he explained that he had the ball in his pants pocket and I took it from him. When I hung up five minutes later, she was very upset, with him.

Yesterday I announced to my freshmen that too many were going to the bathroom during class so the privilege was taken away. They were just going for walks. One of them told me I couldn’t stop her from going and if she had to go, she would just go. I was so frightened!

Freshmen kick each other, throw things at each other, get the most F’s, walk around in their own little worlds, BUT eventually they grow up and become normal people.