Refusal

What a week it's been.  Awesome start to the school year.  A few technological glitches here and there, but it appears most of those are solved.  The kids seem to be pretty darn normal for as abnormal as 12-13 year olds are.  I love being able to feel ready for the day and prepared for what's ahead simply because I'm healthy.  It's those little things I'm learning that make life so much richer than ever imagined.

Today brought an early challenge to the table.  The challenge reared its head in my last class of the day, my Class Within a Class as it is called, which basically means there's a plethora of special ed students in my class and a special ed teacher with me to assist.  One of those lovely children, whom I felt I had a good rapport with, suddenly got angry at me for asking him to research his birthday.  We're doing Pieces of Me books and this year I'm breaking it into smaller segments so it's not so overwhelming, thus we're starting now with the first page of the book which is called "The History of My Birthday."  I gave them a sheet to fill in, websites to visit, complete examples and instructions to follow, so I felt like all were ready for it.  Not Tony.  Holy smokes!

Me:  Tony, you need to start writing things down when you see them on the website.
Him: This is a stupid project and I am not doing it.  I'm just going to take an F.
Me:  Hmm, that's not an acceptable option.
Him:  I hate books.
Me:  This is a book about you.
Him:  I'm not doing it. (Tears welling up, voice quavering)
Me:  C'mon, you gotta try. (Trying to distract)  Look, here's some things that happened on your birthday.
Him:  Those are stupid.  I already know I was born on Groundhog Day.  That's enough.
Me:  That's a cool fact to include, but it won't get you through 150 words of writing.
Him:  I'll write 55 words.  Will you take that?
Me:  I'll take 150 which I showed you yesterday was not that much if you get enough facts to fill it in.
Him:  (Tears well)  I hate books. I am not going to do it.

Although I've been at this job for 20 years, it never ceases to amaze me the balls that kids today have. I can't ever remember any of my classmates ever daring to refuse to do a project.  Especially one that was as cool as this one and one that I basically am making simple enough for any student no matter what level they function at, to complete.  I had to walk away simply because I wasn't going to engage him anymore and I wasn't going to lose it over this battle. (Did I mention that while this was going on, my mom was at the ER at the Heart Hospital in SF and I had no clue whether it was heart related or what was going on, so I was a little on edge and distracted.)  Either way, I clearly wanted him to understand that although he may think he is going to get away with just taking an F, that isn't going to happen.  I emailed his counselor and the assistant principal to allow them to intervene in this situation before he started to bank on what he thinks was his choice----to fail.  I have a feeling this is going to be a battle in the end, but I believe I am willing to die on this hill because I am sick and tired of kids repeatedly deciding, "I'll just take the zero" instead of deciding, "I'll try to do it."   What is it going to take to turn this generation around or even turn it in a direction that is an acceptable path to follow?  Sigh.  What a day.