It's a cruel world

One of my students, a pre-teen, came hobbling in today on crutches. I asked her what had happened and she said her friend had accidently pulled her down some stairs. I asked what her parents had said. She said they were angry. I asked her why. She said because she had a test next week for her Junior High (to be) that would stream all the students for certain classes and they were angry that she might fuck it up because of her ankle.

You read and hear about kids and teens like this often in the news here. They finally get so pissed off with their slave driver parents that they burn their houses down or stab their parents to death.

Luckily, this kid is pretty sweet and - as much as she detests the way her parents push her to study and study and study - I doubt she'll fall into this category.

At least I hope not.

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Two more of my students today showed a unique talent: the ability to summarize a written text and make the summary longer than the original text. I was impressed, in a sort of head-against-wall kind of way.

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My Thursday granny class (they of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory post) cracked me up again today (see, not ALL my students bore me to tears). One of the group has been absent for nearly two months now. I asked the grannies if they'd heard from her. They told me she has a bad cold; and then killed themselves laughing taking the piss out of how she's younger than all of them and how they're never ill. I told them they didn't have time to be ill, they were involved in too many activities.

I'm now starting to wonder whether the mid-20 to mid-40 age group are the ones with limited extra-curricular activities [ie lives] and whether the older generation is busy living it up.

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"Bless" of the day, goes to a mother and her 21-year old son who I've been teaching since day 1. They told the school they had to change to a different day because the son's university schedule would make it too hard for them to keep coming.

In April.

They have given over FIVE months notice to the school that they need to change days. The school manager and I thought that was pretty amusing.