Fin.

As it turns out, the story about the girl who had sex with between 5 and 9 boys is far worse than I thought. To begin with, Melanie finally confessed to our Parent Teacher coordinator that she did not willfully have sex with these boys, but was forced. Now first of all let me say that this makes me want to die inside. I can picture her all antagonistic and goading them on "Yeah I'll do it, watch me! I don't f*cking care!" and then suddenly finding herself in a house with big grown boys and not being able to get out of it. It makes me incredibly sad and sick to my stomach. Her parents seem to think that it's "her fault" for not being in school and are not being supportive. The police, who came to school to find and possibly prosecute the older boys, say she needs to switch to a detention center for girls like Melanie who need much more help than a public school can give her. But instead, her parents, who are already involved in trials with ACS [children's services] decided that they are just going to ship her off to Jamaica back to her mother who is very sick. You would think that since they completely don't give a crap about her they would relish the idea of her going to a detention center but I guess they want to rid themselves of the legal ACS issues so they are just having her leave the country. And poof, just like that, there will be no more Melanie. I feel like I should have some sense of relief, since Melanie is literally the only student I've ever had that I just cannot seem to win over no matter what I do. And now I won't have to deal with her anymore. But instead I just feel tremendous guilt and sadness that she will grow up unloved and all f*cked up with no prospects and no-one to help her become a trusting and productive person who functions in society. It is totally depressing.

After learning that news I thought for sure the day was going to be awful. And while T-Rex pulled his general shenanigans [laying on the table squawking like a chicken, trying to trip a teacher from another school in the hallway while we were all at the bathroom, breaking people's pencils] and Class From Hell was typically annoying, my homeroom filled me with great happiness today in a very old-school I-Like-Teaching kind of way I haven't felt in a while. First of all, they are writing fantastic editorial articles about the president sucking, school lunch being unacceptable quality, unfair school policies like No-Cell-Phones, metal detectors making them feel like criminals, and on and on... I edited all 50 essays today and got them back to both classes which was more work than I've done in ages.

I also complimented my homeroom on their respectful and considerate behavior this week, mostly because they were very sensitive to the fact that I was having a bad week since they knew I was out last week for a funeral, and they kept saying things like "Be nice! We like Ms. ______, let's give her a break" and that just made me feel like all my hard work trying to earn their respect had paid off. They clapped when I complimented them. And I sent them off for the weekend with a smile on my face, which is a welcome change.