How to Get some -que
Yesterday, the last day of classes, we get a “Faith Based Initiative”. Some preacher from the neighborhood decides to take all the kids who have been suspended a bunch, and give them a barbeque over in the football field. The end result is that all the nice kids are in class doing various onerous tasks, while all the troublemakers are across the street, eating -que, tossing a football, shagging flies. We can smell -que in my room. One sweet little girl looks wistfully out the window. She sniffs and says to no one in particular, “You think if I kick the principal in the balls that I can get a couple of wings and a drumstick?”
Today, in the middle of a final, I get called by a district pooh-bah. I’m asked if I have any students who haven’t as yet taken this standardized reading test.
‘I’m giving a final examination.’
“Perhaps you can send down the ones who finish early?”
‘No. Nobody will finish early. That’s the way I design the test. Did I mention that this test is a final?’
“Perhaps I can come to your room, and explain the results to the ones who did finish the test?”
‘No. I’m giving a final exam.’
So the district pooh-bah comes up to my room anyway, and tells me that I should explain the results to the students, and give them their individual scores. “When you have the time.” Then she hands me the results for the entire school. Almost a thousand scores with all manner of line and column, and I’m supposed to find my thirty kids in this ream of paper. This is in the last thirty minutes of class, the reading portion of my exam.
I smile and say, ‘Of course. Just leave the scores on my desk.’ Where they will remain undisturbed, and live happily for the rest of the summer.
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