Posted by: Jack
« on: June 03, 2018, 11:18:21 am »
Ralph was not only one of my students this past semester, but he was honestly one of my favorites. Instead of sharing why, allow me to re-share these old posts with you.
Quote Jack from Teaching - 24 January 2018
There's one boy named Ralph, who's in 8th grade. I believe he's already 14.
Ralph is a pretty average looking kid, except for a bit of a week chin, nice eyes, and very thick, slightly curly brown hair. He's probably about average size for that age - about 5'6" or so, and thinnish - maybe 125 lbs. He has a nice, low tenor voice, and he's willing to talk, so I already like him.
When I was leaving yesterday, I stopped to talk to Marcus. Between me being in the hospital, and several birthdays, along with other things, this month has been a bit off kilter I wanted to make sure we all had our ducks in a row. He had a gym class, and I found him in the locker room. While I was chatting with Marcus, Ralph walked in, went to a locker, and started stripping down. He wears white, Fruit of the Loom briefs. He has a firm build, with just a hint of a waist and hips, and while his buttocks are a bit deeply dimpled on the sides, they're nicely arched out in the back. As I was leaving, he saw me and waved, turning enough to reveal he also seems to have a nice bulge.
A few days later, on 29 January
It'll be fun to see Ralph in class today.
The theater where we saw Death Cure is older. They've done a lot of remodeling over the years, but their men's room doesn't have privacy guards on the urinals. Ralph and I ended up next to each other, and he doesn't seem especially shy - he has a pretty cute (and decent sized) package.
It was also cute at the house that night. He apparently loves animals, and spent some time visiting Van, including going to my room to see the ferrets (with permission). Ralph and I talked for a while, and he asked about the Red Maple. I told him that I don't share specifics about my kids discipline. I let him know that I do spank, but I'm not going to say who, when, or why. I suggested he wouldn't like his dad telling me. He just shrugged - he was wearing lounge pants with no shirt, and the pants kept sliding down his barely existent hips to reveal his Hanes briefs, though they were light gray instead of white this time - and said his dad almost always uses the belt. "When I was little, he used my belt on my pants most of the time, but he says if it's serious enough for me to get the belt at my age, it's too serious to keep 'em up anymore.'
I still didn't tell him anything about Colt, but I did answer his general questions, which was more about school anyway.
And on 1 February
Ralph walked into class yesterday, talking with another boy (a ninth grader).
"No seriously - look. Mr. Wells, (he) doesn't believe me about Fido."
So, the first five minutes of class involved watching videos on my phone of Fido performing tricks or just acting like Fido. Of course, the entire class had to see them.
Now they want Fido to come to class for a visit.
I'm thinking - you just say videos of this rabbit hitting me and chasing dogs and kids. I guess they want to find out for real.
Oh well - I told them that, if they behave, and if we get ahead before the end of the six weeks, I'll ask if he can visit.
In related news, Colt and I had a talk about some of the boys whom he had over for the movie whom haven't visited before. He likes some of them more than others, but there aren't any he really dislikes. He was asking about how many kids he can have over on a regular basis (keep it about where it is after school, but a few more on weekends - during the days, not sleepovers - would be okay). It turns out that Emmet and Ralph are friends, so Colt had considered asking him over more often. Emmet has asked his own friends a couple of times, but he usually just hangs out with Colt. I'll probably talk with him about that myself. Still, it seems like we all like Ralph, so he'll probably start being a more regular visitor.
I don't seem to have mentioned Ralph in my Teaching thread after that, but he's been around.
The thing is, I really like Ralph. Beyond what I said about him above, he's a bit geeky (both in looks and in attitude), which I always love. He dresses nice, usually within the limits of the dress code at school, but outside of school as well most of the time. Ralph does have ADHD, though he either deals with it really well or he's growing out of it, though I think he suffers from combination type, and the inattentive is still a problem for him. There are times, as his teacher, when I have to get in his face and make sure he's with us, but even that's not too often.
Mostly I've really liked having Ralph around. While I expect to see a lot of him over the summer, I'll miss having him in class next year.
At least that's what I thought. And then Mr. P shared this with me before the graduation ceremony last night.
"Ralph Peterman's parents have been complaining."
"Why?" I asked, really confused, since I couldn't think of any interaction Ralph and I had had that had been bad, or why Mr. P would be telling me about problems with other teachers.
By the way, I should mention here that all my students took a reading level test at the end of the fall semester, then another test a couple of weeks ago, to see if there was a good reason for more classes like I'm doing.
Well, Mr. and Ms. Peterman's complaints were pretty straight forward. Not only did Ralph's reading level go from a 5.6 to a 7.9, but he's been playing less video games, he's been engaging socially with more of his peers (not just when visiting at my house, but at his own home as well), and his behavior at home has improved.
Now, I'm not going to try to take credit for even half of that. The fact that they apparently think he's going to backslide if he's not in my class is an example of what I call 'talismanic thinking' (though I'm sure there's another name for it). To me, that's when someone sees something happen, and they see an object of focus, and so all the blame/praise for all the changes goes t that 'talisman'. d
Honestly, I think I'm really responsible for just one thing - I engaged him. That was the purpose of the class. I reached out to the kids and showed them that what they thought was a dismal chore (reading) could actually be the beginning of visits to worlds they'd never imagined. Beyond that, the fact that Ralph new Cole and was already friends with Emmet almost guaranteed he'd be invited over here more often, once he became one of my students. The thing you have to remember is that ADHD kids sometimes have trouble making friends for various reasons. The counterpoint to that is that a lot of my kids have various degrees of learning disabilities, and all of them have had therapy (you don't wind up in foster care because your life has been so great). Between those two things, my house is a great place for a kid with ADHD who has had trouble making friends, and that's the kind of thing that can really help one's self-confidence and encourage one to reach out.
To make a long story short (I know - too late!), despite being a freshman next year, Ralph is going to be placed in my advanced middle school class. Mr. C and his parents have both talked to him, and I'm going to talk to him before it's 100%. However, he says he understands that the class is going to be challenging, and that he'll be the slowest reader in the bunch, so he's going to have to work hard to keep up, as well as the fact that he'll be under stricter discipline in this class than in a normal one.
He was supposed to be coming over this afternoon to spend the night, but recent events might have changed that, so I"m not sure if he and I will have our chance to talk today or not, but as long as I'm sure he understand what it going to be expected of him, I'm happy to have him.
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I'm so glad your students have been improving so much under your care!