You'll Love This Later

 I have a student who I will call NPC in my first period class. He hasn't done anything all semester long. Anything. I have asked him countless times to put his phone away, but the most he can do it put it in his lap and continue to play Clash Royale. We even had  a one-on-one discussion about his phone outside my classroom - during class time.  

NPC's mom emailed me this week asking why he was doing so poorly in my class. I wanted to email back, "Why did you get him a new phone after he was suspended from school for being on his phone too much?" I didn't. I thanked her for reaching out and told her that his phone was a real problem for him. Such a big problem that he didn't do any work in my class. I also mentioned that if he wanted to come in after school we could try to see what we could do to catch him up. She emailed me back saying he came clean about what was going on and that he would definitely meet me after school on Thursday and Friday.

I didn't really think he'd come in, but he showed up on Thursday. He worked excruciatingly slowly (because he doesn't care if he passes my class) and wanted to make small talk about my weekend plans. He was secretly killing me with his small talk. And then he came in again on Friday! Same thing. He still isn't going to be able to do enough to pass my class, but maybe his mom will be glad that he tried.

The one thing that made it better was getting to tell Bill about the painful experience on our walks on Thursday and Friday nights. Bill is the person you want to tell the bad stuff to. He's super good at commiserating. Your own miserating can only get you so far, you know?

NPC is not in this picture, but look at the size of that water bottle!!