Story time!
Two days ago I had to travel to a very small, white rural town to supervise a student teacher and provide coaching. I'm talking about confederate flag on every corner, Trump country, only one high school town.
So I'm observing an EC resource class with multiple grade levels. My first problem is a.) the kids in there weren't even low but there was 0 rigor, and b.) one student had a hoodie on and was non-responsive on some real creep shyt. Like
So while the students are reading I notice a little girl who stumbled over a word, and had an anxiety attack. She ran dramatically out the room to compose herself. When she came back I made it a point to literally lie and tell her "OMG! You have SUCH great reading skills! Are u into like drama and stuff?!"
So she's got eyes wide and anxiety gone. All of a sudden she's talking 1000 words per second about the arts and how she loves anime and we sitting here discussing Inuyasha and how Bleach became some trash after the Aizen arc and where the hell is the next season of One Punch Man?
Well guess what future unibomber wanna be perked up at our conversation? Ole boy in the hoodie lookin at us like
Him: "Wait, u like Attack on Titan?"
Me: "Omg! Naked ass giants running around eating people. What's not to love?!"
Him: "Sfuehajgdhecsieybejryefdnkdjr (geek speak)):7;?&:$
-)/)"
His teachers:
So I let him and Anxiety chick strike up the cutest little nerd conversation ever as I made my way to look at what the other kids were doing.
By now the assistant principal done came thru looking like
And asked "How'd u get him to talk? He's been non-verbal since he came to the school two months ago. Gets violent when we try to speak!"
Inside I'm thinking "He mad b/c he's a 14 year old boy with a 25 year old brain, stuck coming to this boring ass place day in and day out, having to listen to these boring ass teachers drone on and on and on and I was ready to slit my wrists in this boring ass setting 10 mins into observing this shyt."
But I told him "we need to work on some more engaging content for some of ur exceptional kids."
Point is, that kid is a high school shooter waiting to happen without intervention and he is ripe for recruitment by white supremacist gangs.