Friday, November 09, 2007

RIP John Jones

After almost a month in Ms. Brighton's classroom I'm finally getting to the point where I know almost all of my students by name. There are still a few students that I can't put a name to the face, but for the most part its, "Good morning, Eunique" and "What's up Darion?"

Today during 7th period just after taking attendance, I realized that there was only one student that I couldn't identify by name. I figured that I would use a process of elimination and the class roster to figure out the young man's name. I checked the roster and soon realized that I knew every person on the list. The student who wasn't on the list had been in my class all along and I recognized his face but it took me this long to realize that his name wasn't on my roster.

Gateway is a big school and there can be a fair amount of confusion about which student is in which classroom at what time. So I figured the student was not on my roster because of a clerical error.

I asked the student what his name was and he told me, John Jones. I explained to him that he wasn't on my roster. He told me the name of his counselor and I went to my desk to call her.

I dialed the counselors number and explained the situation; John Jones has been in my class all semester but his name somehow never made it onto the class roster. After about 15 seconds on the phone I looked up just as John walked out the door.

The counselor explained that she did have any students named John Jones, but she did have a student named John Joyner, and had been skipping his seventh period class everyday for over a month.

John Jones was one of my best students. He quietly did his work every single day. I wonder what his other 7th period class is like if he would rather come to my room every day and actually do the work?

I'm gonna miss that sneaky little guy.

3 Comments:

Blogger Colin Loughlin said...

Kids is too fucking smart, I bet he just wanted to be a star on your blog.

9:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

People should read this.

7:36 AM  
Anonymous Darion Robinson said...

Who was this...I dont remember him.

7:55 PM  

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