I held an intervention today. It was interesting, but not exactly what I wanted to happen. I have a student whose behavior has gone from exceptional to just plain evil and downright mean, and it happened pretty much overnight. He has been frustrating all of his teachers for a little while now, more so than most students. His attitude has become more than terrible, and he curses out his teachers on a regular basis. He's never cursed me out (that I can remember), but he knows it won't bother me (or at least I won't let him know that), so he goes deep. He tells me I have a fat baby or ugly hands, and tries to hurt my feelings. He's just downright mean, and he is one of the rare students who actually gets under your skin with his behavior and comments, whereas most of them we just ignore. So anyway, I held a big meeting to discuss his problems, and I was shocked to see how many people care about him and came out to work it out. It was great. I won't say that my goal was really the focus after guidance brought in their own issues and kept turning the focus to that. I'm really happy, though, that we could all sit down and let him see how many people care about him succeeding and support him. After the meeting I talked to him, and he said he said all the things we wanted to hear to get us to leave him alone. That's really discouraging. I know him, and I know that he is not going to let on that he was moved, and I don't blame him, b/c I wouldn't either. However, I wasn't really convinced by his answers (b/c I do know him), and did feel like he was placating us. I really want to see him do well, for my own reasons and for him. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'll be sure to mention it again later if he does or doesn't start doing better. I'm just a little frustrated that the meeting was changed to focus more on the goals of guidance. I really wanted to address his behavior, and get that fixed before anything. We can move on to their deal once he can prove that he's got self-control. Of course, I don't have the assertiveness I need to have turned the focus around, so it went their way. For that matter, a few times I was shot down when I tried to talk about my issue that I called the meeting for. But that's okay, I don't think the problem really got solved, but I am just really happy to see so many people came to work to help him. I will have a chance to talk to him later one-on-one, and we will hopefully get him back on track. Now that he kind of sees the consequences of his behavior, and how many people are affected, I hope it will open his eyes. And, that was the highlight of my day. Well, except that Trey left me a cute little picture this morning with a sweet note on it. That was a nice way to start the day!

So I feel like my meeting today was a bit political feeling, although it had nothing to do with politics. I kinda see now how stuff gets passed and stuff that really only benefit certain people. If you want to get your point across, you must have a strong person (or group) on your side. It's sad to me, though, that education has anything to do with politics, but I might as well accept it, eh. So, did anybody watch the debate tonight? If so, what did you think? I personally refuse to, b/c I have enough to worry about in my life. Just wanted to know what you thought.