I survived, mostly

Managed to make it through the ILEARN practice test without any particular drama, other than that which is inherent to the genre of “practice versions of standardized tests,” then made it through the shortened blitz of the rest of my classes, once again teaching the exact same thing seven times in a row. I’ve been talking a lot more in the last two days than I usually do, and I got home and fell asleep on the couch for a couple hours. It was, indeed, a very good nap.

Oh, and I had a kid casually confess to me this morning that he came to school high, not because he’d been smoking or he wanted to but because those brownies that his mom left out, as he put it, “weren’t breakfast brownies.” He was over it by the time I saw him and he didn’t appear to have especially enjoyed the experience, so … I think I’m just gonna sit on it, and keep a close eye on him in the mornings? As much as I’d like to pretend otherwise I’m sure at least a third of these kids have weed out in the open in their houses at any given time, and this isn’t something that CPS or any other government agency is going to be interested in, and I have no particular interest in getting the kid in trouble for something that a) apparently no adult noticed; b) he admitted doing, c) caused no particular harm, and d) he didn’t seem likely to repeat. I’ll give it some more thought over the next few days, but I think this is going to stay as a “between me and you” thing for now.

(For the record, I almost always see him in the morning, and I didn’t today, so he probably either got to school late or without his iPad, and would probably therefore have spent the morning in the cafeteria being babysat with the other kids who weren’t able to take the practice test. Under ordinary circumstances I’d have had him second hour and you can for damn sure bet I’d have noticed if he’d come into class lifted. I don’t think I’m necessarily mad at the folks covering the caf for not noticing, though. There were a ton of kids in there and being high isn’t going to make him cause trouble and get noticed.)