Monday, February 26, 2007

School Trips

I remember when we were in school and we went on trips. Mostly it was places like New York City or Philly. The band went to Florida and Mr. Rothrock did a trip to France. Did you go on any of them? All of them?
The school I work at is big on trips, and this year we have loads of them. Germany, Bulgaria (for skiing), New York City, two trips to Paris, an outward bound weekend in North Wales, sailing in Scotland, and Madrid. The Madrid trip is mine, and it was this past weekend. I took 20 kids (6 9th graders, 1 10th grader and 13 11th graders). I took 2 other teachers along with me, and we stayed in the most dire hotel I have ever been in. It was near a road called Calle de la Montera, or as my students liked to call it, "Hooker Lane." Of my 20 students, 17 of them were fantastic. Three of them were little shits who thought it would be a good idea to sneak out of the hotel on Saturday night. They also thought it would be a good idea to go out on the balcony of their room (which they weren't allowed on but went anyway) and dump a 2 liter bottle of Coke onto a woman walking on the sidewalk below. At 1:30 on Sunday morning, Rob (male teacher) came banging on my door and informed me that the police were upstairs in the room of these particular students and would I please come up and talk with them because my students were going to be arrested! They apologised to the woman and I promised her and the police that I would deal with them. The cops told me that if they had to come back my students would be arrested. None of them would admit guilt, so I spent most of the early hours of Sunday morning playing good cop/bad cop with Rob, trying to get information out of the kids individually. We finally managed to crack one kid, who fessed up and told us the whole story. Today I went back to work and had a meeting with the principal and assistant principal, who had the pleasure of giving out punishments. They all got a 5 day suspension, they're not allowed to go on any more school trips, and if they step one foot out of line for the remainder of the year, they're going to be expelled.

I love my job.

10 comments:

Steve Freeman said...

so, were you the good cop or the bad cop?

kristen said...

i'm going to NY in May with the 7th grade to see the Lion King...of course I remember going there in HS...

Unknown said...

Sounds like good clean fun to me. Especially when you are not the one running the trip:) Wow, I am surprised this is all you had to deal with especially with the age group.

mj jones said...

K the Lion King is Awesome!!

mathbach said...

how long would the cops have held them?

Vicky said...

The cops could have held them until their parents arrived from the U.K. What they did was, by definition, assault. This could have been so much more serious than it was, and I think they were lucky. They could have been arrested. When they sneaked out they could have been assaulted (or worse) themselves. I'm still pissed off. I asked not to have to attend the meeting with parents yesterday because this is still really raw with me, and I was worried I would say something I would regret. And now I need to start planning next year's trip!

mugs said...

What happened to the good old days when a teacher could duct tape a students mouth shut(Mark Yastrop)by Csensists, Watching Angeline pick up Lee Hodgins in his desk and toss him into a wall.
Watching Ferringer body check Rock into the lockers. Heck, the schools should just keep lawyers onsite 24/7 anymore.
If those kids would have done that to me, I would have pressed charges and made the parents come and get them.

I remember those NY city trips, alot of fun and informative in the museums. I remember watching some of our classmates feeding the bums their hoagies. That was interesting also.

Unknown said...

Spanking? You need to talk to our Almighty Class Prez about spanking.
I never saw Steve run so fast after Walenta cracked his ass !!! I think he made it home in 10 seonds flat. LOL

Actually, I disagree with spanking. I think there is a more effective wat to discipline then wacking someone with a peice of plywood. I wonder what it feels like?? Steve????

Vicky said...

I disagree with spanking, and in the U.K. corporal punishment was outlawed years ago. Although I was very tempted to kick the crap out of those three. My kids have never been spanked. Taking stuff away is much more painful.

pauko27 said...

Mike, you forgot about a teacher (Redsy) pushing a student (Mullen) into some jaggedy metal during a field math class that was being held in the metal shop room. Quite a gash was sustained, from what I hear.