He’s leaving which means he’s not going which means he’s not doing anything.

At the school where I work we have two kinds of third year junior high school students this time of year. Those that are moving on to the high school have already semi-retired and, other than reviewing for an exam, it’s difficult to motivate them to do anything.

Those who are not moving on to the high school pose different problems. Because they are not beholden to the school where I work (they are taking entrance exams and don’t need much of anything from the school) they have zero motivation to do anything.

For example, in today’s third year junior high school class I have a student who was bad last week and was supposed to hand in homework this week. However, his homeroom teacher informed me yesterday that the student is leaving the school and 1) didn’t have time to do the homework because he was off taking entrance exams and 2) that meant that if I wanted his homework I could go to Helen Hunt for it. So to speak.

My only recourse is to sacrifice some of my time by bringing the student in at lunch. He may be someone else’s problem next school year, but for the next week he’s mine.