Three Months Earlier
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
The bell rang, signaling the start of my fourth period U.S. Government class. It was all seniors, most of whom were starting to develop very advanced cases of senioritis. The kids still did good work, though, and we managed to have a lot of very good discussions and debates.
"Okay everyone, in your seats," I said. The various little crowds and gatherings dispersed as the students moved to follow my instructions. "Noah, your assigned seat." The lanky basketball player rolled his eyes before leaving the seat next to his girlfriend Olivia. I did a quick scan of the room for attendance, the only missing student being the one who should be in the chair Noah had just vacated. "Did anyone see Mia at school today?" I asked.
Before anyone could answer the door flew open and the cheerleader in question strolled in, holding a bouquet of flowers and pulling an assortment of oversized balloons behind her. Two of the balloons were in the shape of a '1' and an '8', and several others were printed with messages like 'Birthday Girl' or 'Queen.'
"Happy birthday, Mia. My gift to you is not writing you up for being late to class."
Mia flipped her short red hair out of her face and gave me a smile before batting her big blue eyes at me. "Aw, thanks Mr. D. You're the best." She made a kissy face and then sauntered over to her seat. I just shook my head at her. She'd become increasingly flirty over the past couple weeks. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that her last couple quiz grades had not been up to par. She had done well during the first semester, but now that the end of her senior year was rapidly approaching she had given up on putting much of an effort into class. I'd had a meeting with her to remind her that it was still possible to fail this class, meaning she'd have to redo the credits in summer school if she wanted her diploma. Unfortunately, rather than leading to her putting more effort into her schoolwork, she put more effort into trying to charm me into passing her. I really wasn't a terribly tough teacher, but I did still expect my students to at least do the work. Mia sat down in her seat, the bundle of balloons producing a lot of noise as they bounced against one another.
"Now that we're all here, we can pick up where we left off yesterday. Our next debate is on the issue of term limits. Bella and Aiden for the affirmative, Ethan and Liam for the negative."
The four students came up to the front of the class. Bella was clutching her notebook to her chest and holding a stack of index cards. She handed the first one to Aiden as they took their positions. Ethan and Liam had one crumpled piece of paper with hastily scrawled notes on it between them. The teams went back and forth over the next twenty minutes. The debate wasn't structured like it would be if the kids were on the Debate teamβeach side had five minutes to present their case, three minutes each to ask questions of the other side, and then four minutes to field questions from the rest of the class, or from me if there wasn't enough class participation.
Despite obviously not having done enough prep, Ethan and Liam did well. Ethan was a very bright young man who would be heading to MIT in the fall, but he was much more of a math and science guy. Still, he had enough material to work with. Liam was funny and charismatic, presenting his team's position in a way that had even me chuckling along. He had played center for the football team and I'd worked with him a lot during the season.
On the other side, it was clear that Bella and Aiden had done their homework. Or rather, it was clear that Bella had done her homework. She handed Aiden a steady stream of notecards for the presentation and had one ready to answer every possible objection. The only problem was that handing the cards to Aiden was her only participation in the actual presentation. Aiden was forced to be the speaker the entire time. It was a shame, Bella was a brilliant student and a fantastic writer, but she was painfully shy. I had hoped it was something she would learn to overcome, but it was looking like the girl was going to graduate without ever really coming out of her shell. Hopefully it was something she'd finally achieve next year at Stanford.
When the teams were done with their presentations and the class had finished asking their questions, I dismissed the four of them back to their seats, taking a couple minutes to finish my evaluations while everyone settled down.
"Excellent job, everyone. Next up we have our debate on lowering the voting age. Hannah and Amelia for the affirmative, Lucas and Emma on negative."
The second group also did well, wrapping up with about fifteen minutes left in the class. It was unfortunate that the period wasn't quite long enough to squeeze in three debates, but it wasn't the end of the world. I took the final bit of the class period to return their tests from last week and go over the answers as a group.
"Overall, I'm very pleased with the results from this test," I said after we had finished going through everything. "This was the last test before your final, and most of you are in a great spot. There are just a couple of you I have some concerns about, though, and if you have a note on your test I'd like for you to either stay a bit after class or come back for a few minutes during lunch so we can talk about some things." That last bit only applied to two students: Jake Johnson and Mia Davis.
The bell rang, sending the students scurrying off to their lunch period in a hurry. Jake finished putting his things in his backpack and started towards my desk. Mia was already walking out the door with her friends, her balloons banging against the doorframe as they escaped the classroom. Hopefully she'd return during lunch so we could talk about her grade. I spotted Bella slowly walking towards the door. "Bella," I called to her. She froze and turned around, eyes darting around nervously.
"Y-yes, Mr. Dillon?"
"Could you wait around for a minute? I need to speak with you about something once I'm done with Jake."
"S-sure. I'll wait outside." She scampered out the door as Jake came over.
"Jake, I just wanted to check in with you about your grade on this last test. A sixty-four is way below your usual scores. Everything okay?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I'm sorry Mr. D. Last week was just a little crazy at home and I was working a lot. I didn't have time to study."
"Okay. Well, you know you have the option to take a make-up test sometime this week and try to replace your grade on this one."
"Is it okay if I come do it on Thursday during lunch?"
"That's fine. I'll see you then."
"Thanks, Mr. D. See you." Jake turned and left the classroom.
Bella slid in the door as he left, holding her pile of books, notebooks, and notecards. "You wanted to s-see me, Mr. Dillon?"
"Just for a minute," I said. She shuffled over to my desk, eyes downcast. "Bella, I was really hoping to see you take a more active role in your debate presentation today. I have a feeling that you did pretty much all of the research and writing for your team, right?" She nodded, still not looking up at me. "But you didn't do any of the speaking. That's really not what I was looking for in this assignment."
"I-I'm sorry, Mr. Dillon. I'm just not really c-comfortable speaking in public."
"I get it, Bella. Public speaking is a struggle for a lot of people, but it's something I was hoping you would at least try to work on here. You don't have anything to be ashamed of. You're a brilliant student. I know that from your tests and from your writing. I just don't want you to feel like you have anything holding you back from reaching your full potential."
"O-okay, Mr. Dillon. Is that all?"
"Yeah, that's all. Have a good lunch, Bella."
