Entitlement

There is nothing that does entitled like a teenager.

One of my students is graduating at the end of this term. He is, on a good day, a jerk. He insults the students in my class, interrupts, etc. He is late to class, late from lunch, basically thinks he is a man. I have tried to explain (gently) it is difficult to be a man in high school.

He came in Thursday and wanted to know if he could take his exam the next day (they are scheduled for January). After a lot of finagling, I arranged for him to take them the first day of finals instead of the last day, when his is scheduled. (He does have a valid reason). When I got the confirmation, I emailed it to him - and he wanted to know if that meant he could take his exam a week early (no).

I know of no way to explain to these kids (without it coming back to bite me) that when they exhibit their jerkiness all semester, it doesn't mean that I will go out of my way to do more than I have to. The first day of exams is reasonable, what he wants is reasonable for someone who acted reasonable.