(If anyone recalls how I started last school year--long term for a maternity leave for a seventh grade science teacher--this room might look familiar. Yup, this is Ms. S's class, the class I covered last August/September.)
Because Halloween, Ms. S left a movie. Wall-E. Since the classes are 90 minutes long (block schedule), the kiddos started with a vocab assignment.
The definitions were written on the white board. Then they were to illustrate the terms and use the terms in a sentence. They've done this before. Several wanted computers to look up images, but Ms. S said no computers.
(I covered the class about a month ago, and I severely limited computer access per instructions. Those students who managed to find a good enough excuse to get permission to use a computer proved why no computers was the better way to go.)
It was time to start the movie. But, while many of them had finished the assignment, many still had not completed copying the definitions of the terms. I warned them that I was going to pull down the screen, so they had only a couple minutes left for that task.
Ms. S had left the movie on DVD and had that hooked up to her projector.
The projectors were new technology a short time ago. They have been supplanted by the big TVs, but some teachers prefer the projectors. And in some cases those work better for some applications.
I had not had a chance to test the equipment, but unlike with yesterday's post, I was sure this DVD player actually worked. But I wanted to have everything ready to go before I told a class of seventh graders that we were starting the movie.
I turned on the projector. Then I turned on the DVD player. It immediately went into starting the movie...
"You have to pull down the screen."
"Turn out the lights."
"I can't see the movie."
"Six seven..."
"We passed this part already."
I didn't respond as they all shouted out instructions. Because really? I had it. Everything was working. And I was still waiting on one or two students to finish copying down the definitions before I pulled down the screen.
So, I waited. I haven't quite figured out how to shame them into calming down. I can't compete with them all shouting instructions at me. But if I say nothing, they seem to think that I'm not hearing them or I don't understand what they're telling me.
Eventually I was ready to get it all started. I explained that we were about ready to go, and that's when I pulled down the screen and fast forwarded to about the 20 minute mark (which was where Ms. S said they left off).
That age just loves to explain things. They make sure the sub knows how things are supposed to go. Even though this sub did know what needed doing.
As far as Halloweens go, this one was relatively sedate.
Some previous Halloweens:
I can't imagine my young self acting like that. lol
ReplyDeleteYeah, if one or two start up - you've got everybody yelling "helpful" instructions. Glad you ignored it.
ReplyDelete