Building a Wall

I managed to catch a three-day assignment to round out my week. The last time I had subbed for this teacher he taught computer stuff (coding and such). But I knew he had moved into a new discipline in the career and technical education department. I thought he was teaching woodshop. 

It's not woodshop, though. Now the class he teaches is called residential construction. And yeah, it is what it sounds like. 

Residential construction 3, so the students in the third year of it, were building a shed for the activities director. Residential construction 2, second year, were building a tiny house. On the day I was there, a couple students were working on installing a toilet while a third was adding siding to the outside. 

And the first year students were doing a small wall. 

(Normally I would be stuck with them doing online work while their teacher was out, but the classes had instructional aides who could supervise, so they could actually work on their construction stuff.) 

I'm calling it a small wall as that's kind of what it was. First they built a frame. Then into that frame they attached outlet boxes. And then they had to wire them. 

Before they could move on, they tested the wiring. The IA plugged a bulb into the socket. They connected the wiring to a live outlet. And then they flipped the switch. If the light turned on, they passed. 

Then it was time for drywall. 

They had to cut the pieces to fit. Then they screwed it into the frame. 

Some students were behind and just getting the wiring done. Some were ahead and able to drywall. But a few were in a holding pattern as they were just about out of drywall. (The teacher was going to bring more, but he's out for a reason.) 

Well, they had online work, too. There's a website sponsored by Home Depot called Path to Pro. They have instructions on how to do all sorts of construction stuff. (The year two and three students were completing OSHA training stuff.) So, they had enough to keep them busy.

Of course, high school students, so some were more on their phones or on online games. But that's pretty standard. 

Just in case you were wondering what they're teaching the kiddos in school nowadays.

Returned

By the luck of the app, I happened to catch a day in the art class I had started this school year in. (If things hadn't been so dead lately, I probably would have "missed" it, but I couldn't afford to miss another day as there was no guarantee that anything else would pop up.) 

First period. Tuesday. 

They had a shading assignment. I was given instructions to go over with them, so it was a more labor intensive day for me. (Not a bad thing, but it meant that I was pretty busy engaging with students, and I had less dead time than usual.) 

And, of course, I had many restroom pass requests. 

I don't give this a lot of thought. If no one else is out of the room, the kiddo can go. I write down their names and the time they left (so I can track how long they were gone). 

Joshua was out of the room. I had three other students who were waiting to go. And the phone rang. 

"Did you let Joshua out to go to the restroom? Security found him out wandering..." And this is where I got reprimanded for letting Joshua out of class, because Joshua was on the escort list. 

Escort list? 

Okay, so some students take advantage of restroom passes. They leave their class, and instead of doing their business and getting back to class, they wander campus. They meet up with their friends. They share vapes in the restroom. I don't know what they do out there, but it's not something they should be doing. 

Students who take too long out of class get added to an escort list. That means that if that kiddo asks to use the restroom, the teacher has to call security to escort them to the restroom. They hate this, but they've demonstrated that they can't be trusted to leave class on their own. 

They provide subs with the list. It's in the folder we get. Although, usually the teacher will leave the names of who we need to call security for. It didn't even occur to me to check the list, not that I had time to do so. 

(Oh, and the list is a mess. It's mostly alphabetical by first names, grouped by grade level, but there are a few with last names listed first. And then half the list is a jumble of I don't know what, because it's not quite alphabetical and it's definitely not grouped by grade level.) 

Joshua returned to class fifteen minutes after he left (yes, I was keeping track). Surly. Ah well. 

Ms. D was on campus (they were doing some curriculum planning) and stopped by after first period. I told her of the incident. 

It turns out that Joshua was on the escort list for a week a while ago. Otherwise she totally would have left his name. And there were no other students on the escort list (as far as I could tell; I went through the list and compared it to the class rosters, and... well, I mentioned that the list was a mess). 

There has got to be a better way to deal with restroom passes and wandering students. I don't know what it is.

Invalid Excuse

After catching a gig at 3 AM only to have it cancelled five minutes later, I was very happy to catch a Spanish class on Monday at 6 AM. (Things have been very slow lately. But February is more than half booked now.) 

Spanish 2, fifth period.

I had been asked to cover a third period elsewhere. (It was the teacher's prep period. They're on a block schedule; this was the odd periods day.) There was a minute or two of the passing period left when I arrived back at the classroom. I unlocked the door, and the students who had arrived before me filed in. 

Teachers covering other classes on their prep periods is pretty common. And some teachers will take the passing period to hit the restroom. The students wait. It's so common as to be something I've never needed to comment on before. 

Fifth period started. I got the students started on their online assignment. (Well, some of it was in their books, but the instructions had been posted online by their teacher.) I took roll. (So, a few minutes of the period had passed.) 

Two students walked in. Tardies have been a huge issue lately. The schools are trying many things to curb it. But for me, it just means I need to be aware of latecomers so I can mark them as tardy in the attendance. 

As they were arriving, the two students explained. "We knocked. You weren't here." 

I did not comment on this. Nor did I add this comment to my note to the teacher. I marked the kiddos tardy in the attendance. 

Because, huh? They knocked? When? And why did they leave? Where did they go?

Yeah, no. They're supposed to wait. If I wasn't there at the beginning of the period... Well, even then, they should wait. (There have been times when the teacher is late. This is very obvious because of the crowd of students waiting outside the door.) 

I checked. They're freshmen. That tracks.

Here for the Graffiti

This past Saturday I went to visit my father as I usually do on Saturdays. 

The route I usually take goes past a certain flag-flying house. The flag flown is one you may have seen. Navy blue. The lettering touts a certain president's electoral wins, one of which is blatantly false. The guy (I assume it's a guy) has swapped the flag from time to time, flying the most current iteration. 

I found that giving the flag the one-finger salute as I pass makes me feel better. It doesn't do anything, but it does put a smile on my face to do it. 

This past Saturday, I had to take a slightly different route. (The reasons for this are irrelevant.) Instead of just passing the back of this guy's house, I traveled along the side, making a right turn onto the usual street. 

On his front lawn he had another flag planted, one you're probably aware of. And then I saw the side of his house. 

Someone had spray painted "F*** Trump" there in green paint. Although, the sentiment hadn't been censored in spray paint. And I found myself smiling.

This house is in Orange County. While California is a blue state, Orange County is a very red county. (It's been getting more liberal over the years. I grew up there.) That the guy has had these flags up for years does not surprise me. That anyone spoke out against him does. 

There is reason to be hopeful. 

I posted this before, but it's been a while: 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.

And a follow up to the video I posted last week. (If you can't see it, here's a direct link.) 

Setting a Deadline

I may have done something stupid. 

The place where I usually get my brother's birthday gifts was having a sale, so I bought his present. Since it is way before his birthday, I'm shipping it to me, and then I'll ship it out to him closer to his birthday. 

I mean, I'm going to eventually have a package to ship to Ohio. This sweater I've been working on since last July, eldest nephew's Christmas gift, is going to be finished. Eventually. My brother's present can hitch a ride when I mail that out. 

So, now I have a deadline. I need to get this sweater done in time to get my brother's birthday present to him on time. That is, if I want to only ship one package. 

Can I do it? I think I can. We'll see. 

My brother's birthday is March 30th. 

I have sleeve two to finish. 

Then sleeves one and two need the ribbing. 

Then the sweater gets assembled. And then the collar is knit on. 

We'll see...

The sweater's previous posts:

• Starting the Sweater
• Getting to the Back
• Missed Deadline
• Distractions from Knitting
• A Month Late
• Inching Along
• Tracking the Growth
• Weekly Sweater Update
• Moving Right Along
• Good Progress
• Almost to the Interesting Part
• Plot Twist
• Not Worth the Effort
• Sleeve Progress
• Continuing Sleeve One
• Sleeve Two!
• Continuing Sleeve Two

All Excuses

Friday. Period three, study skills.

Study skills is just a fancy way of saying study hall. I mean, technically the teacher is supposed to have curriculum that teaches skills for studying, but most of the kiddos who really want that are in AVID or success. (Or even if they don't but have someone urging them in that direction.) Study skills is the special ed equivalent, and most of the time, the teacher gives them time to work on missing assignments. 

This is a very long-winded way of saying that I had a class that had nothing to do. They were allowed to be on their phones once they were done with all their work. They were done with all their work. 

Except...

I had an instructional assistant, and she warned me of Nick. In semester one, Nick had claimed that he was doing all his work and he had no homework. Alas, his semester grades showed these claims to be lies. Miss B no longer trusted him. 

Miss B then told me that Nick would have many excuses. His work would be on paper, but the paper would be at home. And as it was homework, he'd do it at home. 

Nick arrived. Miss B asked him what he had to work on. He told her he didn't have anything. But Miss B wasn't having that.

It came out that Nick had some maps to complete for his history class, but he had left the papers at home. Miss B sent him to his teacher to get another copy. Upon his return, Miss B sent him to his math teacher to get work from her. 

And then, while he was out, I got a call from the speech therapist. Nick was needed for speech therapy. 

Naturally. 

Miss B set up his computer so the map he'd need was on the screen. She made sure he had everything he needed to complete his work. And when he returned, he did work. Kind of. 

I looked down at his map of the Middle East, and on the Arabian Peninsula he had written "France". He did get Africa and Asia in the right places, though. (My knowledge of geography is pretty terrible, but I can locate France.) 

When I pointed out where various of the list of places he needed to label were, he immediately wrote those down. But he was slow walking the looking up and figuring out where the places were on his own. I wasn't going to do it for him, so I walked away.

If you want to get something done, you find a way. If you don't, you find an excuse. Nick was all about the excuses. Sigh. 

One would hope that at some point he'll want good grades. Until then, he's going to fight us about doing his work. 

He's young. He may grow out of it. 

Repeats

Wednesday. I was expecting to cover eighth grade math only to discover once I got there that the assignment had been cancelled. Sigh. But, because it wasn't my error, they put me to work covering classes where the teacher wasn't out all day. 

Which meant my first period of the day I got stuck covering PE. Sigh. 

Lots of familiar faces. "My class" combined with another PE teacher's class, so I just had to take down how many laps they ran. Chilly day, but otherwise not too terrible. 

Then, for seventh period, I ended up covering a success class. Of the class of fifteen, three had been in the PE class that morning. (This is a frequent occurrence when I'm covering more than one teacher, so I was not surprised.) 

Mostly my issue in success was with one student who was doing anything but the assignment. I kept circling back around to him, pointing out that he hadn't done anything on his paper. He took twenty minutes in search of a pencil. 

When he asked to use the restroom, against my better judgement I let him go. He took along his drone. (Why he had a drone with him, I don't know. It sat on his desk all period, so at least that wasn't a distraction.) And the rest of the class informed me that he wasn't going to return to class. 

He did return. After twenty minutes. And after I called security to shoo him back. (He claimed he had gone to the office for reasons, but he didn't tell me that before he left.) 

The next day I was in a co-teaching situation with Mr. H. As we chatted, I mentioned my roving the prior day. We got to talking about how terrible the success classes were. And as I told him about what they'd done, I realized he'd know them, too. I told him that Simon was in the class as was Orson. 

If you recall, Mr. H was the one who took over that seventh grade science class when I hit my full thirty days, so he had all those students, too.