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. 

Not Just Me

After my dead week the week prior and narrowly missing three other assignments, I was very relieved to catch an assignment for Tuesday. (Monday had been a holiday.) It turned out to be co-teaching, and in fact, it was a teacher I had covered before. 

Second period integrated math one (read: algebra 1/freshman math). As Ms. B was there, she taught the lesson that she had planned, and I "assisted" the kiddos. 

And... The last time I was in this class, it was a two sub day. And the kiddos were a handful. I'd've thought that things would go better with their regular teacher. Uh, no. 

While some teachers aren't that great and I can see why their classes would be awful, Ms. B has been around a while, knows what she's doing, and can handle a class. These kiddos, however, are just terrible. Of course, they are freshmen, which contributes to the problem. 

The lesson for the day was mostly review over what they had been doing as they had a quiz the following class period. (Ms. B: "Everyone needs to listen to this. You have a quiz on Thursday. You've all heard this now, so no one should complain that I didn't warn you ahead of time." Note: I'd be shocked if no one complained about a quiz they didn't know about on Thursday.)

I hovered. While the intent was to be available in case anyone needed extra help, mostly what I ended up doing was to redirect the kiddos towards the work they were supposed to be doing. While their teacher was doing examples and they should have been following along with the lesson. Sigh. 

Suddenly, three different students went outside to blow their noses. But that was too many students. So, I stepped outside to shoo them back in. Which they didn't like. 

Of course, as this was happening, a random student from elsewhere happened along, and he wanted to hang out with the students who weren't supposed to be outside. 

Random student (to student from class): "Who is this?" 

Because, apparently, the kiddo has never seen a substitute teacher before. (He looked familiar. I'm sure I had him in class before.) 

So, difficult bunch. Nothing I haven't seen before. But I left that class feeling kind of relieved. Why? 

It's not just me!

They act like that with their regular teacher, too. 

I mean, that's not great news for these kids today, but I feel better knowing they're not acting up just for me. 

Some days I need to know this.

Extinction Burst

I can't even anymore. Rather than list all the current atrocities (which will be out of date by the time you read this), I'm going to share a bit of hope that ran across my timeline this week. 

The video is from May, and we're still in the thick of it, but it's something I have heard in different contexts throughout my lifetime. I hope he's right. (I hope the video works. If not, you can find it here.) 

I found (via Knitty) a pattern that all the proceeds of which are going to those impacted by the ICE raids. Melt the ICE Hat. It's a protest hat. Anyone want one? 

For those of us not in Minnesota, here's a blog post about ways we can help them.

Continuing Sleeve Two

This past week I made some progress on sleeve two:

Last week I was here:

I'm content with that. 

I wish I had something more to write. But some weeks are like that. No major hiccups. I would have liked to have gotten further, but work. And it's still winter, so I'm not terribly behind. 

I'd say I'll have more drama next week, but I really hope that's not true. Slow and steady is good. I'll get there. Eventually. 

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!