The Chills

Whenever I find myself dealing with a challenging class, the teacher usually says something about them being "good kids". Only once before has a teacher referred to a kiddo as "evil". (I don't know if I wrote about her at the time, but I had her in a class later. This student.) 

I have encountered another. 

Damien (alias picked for obvious reasons) was noted in the lesson plan as "he won't do any work, but he won't disrupt the class". 

Okay, then. Tuesday. Eighth period. Eighth grade success. 

They were working on a Mission Map. They were to figure out a mission statement (for their life, I guess) and their four pillars (ideals of some sort), and then they were to make a poster with this information. 

They were given a packet of work to go through with setting goals and figuring out where they wanted their life to go. (This is the end of the year, so it was kind of a culmination assignment going over stuff they've been talking about all year.) They had instructions online. Ms. T said she went over all the instructions the week prior, so they should have known what to do.

But eighth graders with a sub for a week. They played weaponized incompetence. 

So, I wasn't much watching Damien. I did note that his desk had brown marker all over it. And he clearly wasn't doing any work. As promised. 

Half way through the period I passed out poster board. They were to make a poster, after all, and while I did not expect them to start the poster yet, I wanted them to have the materials they'd need. 

I warned them that they would only get one sheet of poster paper. (Otherwise the middle schoolers will make a mistake and need another. Not all, but most of them will. This is not my first rodeo. I know how they work.) 

And while most of the kiddos continued with their packets, Damien folded his poster paper into little boxes, and then he proceeded to tear them into little cards. Okay, then... 

I had Damien in class again on Thursday. The first thing he did was to grab the bottle of glue... 

Oh, no. Absolutely not. 

I took that glue from him so fast. (I didn't know what he was going to do with it, but it wasn't going to be good.) Then I noticed he had a blue marker. I attempted to take that away from him... 

And that's when I saw it. He kind of growled at me. 

Not his marker, but I decided not to have that fight. 

I tried to get him on task. I mentioned that he had already destroyed his poster paper. "Oh, was that what it was for?" Someone wasn't listening when instructions were given. 

But, I did give him another packet. (I had extra.) He then did with that what he had done with the poster paper. 

We kind of looked at each other. Damien just looked at me... Yeah, I like to joke that eighth graders are evil, but it is a joke. I know they'll grow out of it. They really are good kids. But Damien... 

Before I could contemplate how to get the blue marker away from him so he didn't make a mess of the desk again, the school psychologist came in and asked to take him for counseling. 

Yeah, I was good with that. Sadly, he returned after a half hour. 

Damien did not do any work. But he did not sacrifice any small creatures, so a win? (And I was able to clean off the desk.) 

Success (the Class) 13

If I commented on your blog last week, I apologize. I wasn't entirely mentally there. It was a long, hard week in the eighth grade success class. I don't have a lot of good stories, but I have a lot of little things that happened. Which makes this the perfect time for a Thursday 13. 

ONE

The assignment was to make a Mission Map. They had instructions. They had resources online. Ms. T had discussed it the week before. (She said this in the lesson plans, and I believe her.) But they had no clue what to do. More likely, they weren't listening when Ms. T was instructing, and they weren't bothering to read through all the materials to figure it out. 

TWO

Ms. T said they were to leave their phones in a phone box that all the teachers at that school have for just that purpose. They've been doing this all year. But with me? They "got their phone taken away". They "didn't have a phone". Yet, I saw many of them had a phone in their pockets.

I got irritated with this, so I took pictures of the mostly empty phone box each period. And I emailed them to the teacher. Petty, but I don't care. 

THREE

Beginning of seventh period, Monday. I warned students should be in their assigned seats. They said they were. I knew they were not as one of the kiddos I knew, and he was not in the seat indicated with his name on the seating chart. When I called him out on it, four other students suddenly knew where they were supposed to sit, too. (Names were noted.) 

FOUR

The fire alarm went off. Seventh period. As this is not the school where this happens frequently, the kiddos all ran out the door. We barely got down the stairs when an assistant principal shooed us back to class. False alarm. 

FIVE

Allergy season? Colds? Or an excuse... In sixth period they managed to go through a box of tissue as several boys kept getting up to go "blow their nose" outside. In groups. Every couple minutes. (I made a blanket rule that only one person could blow their nose at a time, that's how crazy that got.) 

SIX

Sixth period, Tuesday. Blake asked to use the restroom. (After refusing to sit in his assigned seat and giving me a false name.) He was on the escort list, so I called for security to escort him. He left before they arrived. And then he returned with popcorn. Sigh. (And acted clueless when I told him he was supposed to wait for an escort.)

SEVEN

Third period, Wednesday. Fire alarm went off. I figured it was another false alarm, but no. We evacuated. (Someone *ahem* didn't grab the evacuation stuff: roll sheet, sign, backpack, because she assumed it was a false alarm.) And that was a very long walk for someone who was already feeling the week. At least most of them made it back to the classroom before me. (That's good.) The three that took their time... Well, that's what detailed notes to the teacher are for.

EIGHT

Seventh period. A girl got a hold of one boy's paper, and was very loud about how she could not read it. They passed around the paper. Passed it to me. (Yeah, the writing was bad, but most of their writing is bad. It wasn't out of the ordinary bad.) Announced to the class that the boy had bad writing. And that he really needed to work on it. 

NINE

On Thursday and Friday they had guest speakers. Apparently, the state of California has a fund for students to use as a scholarship fund, and the speakers were walking them through claiming the accounts. 

Sixth period was embarrassing. You'd think they'd know how to behave for a guest, but no. Getting up for no reason. Not listening. Talking over the speakers. Yeah, it didn't go well. 

TEN

There were two kiddos who were tasked with making sure the Chromebooks were all plugged in at the end of the day. Odd day monitor did an excellent job. Even day monitor... Sigh. And I like this kid. Had him in the art class. He'll mature eventually, but right now he's giving in to his baser impulses. (Although, he had the best reaction to how much money he had in his CalKIDS account: "I've never seen that much money before in my life". It was about $1500.) 

ELEVEN

Joaquin, one of my problem kiddos in period one (see yesterday), asked for his work during first period Friday. I assumed he was not eligible for the CalKIDS scholarship, so I was going to send him out of class so as to not disturb the others with the presentation. One of the presenters: "He's eligible". Then why was he ignoring...? Free money for college...? Did he do what he needed to do to claim the money? Nope.

TWELVE

Third period, a student disappeared. Not to restroom (as I was keeping an eye on them). I stepped outside to see, but he was not there blowing his nose. He returned a bit later. Where was he? Oh, he had just gone to take something to his history teacher without asking permission. (I think the history teacher was next door, but still!)

THIRTEEN

If this was a Thursday 20 I could make it work. It was a hard week. I emailed all of this (plus what I couldn't include) to Ms. T. I received a reply. I don't think the kiddos are going to enjoy the consequences. 

Within the first day I learned that the kiddos were being bribed. For a good note they were going to get a pizza party. Most of the kiddos knew that they were not getting a pizza party. (Some tried to get me to "write a good note". I explained that I write an accurate note. It's good if they choose to be good.) 

Ms. T has a note on her board: Be Good Humans. Hopefully they will be. Just not with a sub last week.

Stupid Eighth Grade Games

I caught a week-long assignment in an eighth grade success class. And it was as bad as I anticipated. Oh well. 

Ms. T left me a packet of instructions with students who were likely to be issues and places to send them to. Many of the kiddos I had met in other classes, starting with that vacant art class at the beginning of the year. 

First period. Monday. 

Six boys spent the period in play mode. 

If I wasn't spending the period putting out (figurative) fires, I would have written down a list of their random conversations. They were at various parts of the room, so their conversations involved the whole class. And nothing would make them settle. 

So, when I had them again on Wednesday, I had a hair trigger. (The school is on a block schedule, so each period meets every other day.) 

Class hadn't quite started when Royce dropped an f-bomb loud enough for me to hear it. I didn't hear the conversation, but Royce had spent Monday joking with Antonio, and that was a good enough reason to send him out of class. (A neighboring teacher had offered to take a kiddo if need be.) 

Once Royce was gone, Ignacio started in. Well, not started. He sat in a corner, and he didn't do all that much. I had had him in the art class, and in the times I've seen him since then, he's only behaved worse. He was on Ms. T's list of students to look out for, and I was already irritated. So, out Ignacio went. 

As Ignacio was packing up, Joaquin decided it was a good time to start a rock-paper-scissors competition with Ignacio. I went to stand between them. Joaquin tilted a little so he could continue to see Ignacio on the other side of me. Okay, then, Joaquin just volunteered to go, too. 

I told Joaquin to go to the room directly below the one we were in. At this point Joaquin remembered he was on the escort list. (A fact he denied on Monday.) He refused to leave the room without an escort. 

Luckily, I had already called one for Ignacio (who was being sent to the in-house detention room), so I just asked her to escort Joaquin downstairs. She agreed. 

Three down. The class got very quiet. 

Then, Antonio started to talk... 

Me: "Do you want to work in another class, too?" 

I had three more classrooms to send kiddos to. 

Antonio wisely decided that that conversation was not one he wanted to have. 

It was amazing how peaceful things got once they were gone. Well, for a little while. 

The students complained of some high pitched tone. "Can't you hear that?" 

I didn't hear a thing. I closed the door. They said it didn't help. 

That's when I remembered the tones that only teenagers can hear. I spent a class period playing the tones several years back. 

So, I mentioned that someone was probably playing tones on their Chromebook that only the kiddos in the room could hear. As I am old, I was deaf to it. 

Kiddos were plugging their ears. Complaining. But as I couldn't hear it, I couldn't determine where it was coming from. 

The kiddo managed to annoy their classmates and their classmates only. 

I sat back. Watched for issues I could deal with. 

The kiddo must have decided that me not reacting at all wasn't any fun. The rest of the class no longer seemed to have an issue with a noise that I could not hear. 

Not too terrible. Sadly, Friday did not go as smoothly. 

(I'm writing this Sunday afternoon. I already got an email response from Ms. T. She is not pleased. The kiddos aren't going to be having a nice time upon her return to class.) 

Follow the Money

It's all about the grift. 

Headline: Suing His Own IRS? Creating a $1.8 Billion Slush Fund? What the Hell Is Trump Trying to Pull?

Answer: It was always about the money. 

That's what they're after, after all. Enriching themselves. 

Planning and Research

Did I touch the yarn last week? That would again be a no.

But, I really need to get going on some sort of project. Hopefully this week won't be as enervating as last week was. 

I did pull out my start: 

And I thought about ripping it back. The turning the circle into an oval didn't quite work out mathematically. It's a simple process where at one end I make the tallest stitch I can, and then I step them down into the shortest stitch. Then I build back up. And repeat for the second side. 

Somehow I ended up a stitch short. 

Of course, since I'm not doing an eye here, I could just start with an oval...

This is the thing that makes designing hard. So many choices. And I'm not sure what I want to do. So, today I'm just looking through some ideas to see what might spark. 

The original eye I found on this video: 

The only issue with this sweater is that this designer then squared off the oval and turned it into a square. The picture my niece found had a sweater that stayed kind of circular. And my sister-in-law wants me to duplicate that shape. 

So, why don't I just duplicate niece's sweater? Sister-in-law is a different size. 

I then ran across this video: 

Which is fun. But, I don't have two colors, and again, she squared things up at the end. 

Or I could just start with an oval: 

But how do I keep the oval going? I did a lot of guesswork on niece's sweater. Oh, here's something that might help (funny what I find when I start looking): 

But I rather like the idea of starting with a circle, elongating it so it becomes an oval, and then keeping the oval going until the piece is as big as I want it. 

So, decisions made. It's amazing how writing it out does help. 

I'll rip back to the circle, and then sit down and get that circle turned into an oval. And keep the oval going. Which was what I had planned in the first place, but I'm having some trouble executing it. 

In case you weren't around two years ago, this is the sweater that I made for my niece: 

And this was the picture she found that she wanted me to duplicate: 

Wish me luck figuring out the oval part.

Not a Good Sign

Friday. AP Computer Science, fourth period. 

It's AP test time. Most AP classes are studying for their test, taking their test, or recovering from their test. The lesson plans stated they'd be doing some test prep. I figured on a pretty chill class. 

The students started arriving. Saw me. And cheered... 

Uh oh... 

It was passing period. They were arriving. And they were celebrating like someone won a championship. Hugging each other. Saying "Merry Christmas". Jumping up and down. 

A couple of them were disappointed. They weren't remaining in class as they had an afternoon AP test and were going elsewhere to mentally prepare. (Or maybe have a lunch with others getting ready for that test. I was unclear as to what they were doing, but I had no problem letting them go as the AP test is a high stakes test, and they get understanding from me on test day.) 

Once class started I heard all about how much they did not like their teacher. "He doesn't teach," they told me. 

I don't think I've met this teacher. This was the first time I had covered the class. So, I could not argue with them (not that I was planning to). 

But my issue is: is the teacher very, very strict, and now they think they get to play? But, AP class... 

Well, they weren't doing a lot of work. But they didn't trash the classroom. So, a win? 

I mean, I got my stuff done. I was able to take roll. I told them what they needed to complete. Many of them had vaguely programmy stuff on their computers. There was eating in class and some had their phones out, but no one was locked into TikTok, and no one made a mess of food. 

This is all I want most days, so I call it a win. 

And, Friday. So, I got through another week. Summer is coming.

The Conversation

Thursday. Eighth grade math, special day class. Eighth period. 

To start every class, Mr. R has them do "Good Things". This is special ed, so the classes are small, so each student gets a turn. 

When it was Alonzo's turn, all I heard was something about going on a cruise. Well, that's cool. Only, as Alonzo continued speaking, the explanation went into Hantavirus and something about bombing the ship... 

Eighth graders... 

We moved on from Alonzo and finished Good Things, but when it was time for them to start working on their math, Alonzo circled back to Hantavirus. 

He had all the questions. I have not been following the news. I heard part of a report in passing about a cruise ship and Hantavirus, and that's really all I know. I suppose I could have looked this up, but they had math to work on, and I wasn't in the mood to humor Alonzo with this random topic. 

Alonzo? He found other topics to discuss with his classmates. Because I was of a mind to, I listed as many of the topics as I could for their teacher as they happened. As the topic changed, I added to the list. The list wasn't exhaustive, though, as some things were said in passing that I felt didn't merit inclusion on the list, and some things I just didn't get. 

So, what do eighth grade boys discuss when they should be doing math? 

• Hantavirus: Alonzo really couldn't let this go.
• History class assignment roles: apparently their history teacher had assigned them roles for some Civil War project. One boy was a spy. One boy was a slave. And the third boy's role was kind of unclear. There was a long conversation about how they liked/did not like their roles and how things got assigned.
• McDonald's: this was a weird ramble about food that turned into some VR chat that was McDonald's based. I was again unclear on what exactly they were talking about. 
• Tigger: yes, the tiger in Winnie the Pooh. This was more a rhyming thing where they did go there (starts with N...), but they were also wondering if they got the correct name for the tiger in Winnie the Pooh. 
• TikTok Challenges: they went from Tide Pods to a bunch I'd never heard of. 
• Mall food: food is always a popular topic. It ended up being a thing about various things they could get, and then Alonzo said he could also get food when he went to the mall for something else. Somehow this segued into how Alonzo needed to go to the bookstore to pick up a new book coming out (the kiddos were amazingly well-read). 
• Fake dice: they acted like they were playing craps. Without dice. For about a minute. 
• "Why are you rubbing your belly?" He was not rubbing his belly. 
• Movies: Hoppers and Project Hail Mary. They liked both. 
• Someone started whistling.
• "Jesse called some girl 'slave'", which then turned into Alonzo saying that he could say all sorts of career-ruining things about Jesse. 
• Alonzo said that some teacher said that because he did something with his thumbs, that he was double jointed.
• Alonzo pulled out some money and a receipt he had. The receipt got passed around. The money was counted. (After they left, I found a nickel on the floor.) 
• Somehow the money led to them talking about various gum flavors. Mostly listing and stating whether they liked them.
• Video games: a brief mention of some games they liked.
• They circled back to Tigger and words that rhyme with it.
• Kool-Aid pickles: and then pickles in general. 
• Six... seven... Yes, sadly, that's still a thing, and it just pops up at random times.
• And then some sidetrack into Zuckerberg. Why? I have no idea.

So, you won't be surprised that I rated the class as "some made better use of their time than others" and that I doubted they had finished their assignments. Because, seriously?