It's time for the end of the year craziness. And somehow I have assignments up until the end of the school year.
Yesterday I covered middle school special ed. Fifth period was science. They had a simple assignment--they were to make a poster showing various things that they had learned this year. But they were having none of it. They wanted to play.
At the beginning of the period one of the students asked if they could play "Silent Ball". I do not know what this "Silent Ball" is, nor was it listed on the lesson plan, so I said no. And this just set the boy off. Suddenly I was the bad guy. I didn't want them to have fun. I was mean. And he wouldn't do anything I said.
Luckily, I had an instructional aide in class. She backed me up. She knew what the kids could do, and she tried to push them to do it. But still, the boy was so sure that I was out to get him.
The boy "finished" up his assignment. There wasn't much on his poster. A blob of blood. A heart. And a couple things that I couldn't identify. Before I even had a chance to look at his paper he said, "It's not complete." He was not owning up to his lack of effort. He was telling me what I was going to say.
He spent the period like that--being surly. The IA got on his case as well, but to no avail. Eventually he got something on paper that looked like he had sort of tried.
This is what I get at the end of the year. Oh well. At least I got a work day out of it.
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