A Non-Break

The schools are on block schedule for state testing. Two-hour periods. Which, depending on the lesson plan, can make for a very long period.

(Only specific teachers are testing on any given day. They're not absent on those days. I'm covering classes that are business as usual, albeit with very long classes.)

Health class. Freshmen. The teacher left them a huge packet on safety to complete. (Stuff like what to do in a natural disaster or if an accident were to happen in the home.)

I was braced for the worst. Freshmen. For two hours. Of what amounted to busywork. And it was the same teacher that I covered a few times in the fall semester. (I posted about those days here, here, and here.)

But then I remembered that health is a semester course (meaning that as we're now in the spring semester, all the kiddos I had issues with are no longer in the class). Except that Ms. E left me a few names of students to keep an eye on. And guess who was on the list? Kevin. Naturally.

Kevin was as happy to see me as I was to see him. (I was gratified to see his reaction to seeing me. He was so not pleased. I guess I make him do work, or something.)

Class started, and something surprising happened. The room stayed silent...

Oh sure, Kevin did no work. As did another boy on the other side of the room who I'd also been warned about. But they did no work silently. While the rest of the class busily scribbled away.

I wished for my knitting. Or a magazine. I was expecting to be dealing with issues, and there were none.

Ms. E had recommended that the class get a break at some point. With this group I think I would have offered on my own. They probably needed one. So, at an hour in, I told the class they could get up and stretch or move around.

They looked at me like I was crazy. And continued to work.

Well, not Kevin and the other boy. They took a break. (From not doing work. *shakes head*)

At the end of the two hours, two students had finished, while the vast majority had only a couple pages of work left. Well, except for Kevin. He still had seven pages to go.

Some weeks are easier than others. This week was pretty easy.