The continuation high school is back in session. Their first day was last Tuesday. I was there on Wednesday.
(The teacher had a training for the district. The rest of the district is on summer vacation, so she was the only one who needed a sub.)
2nd period. I hate calling out the roll, so when possible, I do the "reverse". That is, I walk around the room with roster in hand and ask each student his/her name. They tell me, and I mark them down as present.
Because it was the second day of school, schedule changes continue to happen. So, when a couple of the students' names were not on the roster I had, I wrote them beneath the list. After making the rounds, I sat at the computer to input the roll. And that's when I discovered that Brian was not in the class.
Okay. No problem. I went over to him and explained that he was in the wrong class. I did it gently.
"No. This is my class. I'll prove it to you..."
And he pulled out his schedule.
Mind you, I was not accusing him of "visiting". I assumed it was an honest mistake.
As soon as I saw his schedule, I understood the problem.
The continuation high school has this thing called "advisory". They meet once a week, kind of like what I understand a home room used to be. They get announcements. Important papers are passed out to them. That sort of thing.
But, with the software that generates schedules, they have no way of marking "advisory", so they call it period 0. And the students should learn that period 0 is for their advisory class. But newbies to the school are still learning their way around.
Brian had this English class 1st period. 2nd period he was supposed to be elsewhere. But, he didn't look at the periods; he only counted down lines from the top. (Why his advisory teacher didn't realize he shouldn't have been in his class 1st, I have no idea.)
I explained where he was supposed to be. And he was not pleased. He stormed out of class, angry. I let the teacher he was supposed to have know what happened, and then settled in for the rest of the period.
Turns out having Brian leave mellowed the table he was sitting at way down. (They weren't terrible, but they were way more quiet once he was gone.) So, bonus!
I worry about embarrassing them about things like this. I guess I shouldn't worry so much.
Worse things will happen to them once they are adults. Best to get the reality check now while they're young so they learn.
ReplyDeleteYay for the table being more mellow after he left lol
ReplyDeleteOh yes. That was the silver lining to the whole thing.
DeleteThe things we worry about are never the things that turn out to need the worrying, are they? Still nice that you tried the gentle approach!
ReplyDeleteThis is true. It's always something else that blindsides you.
DeleteHi Liz - I still don't always read instructions properly ... but I'm sure I did when I was at school ... cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteYour reverse way of calling the roll must make it much easier to get the correct pronunciation of everyone's name, and it saves you the trouble of struggling through the more unusual ones.
ReplyDeleteOh yes! That's one of the reasons I do it.
DeleteSome people do not handle embarrassment well. Or he could have been mad that he was going to get in trouble in another class.
ReplyDeleteAren't students so much better organised now with laptops going to class or is it still the same with heavy books in the satchel? Either way it'll pay not to ruminate too much.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad for him.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it sucks when errors like this are made.
DeleteIt's really interesting how one bad apple can make the others go bad too. It makes me wonder how one bad apple in the presidency will affect all of us.
ReplyDeletePoor kid. I feel badly for him, too.
ReplyDeleteNow he knows to ignore period 0.
DeleteSchools in the county next to me (I am doors from being in that county) started 2 weeks ago. Here in my county they started last week and my grandson 45 mins away in another county started today. Seems like summer went by really fast it seems for the kids.
ReplyDeleteYou guys start early.
DeleteI have to say that would be a hard schedule to get used to with the zero period, so I could see his frustration. Took me a bit to get used to son's block schedule when he was a senior in the Orange County school district. Gosh, just realized he graduated 10 years ago. Where does time fly?
ReplyDeletebetty
My son's high school had this strange (to me) five day schedule - not M, Tu, W, Th, Fr but day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So it could be Friday but day 1. I don't even know how to explain it better. I never got it, but he never seemed to have a problem with the concept. The high school in the city where I work has a zero period. I feel for your confused student I'm glad I graduated 47 years ago. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThey don't have an actual zero period. But it's just about what you're used to, isn't it?
DeleteTheir frustration has to go somewhere and you are the most convenient target, unfortunately!
ReplyDeleteGoodness that would be confusing. Poor guy.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so confusing. Why couldn't they list the advisory period separately? :( Argh. I feel bad for Brian. But not for you. Sounds like you got the better end of the deal with the table quieting down after he left. :)
ReplyDeleteIdeally, they would do that. But, most schools use the same software to generate their schedules. (I've seen my niece's schedule. She goes to a different school in a different district, and her paperwork looks exactly the same as this school's.)
DeleteBecause the idea of an "advisory" is unique to this school, and because they don't want to generate 200+ schedules by hand... (Ugh, can you imagine the work that would go into that?) They have to make due with what's available. And as they don't have an actual zero period...
It makes sense when you know all the particulars. Annoying, yes. But every school has it's little peculiarities that we all kind of learn to live with.