Seen it Before

I was back in Ms. B's special ed class. 5th period started with us watching CNN 10 (it's a 10 minute digital news show created for the classroom). As I had covered the class before, I knew to get that cued up and ready, so I did that during 4th period.

5th period started. We turned on the projector. Turned out the lights. And played the video.

"We've seen this already."

Theresa's complaint was loud. She turned to the instructional aide (IA). The IA told Theresa to settle down and watch. But Theresa wouldn't settle. She moaned. She was bored. She'd seen it before, so she didn't need to pay attention.

However, no one else in the class seemed to be familiar with the stories.

After the video finished, I minimized the video. I had to be sure. Had I selected the wrong video?

Nope. Right on the screen was that day's date. And all this was still projected to the class, so I called Theresa's attention to it.

"Read that right there," I directed.

She dutifully read the date. "This is today's clip," I said. I then proceeded to explain that perhaps CNN had gone over a story they'd shown previously.

At which point Theresa remembered that she had previewed the video earlier. Herself.

(After we finish watching the video, each student has to talk about something they saw. This can be challenging for them. And as the clips are readily accessible, it would have been easy for anyone to see them before 5th period.)

On the one hand, clever of her to prepare. But, if she was going to "cheat", she should have remembered that that's why she'd seen it all before.