Friday, July 20, 2018

Cutting her Losses


I was taking roll by seating chart.

"Where's Sarah?"

A girl raised her hand. She was sitting three seats behind and three seats over from where she should have been. But, was the seating chart accurate or had she been recently moved? I decided I wasn't in the mood to fight the battle.

I updated the seating chart and continued checking for missing students.

"Where's Angel?"

No one replied.

I knew Brian was absent; I remember him. By my head count, everyone else should have been there.

"Okay, so Brian and Angel are absent..."

No one corrected me. This is usually where someone chimes in with "I'm over here" so they don't get marked absent. Especially during summer school where they only get three before being dropped from the class.

Sarah had moved to sit beside a boy. I removed the phone they had been giggling over. The giggling continued. As the boy was in his assigned seat, it was the girl who needed to move.

I directed her to a seat at the front of the room (near where her assigned seat was). She agreed with no fuss. She packed up her stuff. Then she walked out of the room.

Um, I wasn't kicking her out. Just adjusting her seat.

Okay. Fine. It's summer school. She's absent. I noted this and wrote a note to the teacher about Sarah.

The rest of the class went smoothly. As I collected work from them at the end of the period, I glanced to make sure their names were on their papers.

That was when I saw "Sarah" at the top of a paper.

And suddenly I understood. "Sarah" was Angel. (Sarah was in her proper seat. But because Angel wasn't in hers, the whole row was in question, hence why I called Sarah's name even though she was where she was supposed to be.)

I guess Angel wasn't thinking through the whole lying-about-her-name thing. And she hadn't conferred with Sarah about swapping names. (It must have been the boy. Apparently she couldn't resist getting a chance to flirt with him.)

So, when I asked her to move, Angel must have figured she had nothing to lose by just leaving. She was already marked absent.

Although, why Sarah didn't speak up...

Once I discovered my mistake, it was easy enough to fix Sarah so she was marked present and change my note to reflect the correct name. And all it needed was one more tweak where I mentioned that Angel had lied about her name.

Freshmen...

20 comments:

  1. They are creative. Now if only they channeled that creativity into things that would positively affect their academic achievements :)

    betty

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  2. I went to school with a girl called Angel. When I was in third grade back in '78 (when nothing grave seemed to ever happen on school grounds), Angel flipped off her third grade teacher Mr. Fluegel. The whole school knew about it & we were sort of frightened by what Angel might do next.

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    1. The girl's real name isn't Angel, but as it seems like every Angel I've met has done everything possible to disassociate with the name, I felt it fitting.

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  3. This strikes me as so incredibly stupid...and yet I know from your stories that it's not out of character or even that original. Ugh.

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    Replies
    1. Nope. Of course, she's demonstrated stupidity by being stuck in summer school, so there is that.

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  4. I don't believe "thinking things through" is part of a teenager's mindset.

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  5. Yeah, because the absent couldn't have been changed if she'd wanted it to be. Surprised you didn't get an eye roll along with the exit.

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  6. I'm so confused!
    Glad not to be in that world anymore.

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  7. Baffling. Thanks for sharing the story about Babies on my blog. Sorry she's passed on. Be well!

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    1. Teenagers... I'd rather deal with cats sometimes.

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  8. FRESHMEN...you must mean KIDS! I know these kids are probably not trying anything we did not try or our parents before us but now adays I find it the rudness that goes with how they behave. WOw..you have to have a great big heart to do what you do.

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    1. The rude goes along with the idiocy. I've met many very polite teens, too. They tend to be of the sort not to make the blog.

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  9. Freshmen are stupid given half a chance and showing off in front of their mates is stupider but thats life, lol.

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  10. Clearly Angel is not thinking of the repercussions

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    1. Nope, she wasn't. I learned later it was her first absence, so she wasn't being completely idiotic.

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  11. I wonder what she's going to do should she get you for a sub again before the summer is out. For that matter, the school year.

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  12. This post is so confusing. I think I need pictures. Why did Sarah not say something? Why did Angel walk out? I'm so glad I don't have to deal with teenagers every day!

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    Replies
    1. Those are great questions. I wish I knew the answers other than "freshmen". In the context of freshmen, it makes perfect sense.

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  13. I'm sorry you have to put up with such lack of respect. I wish more children these days were raised to respect the efforts that others are making. Narcissism has destroyed empathy in our society, and it makes me fear for the future.

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