Thursday, May 30, 2019

Wasting Class Time


It's been a while since I was at the continuation high school. Not much there has changed.

Graduation is fast approaching. To qualify for the graduation activities, including the graduation ceremony, the students have to have all of their credits posted by sometime this week. (The events of this post happened last week.)

Sixth period. History.

The conversation started with grad night. One girl had gotten her ticket for the festivities. (I'm not sure where they're going this year.) The other two girls in her group were discussing whether they needed to go to school that day.

Somehow, this segued into how many credits they had. To graduate, they must have 220. One was 20 short. One was 14 short. And the third girl whispered to the others how many more she needed.

They spent much of the period discussing how many credits they needed. Then they moved on to astrology (and whether the Aries was compatible with her Capricorn boyfriend--although they weren't certain he was a Capricorn). That led to sex (and which girl was a virgin and which girls were not).

What they did not discuss: the assignment. They spent the whole period, an hour, discussing stuff and not doing any work. You know, assignments that would give them points that add up to credits so they can graduate on time.

I did point this out.

"I only need two credits for this class."

"I'll get it done."

Deep sigh.

I will not be surprised if one or more of them fail to walk this year. But they did it to themselves.

16 comments:

  1. How frustrating. ~shakes head~ I hope your ceiling gets fixed soon!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yep, they did! I was surprised when son graduated from Dana Hills High School in Dana Point, they went to Disneyland for grad night. I was thinking something more exotic but I guess what else is around that area? They had great prizes though. He won a 32 inch TV.

    betty

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's a ton of private talk sort of out in the open. I don't recall talking about sex in class. Oi vey.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And then, they get all offended when you chime in on their conversation, the one they're holding at a loud enough volume so that I could easily hear them. I frequently inform them that they have no expectation of privacy in a classroom, and when they talk, they should expect everyone to join in.

      Delete
  4. In all fairness, assignments are really, really boring :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. End of school year and being short 20 credits. Seem like a lot to me.
    Coffee is on

    ReplyDelete
  6. Exactly. They did it to themselves. Well, time for the hard lessons of life once again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup. There's a contingent of students who are not happy to still be in school come July...

      Delete
  7. I don't remember if we had credits in high school. But this is continuation high school, so it's probably different anyway?

    I would have never had a personal conversation like that within earshot of any teachers. They were spies who had it in for us! (in my view at the time.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your state would have had some way of keeping track of what you needed to complete. (You were in the US at this point, right? Or were you international?) At the continuation high school, they count work versus time spent in class per week. I could do a whole article on how this works.

      Delete
  8. I hope it works out for them I really do, I was too focused on my studies to be taken in by naughty babes.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Maybe one day they'll learn that if they just got stuck in they'd get it done and then they can chat as much as they like.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.