Friday, November 18, 2022

An Unlikely Story

I was at the continuation high school most of last week. Tuesday I covered the social studies class. Wednesday I covered the math class. And Thursday I covered the computer aided drafting class. (Monday I was elsewhere and Friday was a holiday.) 

On Tuesday during the passing period before sixth period, I had two students approach me. Regina said she needed Harper's help with her assignment in computer aided drafting as the teacher was out and Harper knew how to do it.

Two parts of that story sounded completely true. 

I hadn't been aware that Mr. G was out that day, but I later found out he was. 

As I have subbed that class many times, I knew what the lesson plan always was. The students were to complete their assignments in Solidworks. They have a video they can access to help them complete the project, but sometimes there's a bit that they don't know how to do. It helps them if another student who has done it can help them get past that bit.

I gave Harper permission to be out of class. 

Thursday, sixth period. Regina and Harper both walk in, Harper holding a pink classroom exchange pass. (That's her permission to be out of her class.) 

And now, I got to see how much help Harper was on Regina's project. 

I was not at all shocked to find that Harper was of no help. Regina never even logged into her computer. Deep sigh. 

No one got much work done that day. It was the last day of the grading period, so they were truly only hurting themselves. 

But, now I have new knowledge. The next time that Regina insists that Harper has to help her on her assignment, I can reference being the sub in the class and that they did no work. Harper won't be getting any more classroom exchange passes from me. 

See, they were only hurting themselves.

19 comments:

  1. But will this teach her anything? Why am I a pessimist?

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    1. They learn the lesson late. When they're trying to graduate in a hurry, they may realize how much time they wasted.

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  2. I like how you gave them the chance and when they screwed up, that’s it. You’d make a great trainer of novice substitute teachers,Liz.

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  3. They always think they're so clever. 🙄

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  4. We thought we were so smart in school.

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    Replies
    1. We did. We had no idea that the teachers saw what we were doing and just didn't care.

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  5. Too bad kids are sometimes so deceptive. Not a good trait to take into adulthood.

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  6. it's a shame they didn't take advantage of the time to work on the project!

    Hope you are having a wonderful day :)

    www.awayfromtheblue.blogspot.com.au

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  7. True, but at their age, they don't see the harm they are making for themselves.

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    1. They don't. In the scramble at the end of the year, I try to point out how much time they wasted earlier, but that's kind of like pouring salt into the wound.

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  8. Funny how they don't realise they could spend 30 minutes with less stress doing it now, or 30 minutes with a lot of stress later. Either way, they need to spend that time on the assignment (this lack of logic always baffles me).

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  9. The children always think that the teacher doesn't see anything...

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  10. Children's sometimes get very cleaver ideas to get what they want. Now you know for next time what to do.

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  11. Kids are always trying to trick us.. even at home. It's so exhausting sometimes.

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    1. All the kids' trickery seems exhausting to me. ~shakes head~ I got as much done at school as possible. Postponing a project only gave me stress. Thank you to all those dealing with them. ~nods~

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    2. I try to explain this to them. I think they have to learn this the hard way. (Those that do their work already do their work, and they rarely make the blog.)

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