Noted Bravado

Thursday. Eighth grade English. Third period. 

Their final, the next week, was going to be on The Diary of Anne Frank. They had been given a study assignment on it (flash cards on the computer and a brief quiz) and they had an extra credit assignment with questions that went along with watching a video, After the Annex. 

Because eighth graders at the end of the school year, I was circulating to make sure things didn't get crazy. 

"You told Mr. C I was using ChatGPT."

It was Axel. He was not happy. 

So, yes, I absolutely included Axel's name and the incident I wrote about last week. And I said so.

Axel: "He lets me."

Me: Then it wasn't a big deal, was it? 

Because, seriously, when I mention something to a teacher that they do, in fact, allow, I may get a reply that it was fine. If I sub for them in the future, there may be a note in the lesson plan about how such-and-such is allowed. 

Axel: "It, uh, wasn't, but I didn't appreciate that you wrote about me in your note."

I pointed out that that incident was maybe two sentences in a note that spanned three pages. (I was in Mr. C's class for a week. Some things needed to be noted.)

Axel continued to make his displeasure known. Mr. C had gone through my note with the class. (Some teachers do this.) And he didn't like getting called out. 

I moved on. 

Ms. S, the English teacher, had said that they weren't allowed to use cell phones. I told them that they had plenty of work to do. But many still were trying to sneak their phones. They're not very good about being sneaky, but as it was individual work, I wasn't really policing them on it other than to sidle up to them and meaningfully look at their phones. They mostly got the hint.

I passed Axel on my classroom circuit. 

Axel: "I'm not on my phone." As he hid his phone in his pocket. The phone that he was clearly just on. "Please, don't report me."

I think Axel had more of a consequence for his ChatGPT usage than he cared to admit.

(I didn't report him. If I had, I would have made a list of all the students on their phones. I only call out individuals for notable occurrences, like loudly proclaiming that ChatGPT is how they're going to do their work.)

Not the Wanted Help

Wednesday. Seventh grade math, fourth period. Co-taught. 

It had been a difficult period, made way easier by the fact the general ed teacher, Ms. F, was there. (I was subbing for the special ed teacher.) A group of kiddos had gotten into some altercation outside just before the bell, and it had taken some time for Ms. F to get them settled and calm. 

Somehow Ms. F managed to get through the day's lesson (on probability) and the students were working on practice problems on the online program IXL. (After my sojurn in Mr. J's class, I am now quite familiar with the workings of IXL.) 

Jasper raised his hand. I helped him with a couple problems until it seemed like he got the hang of things. I attempted to move on, but Jasper called me over again. And again. 

At a certain point, the student is using the teacher as a crutch, relying on them for validation rather than striving for independent working. And once I recognized that Jasper was expecting me to outline the steps for each problem rather than taking on the task himself, it was time for me to remove myself from his presence. 

Jasper did a couple more problems. Then his hand was in the air again. 

At this point, Ms. F and I were both standing at the back of the room, waiting for other students to ask for assistance. (Most were either working fine or avoiding the work.) 

I wasn't going back to "help" Jasper again as he didn't need me. Ms. F wasn't heading his way either. 

Jasper (on a whine): "But I neeeed help..."

Ms. F and me in unison: "Awww..."

Ms. F and I looked at each other and laughed. If we were kids (and not "under roof"), I would have said "jinx". 

Jasper was not happy his request was met with such derision. The student sitting behind him offered to help. Jasper got the question wrong. 

Deep sigh. 

He did know what he was doing. I promise. As long as I talked him through it, he could do it. He had gotten to the point where he really needed to figure out how to do it without my help. 

An Ordinary Day

Sunday morning, I was on my phone playing Skip-Bo when an alert popped up for a gig on Monday. Woo-hoo! I grabbed it.

As I let myself into the room the next day, the teacher next door made a comment that made me remember something I did, in fact, know, but I had forgotten. The teacher, Ms. T, had been out the whole prior week. (There's an annual trip to Washington, D.C. She had been one of the chaperones.) He also gave me a heads-up that the kiddos might be a little wild.

Uh oh...

Knowing all that, would I have turned down the assignment? No. We're at the tail end of the school year. At this point there were eleven days left of school. (On the day this is scheduled to post, there are six. Five if you don't count today.) I will work as many of these last days as I can get.

And the day? 

Went fine. 

It was middle school. One period of eighth grade US history. Two periods of seventh grade success seminar. I remember success seminar from last school year when I covered the high school version for about a month. (Briefly, it's comprised of students who mostly aren't getting good grades. So, behavioral problems are expected.) 

So, knowing all this, I didn't allow students to swap seats. I circulated throughout the room all day. And I hovered over students who seemed distracted. 

Nothing terribly interesting occurred. 

I would not even mention this class at all, normally. But it's Sunday night (the night when I make sure my posts are all scheduled for the week). I've written all but today's post. I've spent the last couple days trying to figure out what interesting thing to blog about. And I'm coming up blank.

I mean, things happened. I worked all week. (Four days. We had Friday off as an extra added bonus day off to make the three-day weekend a four-day weekend.) But nothing really sounds good as a blog post. 

That's why I'm rambling on about nothing. 

I have many days like this. Days where things go pretty well, and I go home with no stories to tell. Sadly, if this was how all my days went, I would have to write a blog about something else. 

The Long Weekend

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

For this past weekend, my school district was kind enough to give us the Friday off as well as the Monday. Which got me thinking...

What if every other weekend was a four-day weekend? (I'll let you imagine how that might work.)

Seeing Some Progress

It's started.

What you see above took me a couple hours. Why? Because I thought I was smarter than the video. I am not. 

Briefly, I thought the instructions were off (from what I know about crocheting things flat in the round), so I "fixed" them. Only the thing came out looking weird. Once I stopped thinking and just followed the directions, it finally came out correctly. 

Anyway, now it's just a matter of continuing ovals around this eye until the thing is big enough. While guessing what stitch is in the example photo. Should be interesting.

(Last week I previewed what I'm making. I hope to get somewhat close to that photo.)

Are any other Blogger bloggers having trouble with links? Trying to insert the above links went horribly awry. I had to go into the HTML page to get the link to highlight the correct words. I hope that it's just me and my glitching computer or a temporary issue.

The Wrong Johnson

Eighth grade US history. Fifth period. 

It's the end of the year, so the eighth graders are on the Civil War and Reconstruction. (Eleventh grade US history starts studying after Reconstruction.) 

As Mr. C was going to be out for a week, he had left them a lot of bookwork to do. They had questions that went along with their textbooks. And many of them were using their textbooks to find the answers.

But nowadays, many students use Google rather than their textbooks. (We've explained to them that Google is way harder as the questions are constructed to go with the text. And Google can go way off topic.) Although, that was before.

Axel had his questions out. And his phone. And he decided that he was going to use ChatGPT instead of his textbook. 

Of course, I told him this was a bad idea.

He input the question. It had something to do with President Johnson and his conflicts with the Congress. 

He read out the answer: "Congress and Lyndon B. Johnson..."

At which point I stopped him. "Wrong Johnson."

As most US history teachers do, Mr. C had the presidents' portraits running along the top of the walls of his classroom. George Washington was at the front on the right wall. Joe Biden was at the front on the left wall. 

I found Lincoln on the wall. I pointed to him. I reminded Axel that they had just studied Lincoln's assassination, and the president following him was right next to him. Then I pointed to LBJ, who was on the opposite wall. 

"Different centuries."

Did that send Axel back to his book? Nah. He refined his question to ChatGPT. 

Sigh.

I made sure that Mr. C knew about how Axel found his answers. If nothing else, at least Axel learned that we had two different President Johnsons. I hope he remembers that.

A Job Change

The room I was in last week was between two co-taught math classes. I have covered both classes in the past, and I am familiar with the teachers, enough so that we had brief conversations during the week. (They were kind enough to offer up their rooms if I needed to send any kiddos out.) 

In passing, Ms. W mentioned that she'd be swapping periods with Ms. S's sub that day (the sub would cover her learning center so she could cover Ms. S's credit recovery). And then later, I saw Mr. H entering the room...

I have not mentioned Mr. H before, but I have worked with him many, many times. He was an instructional aide. As he's fluent in Spanish, he would work the ELD classes. Sometimes he would work in other classes, but it was usually so he could translate for students who didn't speak much English.

So, Mr. H going into the math class got me wondering. He was not in the areas I was used to seeing him. Was he a sub now? 

A couple days later, I managed to encounter him at the right time (beginning of the day), so I asked. And yep, he was no longer working as an IA. He was working as a sub.

I have had conversations with IAs before about the requirements to sub. In some cases they don't have a bachelor's degree, so subbing is out. But some of them are working their way through school. And some of them do have their bachelor's. 

I sometimes wonder if becoming an IA would be a good move. Regular hours. Steady assignment. Paid days off. Benefits. 

But as the IAs look to the subs and some make that transition, I wonder. I guess this is a case of grass-is-greener. Maybe? 

(Mr. H was a great IA, and I'm sure he's great as a sub.)

Not the Target Audience

Last week I covered an eighth grade U.S. history class. Two periods of "advanced" classes and two periods of "regular" classes. 

Mr. C left very reasonable lesson plans. The students had a lot of bookwork. They had two chapters to read along with questions in a workbook. But, to break up the monotony of that, he also assigned a video that I was to split over two days. 

(Although, second period was not so enamored with the idea of a video. They whined that taking time from class to watch the video wouldn't leave them enough time to complete the other assignments.) 

The video was on YouTube. They had questions to go along with it.

As you may be aware, YouTube will insert commercials from time to time. I tried to minimize these by getting things started before class (catching the commercial before the kiddos arrived). But, alas, I could not set things up so there were no commercials for them to see.

Unfortunately, YouTube's algorithm decided to show the worst possible commercial, not just once, but for each of the four periods...

A cannabis commercial.

I clicked it away as quickly as I could, but eighth graders. 

Deep sigh.

Anyway, in case you're interested, the classes are studying the Civil War. And this was the video:

(If you do watch any of the video, check out around 37 minutes, 10 seconds when a few "notable figures" quote the Gettysburg Address.)

Moving Time

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

What if you could travel in time... but it was a one-way trip?

Eyeing a New Project

I made a mistake. 

I asked my niece what she wanted for her birthday. 

(Previous requests: an afghan in the super chunky yarn, a beanie, a tank top, another tank top, and a third tank top.)

I mean, it's not like I'm actually actively working on anything (except for the string lights, although I wouldn't call that "actively working" as it's more like I'm-going-somewhere-where-I-need-something-to-do-with-my-hands-and-this-is-available). I have some ideas, but not the push to get them started.

Anyway, Liv (who turns 23 in June) sent me six screenshots of things she liked. I went on an internet hunt to find patterns, and ended up one for six. 

(And she really buttered me up. She texted: "i love when you make me stuff. it's my favorite stuff in my wardrobe")

Although, the first pic in the bunch was the one she really wanted (the others were to give me options). And while I did not find a pattern for the sweater in that picture, I did find something in the spirit of the sweater. 

First, what she found:

And then the "in the spirit of" video tutorial I found: 

(The video is over two hours long. I have not watched all of it. And I probably won't. But it's a good start.)

Ultimately, it won't look like the reference picture, but it'll be close. Maybe. We'll see.

Now, I just need to acquire yarn, get her measurements, and see what I can cobble together. Wish me luck.

Scenes from an AP Class (after the AP Test)

Friday. AP Government.

The AP Government test was that Monday. What do they do in class after they've completed the AP test? Not much.

Technically, they had "projects". They were to make voter registration posters or work on a polling project (with a presentation upon the teacher's return). 

But seniors. About two weeks out from "check out". (The last couple weeks of school they have senior activities.) 

Yeah, not much in the way of work was happening.

A girl approached me. She asked to pick up her "project" from another teacher's class. But right before that, she was discussing with her friends that she had left her dominoes in that teacher's class. And they decided they wanted to play dominoes. 

Was I going to say no? Nope. 

A group of boys got into a betting game. Was one of them going to hit turbulence on his flight to BYU? Was another going to keep a girlfriend during freshman year of college? There was something about another's GPA (I didn't hear the details) and something else about one student attending the local university versus the local community college. 

I asked who was keeping track of these bets and how they'd be able to check to collect. They did not hear my questions. So, I sat back and listened. 

Lena needed to pay $75 to Ulric. She had $80 in twenties. So, she asked Kiran if she could borrow $5, had him give that $5 to Ulric, gave Ulric the $80, he gave her the $5, and all was done. "That's correct, right?" she asked. I pointed out Kiran was now out $5. 

Why did Lena pay Ulric $75? In the next class, she explained (to her friends). She needed extra graduation tickets. 

While they were discussing the procurement of extra tickets, two students at the back of the room hit some high note (singing). All conversations paused. The students finished their note. The moment of quiet ended as the others went back to their conversations. The two students continued humming something, but it didn't catch the others' attention again.

A girl walked in very late. She saw me. "You can have Mr. C's cookies." She gave me two cookies. (Red velvet covered in powdered sugar.) She then distributed the rest of cookies to her classmates. 

At this time of year, AP classes are pretty laid back. (Well, those classes where the test is finished.) Sixth period had about half the students present. The absent students? They had an AP test. 

They work hard the rest of the year. This laid back break? They earned it.

Vindicated

Wednesday. I was covering the special ed co-teacher of a tenth grade English class. Which contained several familiar faces. 

(That's what happens when I do long term assignments. Several of the students were also in Mr. J's math classes.)

The general ed teacher, Ms. C, warned me that it would be a boring day. It was their third and final day to complete an in-class essay. (The in-class part and written by hand part are kind of necessary to combat the chance that the kiddos might try to use AI instead of writing it themselves.) 

The topic? They had just finished reading Night by Elie Wiesel. They were to use the text and another source to talk about dehumanization and the importance of bearing witness. (The English classes spend a lot of time on teaching them not only to write but to analyze texts and use higher order thinking skills.)

Sixth period. Lots of students had questions, so I was trying to field some of them so Ms. C wasn't doing all the work. A girl raised her hand.

The girl was working on her concluding paragraph, and she had forgotten a transition phrase. Could she just squeeze it in? 

Considering how this essay was being done, I didn't see a problem with that. And I said so. I told the girl she could double check with Ms. C, but it should be okay.

Ms. C got to the girl's desk. The girl asked the question.

And... My instinct had been correct. This was not a problem. (The girl had another question, too. My answer again matched Ms. C's.) 

I guess I do know how to do this sort of thing. 

Although, not all of the students wanted my help. But some of the questions were more in depth, so it was better that Ms. C, who had taught them the book, answered them. Like, one student asked specifically where one incident occurred as he needed to refer back to it in his essay.

No One Told Me

Tuesday. After doing a transition day with Mr. J, I was back in the day-to-day subbing pool. And my first day back I pulled an assignment at the alternative education center. Because naturally. 

Deep breath.

It was snack time. Apparently, the students had been using the classroom I was in as their snack spot. Security was there to supervise, so I let them be. Keeping these kiddos on an even keel works better when I don't mess up their routine too much. 

Then snack was over. I had one student in the class. He had settled in. The others had moved on to the classes they were supposed to be in. All except Jensen. 

Remember Jensen? No? He was at the AEC school the last time I subbed there, which was a surprise as he had just been at one of the traditional high schools for first semester finals. Although, not really a surprise, as he really had the personality to fit the alternative education center. 

I told Jensen it was time to go to his third period class. He wasn't budging. He argued. He'd rather stay in "my" class. I told him his teacher would miss him. He said someone would come to get him.

Sure enough, not two minutes later, an aide did arrive to shoo him to the class he was supposed to be in.

"What? No one told me it was time for class!"

Yeah, right...

Calmly, I refuted that claim to the aide. She gave me a look that told me she was used to Jensen's shenanigans. 

Then security stopped in to shoo Jensen to class. He again protested this was the first he was hearing of it. 

Deep sigh.

Jensen did then go to his actual scheduled class. But alas, I had him in fourth period...

Ah well. I was expecting something of this sort when I accepted the gig at the AEC. It comes with the territory.

Friends to the End?

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

I've been watching The Jinx, Part 2 on HBO. (I watched part 1 way back when as well.) We're only three episodes in, but a couple things came up that just need to be what ifs.

What if you found out your best friend murdered somebody? What if that somebody was your other best friend?

Crochet the Rainbow

I think I have a plan.

And if I talk about the plan, it's sure to change. But here goes... I'm going to make two "lights" for every color of the rainbow (plus pink). Then I'll make a "string" long enough for all of them to fit. 

After that, I can decide if I want to make another.

So far...

I have two pink, multiple red, two orange, two yellow, one blue, and one violet. I still haven't made a green, but I have located green yarn. And maybe I should do a darker purple, too? 

So, that's four, maybe six, more bulbs to make. Am I missing any colors? (Besides green and a darker purple.)

As it's time to make these string lights posts a series, I am once again including a link to the pattern, and following are links to the previous posts:

• Scrolling
• Lit Up
• String Lights
• More Lights

Short Time

Wednesday. Sixth period. Computer science.

Before getting into the lesson of the day, I was dealing with "announcements". These weren't official or anything. They were basically a list of things the students needed to remember. The job fair I had been preparing them for was the next day. We were just about at the end of the unit, so a test would be forthcoming...

As it was my last solo day with the class (the next time I had them in class would be my "transition day" with Mr. J), I informed them that it was going to be up to him whether or not this test happened on Monday.

Reid: "Mr. J is coming back?"

"Yes."

Reid: "I thought he was gone the rest of the year." 

I... Uh...

I never made it a secret that Mr. J would be back, nor did I ever not mention when. 

But this is Reid we're talking about. (Click on the above link for my first mention of him on the blog.) He's been pretty tuned out for much of the two months I've been teaching the class.

I got into the lesson of the day, and Reid pulled out his phone and ignored the lesson. Which is what he's been doing, so no surprise. (I bet it won't surprise you to find out his grade is 35% and he's barely done any of the assignments.)

And so, this concludes my long term assignment. For now. Next week (read: this week) I'm back in the day-to-day trenches. (Although, I still have a transition day. But, unless something interesting happens that day, I doubt I'll mention it.) 

A SoCal Lunch

Wednesday. Lunch.

One of the students from sixth period had asked if she could "hang out" in the room for lunch. And I had another student arrive to make up a test he missed. (He had asked the previous day if he could come in at lunch and take it.)

I got the boy his test. The girl wanted to spend time on a computer. With them situated, I took a seat at the teacher's desk and started my prep period work. (I go through the emails to see if I have any late work to grade. Then I input any newly done assignments into the gradebook. I had some makeup tests to grade. And then there was some lesson planning for the next day I had to do.) 

Then I heard a sound like something had crashed into the building, but not a big something. I knew that sound...

I paused. Was that shaking? Or was I imagining it? 

"Are we having an earthquake?"

The boy: "That's just the wind."

The wind was blowing. Kinda hard. But no, I felt swaying.

These things never last long, so I waited about a minute, and then I pulled up my earthquake app. 

Sure enough, under "Near Me" it had an indicator that said "Los Angeles Area" and 4.3. Yup, I was right. It had been an earthquake. (Here's a local news story about it.)

I checked back later, and it had been downgraded to a 4.0. The epicenter wasn't close, but close enough (about 35 miles away). 

And...?

Well, I went back to my grading. The boy finished his test a few minutes later, turned it in, and left. When the bell rang to end lunch, the girl returned the computer and went on her way.

And I graded the boy's test. (He did pretty well. I wish I could tell you his score, but I have forgotten it.)

Restroom Break

Tuesday. Fifth period.

It was the independent work portion of the period. I had gone over some problems (we've started the probability unit, so they were doing practice problems on things like, "How many possible ice cream cones can you make with 3 cone types, 5 ice cream flavors, and 3 toppings?"), and it was their turn to try them on their own. 

The students weren't having too much trouble with the concepts, so Ms. L and I were at the front of the room, waiting for questions. A student approached. 

"Jeff got in a fight. Now he's in the discipline office."

Both Ms. L and I looked over at Jeff's desk. His computer was open. His notes were sitting there. His backpack was leaning against the bottom of the chair. 

Ms. L: "He just left to go to the restroom..."

He hadn't been gone all that long. Definitely not long enough for either of us to be concerned. But now we knew he wasn't going to return.

Deep sigh.

(How did the student know? I assume that Jeff texted him, and he conveyed the information to us.) 

We continued on. At the end of the period, all the students cleared out. Jeff's stuff remained at his desk. 

After fifth period was lunch. Security arrived a few minutes into lunch to retrieve Jeff's stuff. (The computer belonged to the classroom, so I logged Jeff out and returned it to charge.) 

Some students give off a certain vibe. You know they're trouble. Jeff? Not so much. He's a good kid who's doing fairly well in class. So, I was shocked. But really, at that age, I shouldn't be that shocked.

Trying Again

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

What if we (our world, our lives, our planet) is a recreation of a long gone civilization? (This was a random thought I had the other day. Who we're recreating and how "they" managed to do this were not included in the random thought, so that's open to your interpretation.) 

More Lights

It turns out that the Christmas lights crochet project is a great take-along project. It may be the only thing I'm working on for a while. At least until I get some other projects started. 

I've made a couple other colors.

I now have ideas for other projects. It's just a matter of starting them. 

Starting consists of finding the yarn (which consists of me digging through boxes and bins of yarn) and/or finding patterns (which consists of me searching online for what I want to make). 

I mean, I could try designing, but that's for when I want to make something specific that I have in mind and I don't figure it'll exist as a pattern somewhere (like when I knit a new purse). 

Decisions, decision, decisions. I have to figure those out first, then I can jump to the starting stuff. And that's where I've been stuck. But my long-term is over, so I might have some more head space in which to consider the problem.

Until then, I can plug away at the Christmas lights. I've got plenty of time to do them before the holiday.

In case you're wondering, the pattern for these lights is here.

Reading the Script

When I started this long term assignment, the computer science classes were doing a "careers" unit. But there were only so many days I could go over how to interview and they only needed so much time to construct a resume. 

Besides, I was getting bored. And if I was bored, I was sure they were bored, too.

Once I felt like I'd covered everything (well, not everything, but enough so they knew the basics), it was time to get back into the computer science of the thing. But, I don't know computer science. 

The classes are built on lessons from code.org. Their assignments have been on that website. 

It turned out, the lesson plans for each lesson contained a slideshow to show to the class, and a lesson plan with a script. 

Of course, the assumption is that the teacher actually knows what she's talking about, so the script is more talking points to help direct where the lesson should go. 

That's not how I've been using it, though.

The next unit on the agenda was about algorithms. So, gamely, I got the slides ready, and I prepared to "teach" the lesson. I read ahead and saw that they needed sticky notes, so I got them sticky notes. We got into the lesson...

I have two periods of computer science. One period gamely went through the lesson.

The other period? Half of them were completely tuned out, playing games on their computers or phones. 

Sigh.

But that was half the class. The other half was attempting the lesson.

Did they learn anything? I hope so. At least it was more interesting than another lesson on how to answer "Tell me about yourself". 

Class Swapper

Last week was state testing. In the spring, the schools are all mandated to do these official tests that the state then uses to classify schools and check progress and that sort of thing. 

As a sub (even a long-term one), I was not required to proctor the testing. But I was required to be on campus. "My" classroom was being used to administer the test. So, I borrowed the desk of the class' co-teacher as she has a desk in the special ed learning center. 

The testing block was the first two hours of the day. You might think having to be on campus was a bad thing, but I had actual work to complete. The computer science classes had turned in their resumes, so I had to grade them. Then once I got those done, it was again time for progress reports, so I had school time to input grades.

Oh, and I also got the math classes' test and study guide for that test finalized. That took longer than expected as I forgot to include one of the problem types on the study guide. And there was one problem on the test that would not format no matter what I did.

(Every time I tried to move this triangle to the spot it should appear on the test, it vanished from the test. I won't go into how many times I tried things to get this to work. In the end, I had to just leave it where it was and modify the other questions to work around it.)

Just when I was back in the classroom...

The math teacher next door was also a coder at one time, so he's familiar with computer science. Mr. J had asked him to explain something to the computer science classes. But Dr. K had his own classes. Of course.

Well, there was a simple solution. We traded classes. Dr. K explained what the kiddos needed to know. And I watched Dr. K's kiddos take a test. I got the easy part.

Make Ups

Remember Jordan?

Jordan is in Mr. J's second period sophomore math class. She pretty much took the month of February off. And much of March. And April. She merited a blog mention when she was surprised her grade had dropped because of a missing test (that I didn't just cancel for her). 

Since I last mentioned her, we had another test in the math class. That put her two tests behind. 

Just after we took the second test (with me), Jordan managed to come to class and... gasp... make up that first test. And she did pretty well on it. (She didn't get an A, but she didn't fail it, either.) 

Tuesday. Jordan showed up to class. And she asked if she could make up that second test.

Well, of course she could.

While I was teaching the last lesson in our current unit, Jordan finally got caught up on her missing test. 

At the end of the period, Jordan turned in her test. And then she asked me, "Will this be in the gradebook right away?"

Ahem. 

Before she left, I restated something just for her that I had told the whole class. Thursday we'd do a study guide for a test that would happen on the following Monday. (By the time you see this post, that test will have happened.) 

Will she show up on Monday and stay up-to-date? I'm doubtful. But we'll see. 

(If you ask me in the comments, I'll be able to tell you whether she was there or not.)