The Stack

A little over a week ago, I got an email from a parent. She was concerned that her student had an F in the class, and could her student make that up? 

At that point I had two grades posted. The student had been absent when the second assignment was due, and she hadn't gotten it to me. Since then, she had been one of the good ones, so I was sure I had all her work. It was just ungraded. 

I told her mother this in the email--that I was behind on grading and that her student's work was fine. And I set about catching up on what I had to grade. 

Slowly I got through the current stack. Well, most of it. 

I don't recall which class, maybe fourth period, when a student asked when I'd have their lab safety packets graded. 

Deep sigh. 

I pulled out the stack to demonstrate: 

Holding it up for the class to see, I said, "It might take me a while." 

I'm dreading it. 

I'm writing this post on Saturday. I'm scheduling it for the following Friday. So, almost a week. Will I have graded it by then? 

Likely not. 

I'm okay with that, though. 

And the student whose mother asked about her F. She no longer has an F. She got the assignment to me that she was missing, and now she has an A. (Before, with the other work she'd completed, she had a B.) 

I'm getting there. Slowly.

Broke Fifth Period?

Wednesday, fifth period. 

As the schedule changes seemed to be settling down, I figured it was a good time to make some seating changes. Mostly in period three, because period three has become that class. 

But in period five, I had one girl seated by herself in a corner in the back that is not turning in work. She gives me definite distracted vibes, like she has ADHD. I wanted her closer so I can keep better tabs on her. And while I was doing that, I might as well move some in the back closer, as the class was pretty small, and I didn't need kiddos way back away.

Once I moved several students, a couple others wanted to be closer, too. So I allowed that. Then I got on with the lesson of the day.

And I found that I had broken fifth period.

Fifth period was the good group. They were my reward for getting through third period.

The first day I had them, they came in quiet. And then wouldn't talk. After lunch. (Middle schoolers are notorious for being wound up after lunch. After lunch classes tend to be crazy.) 

Over the last couple weeks, I've discovered that they're the bright group. I ask a question, I get many volunteers to answer. And I can teach them. They're attentive. They're engaged. They're lovely. 

But after the seating changes... Suddenly, I had to stop to regain attention. Oh no.

But, mostly it was two boys. They hadn't been sitting next to one another before, and they just couldn't seem to get enough of one another. 

Would separating them work? 

On Friday, I tried just that. And, things calmed down considerably. 

Phew. I thought I had broken the class. 

(Both boys were good boys. Attentive. Volunteered.)

We'll see if that was the only issue. Seventh graders, so these things don't necessarily stay static. Hopefully they'll continue to be my good group. I need that.

Following Directions

Last week I mentioned the emails from students are starting. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I told the students to let me know if there are any mistakes in their grades. I don't generally make those kinds of mistakes, but it can happen, and I'd rather they let me know than going to their counselor and having them send me an email questioning their grade... 

So, when I got an email from a student immediately after inputting three assignments, I wasn't offended. The email: 

I am writing because of my grade book. I finished the Lab Safety Packet, and the Scientist Card Sort. 

I think you did both the Lab Safety Packet and the Scientist Card Sort wrong, but if i'm misunderstanding, please let me know. 

Thank you.

The student did not get full credit on one of those assignments, and the other had not been graded yet, so it was missing from the gradebook for everyone (and did not impact their grade). 

I wrote back explaining why they'd be missing points for the assignments. And when I passed back their graded work the next day, sure enough the student lost the points just as I explained in the email. (I didn't have the work in front of me when I responded to the email, but I deducted points for some very specific things.) 

And the student? Wouldn't look at me during class that day. I think they were a little mad at me. I'm not sure why, entirely, as I deducted points for things like not fully completing the assignment as instructed. (They were required to write 5-6 sentences on one. This student did not.) 

Ah well. Seventh grader. While I don't want them to not bring their grade concerns to me, I would rather they make sure their work is fully complete before assuming that I made a mistake in the grading. 

And... I totally would have let them resubmit the assignment with corrections for full points. But, I would only tell them that if they asked. They did not.

(If I have to regrade every assignment after they've turned it in and gotten it back, I don't even want to contemplate how much work that would be.)

Alien Contact?

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 catching up on my Nova recordings (now that Jeopardy is on summer hiatus). And there was an episode on the cosmos where they talked about the Voyager space probe and how it's now outside the solar system. This made me a little sad, but it also got me thinking...

What if a space probe from a distant alien civilization happened upon our solar system, and we managed to find it?

Can't Quite See It

I didn't get very far on the eye sweater this week: 

That's what happens when we have a heat wave along with me being busy at work. But I had time on Saturday, so I got a couple more rounds in on the sleeves. And then I got stuck.

I'm at the bottom portion of the sleeves (at about the elbow heading towards the wrist). 

And here's where the example picture gets interesting: 

I can't tell what those stitches are. It's been just straight double crochets and treble crochets up until now. But between the two white bands? I can see some double (probably treble) crochet clusters. But what stitches do I use? 

If anyone has any ideas, I'm open. But I know I'm going to have to figure this out on my own. And hence, why I'm stuck. For now.

Our lovely heat wave of 100+ temps is supposed to settle into cooler weather (the 80s) later this week. I might be able to think about accomplishing something then. Maybe. 

Tell me stories of cool weather. I'd like to imagine nice weather for a while, at least until the autumn heatwaves subside. (Generally, for us, that's November.) 

Eye sweater previous posts:

• Eyeing a New Project
  
• Seeing Some Progress
• Second Sight
• Envisioning the Next Step
• Glaring and Sniffling
• Surveying the Sweater
• Looking Towards Sleeves
• Watching More Progress
• Regarding an Omission
• Eyeballing the Sleeves

The Dog Ate My Homework

Thursday. The bell had just rung to let the kiddos out of school. One of the students had hung back to talk to me.

He started off by referencing an assignment that had been due on Tuesday. Then he explained...

"I was with my cousin. It was his birthday. I had my work out. We were playing with his dog..."

At this point I interrupted. "Are you going to tell me that the dog ate your homework?"

"No. He peed on it."

Ahem.

I got another copy of the assignment and gave it to the boy, and he was on his way.

A couple students had turned in this assignment (our second of the school year) to me hesitantly, so I announced to the classes that I was accepting late work (better late than never). While I'd prefer that they get the work in on time, I'd rather they turn it in eventually and not have a bunch of missing assignments. 

They're seventh graders (12 years old). I want them to get in the habit of getting their work turned in. I'll snarl at them about late work another time.

13 Snippets of My Current Long Term

The third week of school went fairly well. I mean, seventh graders, but considering that, things could be going much, much worse. 

I've made many small observations. None would be a great blog post on their own, but together they make an ideal Thursday 13.

1. Baby naming trends of 2012: Matthew. I have, like five. Three in one period. Two with the same last initial. (Also popular: Samuel, Sebastian, and Daniel.)

2. Monday I got to school to find no internet. It was a district-wide outage. I've had this issue before. At least this time I could pivot so we didn't really miss it.

3. There are three seventh grade science teachers (including me). We're all doing the same thing, so I haven't had to scramble for lessons. I was given access to the online folder with the year's work. And I can ask the other two any questions I have. It makes lesson planning so much simpler.

4. We're still in the "honeymoon" phase, that is, when the kiddos are on their best behavior. But they're starting to get comfortable, so their true colors are showing. My job is to hold the behavior standards as they get comfortable so they get used to behaving a certain way in class. We'll see how well I manage this.

5. Third period is my trouble spot. I already have girls with attitude and chatty groups. I'll have to see if I can seating chart my way out of that.

6. Fifth period is bright. They're right after lunch, so I was expecting wild, but they're quiet until we get into a lesson, and then I have a bunch of volunteers. They might be my favorite. (Although the even classes have been pretty good, too.) 

7. I have twins in one class. Not identical. And one girl mentioned that she's a triplet. (Her two brothers are not my students.) 

8. I'm hoping the schedule changes are finally settling. One poor boy got switched into three different classes. First he was in period one. Then five. And then period two. Then he showed up to period five again, and I had to inform him that no, he did not have to take science twice. (I sent him to the office to find out where his new fifth actually was.) 

9. We had an assembly on Friday. I got to escort third period. Sigh. At least there was no tortilla slap. 

10. With all the schedule changes, my gradebook is a mess. I went through, and several students lingered there even though they were moved out of the class (or they never attended). I learned how to drop students from it, so yay, that's fixed. But yikes. (This is online, so parents can see their kiddos' grades at any time.) 

11. And suddenly I'm popular. I've heard of at least three other subbing assignments that I could have had if I wasn't already booked to this one. And two teachers have asked me to cover their classes later in the year when they have to be out. (One is going out of town for a week; another is having surgery.) 

12. The kiddos are actually paying attention. The emails have started, so I gave them a little primer on how to email a teacher. (Most important: include their period number.) And from the emails I've received, they're listening. Nice.

13. When I started, everyone asked where the classroom's printer was. We assumed the teacher took it home. Where was it? In a cabinet. I looked at it at least five times (over three weeks) before I actually saw it. If it was a snake, it would have bitten me.

The Ideal Consequence

It was Monday. We had no internet. But, luckily, the assignment for the day had the kiddos looking at "cards" of various images, some science related, some not. They were sorting and categorizing the images based on questions I wrote on the dry erase board (as my lovely little slide was inaccessible due to no internet). 

Third period. Every teacher has that one class. The difficult group. The period they dread. For me, that has become third period. 

The kiddos were working in the groups I had assigned. One group was having a personality conflict. A girl told me that Simon was bothering them, and they couldn't work with him. 

The group wasn't one of the better behaved groups. But Simon and I have already had our issues. (This was the fourth time I'd had the class, and I already was aware of Simon. Enough said?)

Luckily, there was a group that was only two students, so Simon could join them. (I was going for groups of four, but there were a few groups of three just due to class numbers.) 

Simon did not like that idea. He lashed out verbally. I let him say his piece, and then I insisted he move to the new group. 

Later, Simon approached. His new group... Well, if I wanted a fitting consequence, I think I found it. The two students Simon was with were silent. Completely. They wouldn't talk. 

This wasn't ideal, as the assignment was a group thing. 

But, Simon was unable to irritate these students as they weren't engaging with him. 

Perfect. 

Demon Child

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 😉

Did you ever see the show Evil? I wrote about it a while back. It had it's series finale a couple weeks ago, and the ending brought up a great "what if?". 

What if you became the parent to a child from an "evil" source (such as a demon)? Would you believe that nurturing the child to be good would work? Or is such a being only able to be a dark entity?

Eyeballing the Sleeves

Last week:

This week:

Yup, this time I remembered the skein I left behind last time. The arms are now even.

They're about half the length now. I'd say I'm almost done, but I'm going to have to make some adjustments from the example picture. That has only a couple more rounds while I'm going to need more rounds to make these sleeves long enough. 

If they look wide, that's intentional. 

So, getting there. Slowly. 

(If only it wasn't hot and I didn't have to work. But considering how much progress I made the last two months before school started, even if I wasn't working I wouldn't be getting very far.) 

Eye sweater previous posts:

• Eyeing a New Project
  
• Seeing Some Progress
• Second Sight
• Envisioning the Next Step
• Glaring and Sniffling
• Surveying the Sweater
• Looking Towards Sleeves
• Watching More Progress
• Regarding an Omission