The Pivot

Friday. Sixth period world history. 

Jasper walked in. He said something about another student in class being absent. And we waited for the other students to arrive. 

There are only four students in the class. Two of them tend to be late. When the bell rang, I figured they'd be along shortly. Only, they weren't. 

I had a class of one. 

Um...

As we were doing our warm up activity (CNN 10), I pondered this. I had a lesson planned. But, if I did the planned lesson, when the other students returned, I'd have to find time to give them time to make up what they missed. 

(Yeah, I should just have them make up the work missed on their own time. But they won't do it. They're already behind, missing work from the days they were in class. I gave them a make up day this past week. They're still behind.) 

I discussed it with Ms. S, and she concurred. I thought of a movie that would kind of go with what we've been discussing, and I put it on. 

Yeah, movie day. Kinda meh, but better than having to reteach the lesson to the missing kiddos upon their return. 

Grading Concern

Wednesday. Fourth period. 

Tyson strode in the room, upset. "You told me not to worry. You told me I wouldn't get an F." 

Tyson is new to the class. He only started it a couple weeks ago. He transferred from another school. (I presume he just moved.) 

When he arrived, we were in the middle of a unit. Since this is a special ed math class, our unit consists of graphing one kind of problem. As we were going to be doing more days on this, I figured that Tyson would catch on and catch up. I wasn't going to make him responsible for the worksheets he missed before he joined the class, but he could start where we were at. 

The worksheets that Tyson had done had many errors. Ms. S (the instructional aide who's been doing all the grading) informed me that the kiddos were missing many problems on their assignments. So, on this day, as luck would have it, the plan was to give the students a day to redo the problems they missed to improve their scores. 

I attempted to calm Tyson down. He was in a panic about having an F in the class. I explained that once he made the corrections on his assignments, his grade would rise. Tyson was stuck on the F and how that would effect his ability to play football. 

He had lots of questions. Ms. S sat with him a while to help him. By the end of the period, he seemed way more confident. 

And, as he finished his corrections, Ms. S graded and input his new scores. His grade went from an F to a C-. And it's only going to go up from there. 

It's hard to come in mid semester. But I knew that Tyson's grade wasn't going to be an issue. 

And, we kind of want him on the football team. That kiddo is huge. 

Unpopular

Tuesday, fifth period. 

The period goes by a couple names. Conference. Prep. It's the period I have off from students. 

So, I was sitting in "my" classroom, doing what the period was intended for. I was doing some lesson planning. Some grading. And eating my lunch. 

The phone rang...

Ms. L, who I sort of co-teach with second period, called. 

In a prior second period, Ms. L used her document camera so that her students could copy down some notes. Only that day the thing wouldn't work. As I am familiar with the technology, I managed to get it going. 

And this is what Ms. L called me about. She couldn't get her document camera to work, and could I help her out? Well, sure, I was without students. 

I popped on over there, and in a couple seconds I got the thing working...

This success was greeted by a loud round of boos from the eighth graders. 

I'm not sure what they thought would happen if the document camera didn't work. It's not like they were going to get the period off. They might have had to do something harder than copy notes. Really, they should have thanked me. 

Ms. L did thank me, though. Profusely. 

And I was then off and back to my lesson planning and grading. 

(It was a beautiful sunny and warm day. It was nice to get out and walk in the sun for a bit.)

Economic Blackout

These times... 

I have had a hard time lately with the world at large and my country in particular. These are not normal times. We have devolved into a fascist state, and I feel powerless and helpless. And angry and scared and anxious. I can't be all business as normal. I just can't. 

But, I can't be angry all the time. 

I'm playing with what I want to say and how I want to say it. Because to remain silent in these times is to side with the oppressor. And I won't comply in advance. 

No one cares what I think, though. I won't change any minds. 

So, this week I'm passing along some info that some of you might find helpful. 

I don't know if you heard of the no buy February 28th. I did, and I participated (or didn't participate, whatever the proper terminology for not buying anything that day was). 

The Amazon blackout (no buy from Amazon) is next week, from the 7th to the 14th. I don't buy a lot from them, so that won't be hard. The Nestle... That one is going to be a challenge. I'll have to sit down and figure out what is Nestle, because that company owns a lot of things. 

I don't know what day of the week April 18th is. I'll keep this on my radar, I hope. 

This is a protest I can actually participate in. Now to find other ways I can help. Because I don't want to give in to the fascists. Make no mistake, that's where we are now.

At the Halfway Point

I finally used up all the yarn!

It's tiny, but since it's just for my neck, it's fine. After trying it on, I think I will, in fact, continue the project. There's one more skein that came with this yarn:

Now I just need to figure out what stitch pattern to use. It should be simple as the yarn is kind of fuzzy. And I want it to take a lot of yarn to make the stitch (as I don't need the finished scarf to be too much bigger than it is now). 

It's something to think about. As I have been doing for the last couple weeks. Maybe this week I'll figure it out.

Moebius Scarf Posts

• Moebius Experiment
• A Back Up Project
• Unraveling
• A Redo
• A School Crochet Project
• Crocheting at Work
• The Project in the Background