Modern Problems

Friday. Seventh grade science. Third period. 

The lesson plan had them working on a Friend or Foe paper. (They were given two organisms--plants and animals--and they were to determine if the relationship was beneficial or parasitical.) I passed that out, and they were to fill it out using information found in their Google Classroom. 

Only, the information wasn't in their Google Classroom.

Luckily, this happened at the school I had started the school year out in. You know, the school where I did the long term for the seventh grade science teacher? (She's back now.) So, I knew just who to call for assistance. 

Ms. W didn't have access to Ms. H's Google Classroom, but the three seventh grade science teachers are all friends, so she was able to contact Ms. H to get the issue dealt with. (I actually have Ms. H's cell phone number, too. I was going to text her, but I thought Ms. W might have access, so I thought I'd try the teacher on campus first. Ms. H might not have been easily reachable.) 

Within a couple minutes, the info the kiddos needed appeared in their Google Classrooms. Phew. 

Digital assignments are great, until something occurs and the kiddos can't access them. 

Of course, they also were to start working on their study guides for their final (fast approaching), so I did have a backup in case things went totally awry. But it's much better that I didn't have to resort to that. 

Three Days at the Continuation High School 13

After finishing up the long term in the English class, I was able to snag three days at the continuation high school. The last time I was there was December. And, things went about how I'd expect. As none of those things were terribly blog-worthy, I figured this was a good opportunity to do a Thursday 13. Because while nothing that happened merited a full blog post, it was an interesting three days. 

ONE

My long term ended on the day the internet went out for the entire district. So, I could not do the grading I had intended to do before leaving. But Tuesday the internet was fine, and the classes were small in the computer class, so I was able to finish that stuff off. I still had access to the class (that hadn't been turned off yet), and I was on district time... 

TWO

On Tuesday I covered Mr. M's class. One of his periods is orientation. That is the class the newbies take first, right when they are first transferred in to the school. 

At the beginning of May, I lost a student in one of the English 11 classes. She dropped suddenly. So, when I saw her name on the orientation's roll, I was not surprised. 

She asked about Ms. A's class. I told her that my last day had been yesterday. 

THREE

I had a prep period. On Mr. M's bookshelf happened to be a copy of The Great Gatsby. I had missed out on reading the last two chapters in the English 11 long term. (Timing.) So, I took the time and read them. Of course, I only read them once, whereas I read the other chapters four times (this go around), but at least I got to actually finish it. 

FOUR

Seventh period, credit recovery. The kiddos worked on various assignments in various subjects that they needed to earn credits for. (Classes that they had failed the first time through.) A boy sitting near the teacher's desk was working on math. 

I watched him get out his phone, take a picture, and then input something into the software. Deep sigh...

I pointed out that what he was doing was cheating. I told him to put away the phone. He could do it on his own. He explained that he knew the material, but he wanted to get it done quickly. 

I sat with him and helped him. And no, he didn't know the material. But, he caught on as we worked through a few of the problems. 

He was not the only student I had to urge to do their own work and not rely on "help" from their phones. 

FIVE

As I left school on Tuesday, a couple students caught my attention. After school, there's an occupational program that students can sign up for. (These students were taking the childcare class.) 

The two students had been in Ms. A's class. They complained that I had left them. I reminded them that I had hit my max number of days, that I had warned them of my leaving, and that Ms. A was to return the next week. They said I should return to the class. I told them they'd see me around as this wasn't a goodbye, but more of a "see you around". (Ms. E was there, and she agreed that I was around a lot so I wasn't going away.) 

SIX

Wednesday and Thursday I covered Mr. A. He was chaperoning two field trips. On Wednesday, they went to Disneyland. On Thursday, the L.A. County Fair. Which shrunk the classes a bit as many of the students had gone. 

SEVEN

Mr. A teaches two periods of woodshop, two periods of graphic arts, one period of leadership, and a video editing class. The woodshop has its own room. The other classes are in a different classroom. 

When there's a sub, due to safety issues, the woodshop class meets in the room where all of Mr. A's other classes meet. They do know this, but I still did put a note on the door to alert the students to go to the other room for class. 

EIGHT

On Wednesday, I was surprised to have no students in first period. Sure enough, though, a student did arrive late. By a couple minutes. 

Upon a couple minutes of conversation, I discovered that the kiddo had been on time, but had been waiting beside the woodshop to go in. Sitting on a bench. Then he remembered Mr. A had gone on the field trip and that he had to go to the other classroom. 

At no point did the student notice the sign I left on the door...

NINE

Fifth period leadership. I perused the names on the roll, and I was surprised by one. Well, not all that surprised... But I had just seen him at one of the traditional high schools. Okay, so that was in January. Of course, he was not in class that day. Probably for the best.

TEN

Wednesday was advisory day. I read over their announcements, which were all about graduation stuff. Student had a serious question for me. What was he supposed to do after graduation? Was he required to go to college? 

We ended up having an interesting conversation about him. He's been doing computer coding, and he's already making decent money at it. As for what he should do with the rest of his life, I had no answers for him. I replied with a question: what do you want to do? 

ELEVEN

On Thursday we were supposed to have even fewer students. When no one showed up to first period, I went looking to make sure no one was waiting at the other classroom. That's when I ran into the teacher next door, and we got to talking. For the whole period. 

I was in his room, but the two rooms had a connecting door. It was open. At some point, a student did arrive. Late. I only learned this at the end of the period when he left as he gave me his late pass. 

I mean, technically I was supervising him, as the door was open. And he knew what the assignment was as it was the same as the day before. And, as the day before, he didn't do it. (He was late on Wednesday as well.) 

TWELVE

As I headed to the restroom on our break, I learned that the school now has a pickleball court. Four of the teachers were playing. I asked another teacher if the pickleball court was for the students or the teachers. I was told both, but it appeared that the teachers were enjoying it more. 

THIRTEEN

Sixth period was video editing. Apparently the kiddos have a screening of the film they've been making next week. On Wednesday they did little to nothing (even though I pointed out they were supposed to be working on their poster). Then Thursday, when the experts were there (able to actually direct what needed to get done), they got quite a lot of work done. I'd've been more upset at the lack of work on Wednesday, but the editor had been on the field trip. I can't really blame him for enjoying Disneyland. 

Paper Deficit

Monday. My last day in the English class. 

As is my habit, the first thing I did was to get out my computer(s) and log on. Very quickly I discovered that there was no internet. I soon learned that the internet was out for the entire district. 

Not only was this a "transition day" where I was going to give the next sub access to the Google Classroom, lesson plans, and slideshows she would need to teach the class for the week, I also had grading to finish up from my tenure in the class (all done online along with the online gradebook). 

Oh, and the classes had a quiz. That was online. 

After I panicked, I began to contemplate how I was going to approach the day. Luckily, I had a prep period first, so I had some time to adjust. I thought about how I had seen the paper copy of the quiz in the digital file of quizzes for the class, and how I wished I had internet access to print out said paper. And that's about the time I remembered that Ms. A had a file cabinet, and wouldn't it be cool if there was a copy of that quiz somewhere in those files? 

There was a copy on paper of that quiz in Ms. A's filing cabinet. It took me not all that long to locate it. 

The copy machines are not dependent upon the internet. 

I decided to make an answer sheet to go along with the quizzes. (I had time. That lovely prep period.) I was in process when the sub who was taking over for me arrived, so I got a little sidetracked explaining what she was going to need to continue teaching the class. But eventually I got the answer sheet completed, and we headed to the copy room to make the copies we would need for the day. 

It was interesting to do the quizzes on paper. The kiddos were not used to this sort of thing. I had to explain how it worked. It wasn't all that long ago when no explanation would have been necessary. How quickly we adapt to new technologies. 

The online quiz and the paper quiz were pretty much the same. The only difference was the format. And yet, the kiddos who took the paper quiz didn't do as well as the classes that took the online quiz the previous Friday. (There was a 20% difference in average scores.) 

This makes me wonder. Was it the technology? Or were the kiddos who got to take the quiz online cheating somehow? (The quiz was "locked down", so the kiddos couldn't access another tab while taking the quiz. And I monitored them for cell phone use.) 

This is not the first time we've had an internet outage. (There was this time and this time that happened fairly recently.) I'm sure it won't be the last. 

Exhaustion, Grief, and Uncertainty

While perusing BlueSky, I happened upon this article: "From Aspiration to Action: Organizing Through Exhaustion, Grief, and Uncertainty", and I felt like it captured kind of what was on my mind. It's a long one, but it might resonate with you, too. 

So, last week, after my Tuesday post went live, I heard about the public comment opportunity for the restriction of COVID vaccines. As soon as I could, I amended last week's post to include the link. (I'd've included it in this week's post, but the deadline was Friday the 23rd.) As things like that might pop up again, I wanted to make you aware of the possibility. Most of this stuff I find on BlueSky, and when I see it I repost it. You can follow me there at: @zizirho.bsky.social. Things are more timely there, if you're looking to keep up. 

As I'm drafting this post, the budget bill that wants to take our money and kill us (I'm not exaggerating all that much) is making its way through Congress. Here's a list of some of the awful things it contains. (You don't have to subscribe to access the piece. Click on "no thanks" or whatever it says in small print at the bottom of the pop up.) 

Oppose the bill? Call your senators and reps to let them know. Even if they're all in for it, registering your displeasure lets them know that they're on thin ice. The more of us who are vocal pressures them. If they want to keep their jobs at the next election (assuming we have one), they might think twice about supporting things that their constituents are very much against. 

And we need to remind Congress that their job is a co-equal branch of government. They are supposed to check the power of the executive. Those in the opposition party need to gum up the works as much as possible. They've forgotten that, because they aren't doing it. We can remind them of this when we call or email. 

You heard about the firing of the Librarian of Congress, right? Here's a handy-dandy way to sign a petition urging Congress to act (as this is a legislative position). 

And for fun, I ran across someone soliciting Ransom Notes from the GOP. The link has the information. The idea is to create an old-style magazine-letter-clipped ransom note for our times. They're creating a publication. I wonder what people will come up with. 

Finish the Dragon!

I seem to be in a finishing kind of mood. The school year is just about over. I finished up that long term subbing assignment a week ago. I'm using up and throwing out all sorts of things that have been lingering around me for a while. 

And I finally finished that damn dragon! 

I have gathered the story of this piece as told on this blog into some handy dandy links: 

• Time to Start Over (1/22/24)
• Plotting and Planning (3/25/24)
• Grand Plans (4/8/24)
• Finally Starting Over (11/11/24)
• Learning Curve (11/18/24)
• Rawr: Or Redoing the Dragon (4/21/25)
• Xing Error (4/28/25)
• Two Rows (5/12/25)

But, as I'm sure you don't want to peruse all those, I can give you the story in brief. I got this idea to create a small dragon bag using the first swatch I made of this dragon. I only needed to knit a second one. Easy-peasy, right? 

I didn't even mention the thing on the blog until I ran into a snag. I made a couple glaring errors. And I realized the only way to fix it was to frog it. It took me ten months to get the time and mental energy to rip it all out and start over. 

Then, I whined about the molasses slow progress I made on it since November. Until two weeks ago. It occurred to me then that if I committed to knitting two rows on this thing a day, I could actually get it finished. 

Since today is day fourteen after I said I had fourteen two-row days to complete the dragon portion of the piece (not including the border stuff over the top of it), I think I can say small, doable goals were the way to go. 

As it turns out, I did not knit just two rows every day. I did a day of four rows. That had to do with a specific cable crossing that I couldn't leave half done. And the last five rows I did at one sitting as they weren't very complicated. (The last few rows got very simple as the dragon was finished off.) 

I finished all of that on Wednesday. On Saturday I finished off the rows above the dragon itself. 

And now I get to figure out how I want to turn this and the blue one into a tote bag. Or maybe I'll just sew them together and create a pillow? I'm not exactly sure. But I've got all the time to figure that out now. 

Three Weeks Notice

Friday. Eleventh grade English, eighth period. 

The kiddos had a quiz on The Great Gatsby chapters four through seven. As they walked in and asked what the plan for the day was, I told them this. Some of them were surprised. 

Emmitt: "You are required to give us three weeks notice before you give a quiz." 

Now, normally I'd push back on this. Say something snarky. Point out that pop quizzes were a thing. But I didn't have to. 

"I kind of actually did," I said. 

Another student: "She told us about it the first day she was here." 

Now, that was a bit of an exaggeration. I wouldn't say I mentioned it the first day. When we began the book, I outlined the plan. Quiz after chapter 3, quiz after chapter 7. Final on whole book (after I was out of the class). 

I can list all the times I mentioned that they had a quiz coming, but that might be a bit of overkill. Suffice it to say that I mentioned it a lot. 

And yet still, some of them were surprised. Well, I can only do what I can do.

Unexpected Sixth

Wednesday. Sixth period. And the class showed up... 

Sixth period is ELD. The English language development class. One of the major things that they had to do during my tenure in the class was to take the ELPAC. I couldn't give it, but I got questions from the students and from the counselors as to when the class would take it. 

Last week the assistant principal got back to me about it. He scheduled it for this week. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. He told me he would get back to me with more information, but he never did. He informed me that they would call the kiddos out of class, and there was nothing for me to do. Okay, then... 

Tuesday, I had four students in fifth period. (A few of them didn't have to take the test.) This was fine as I was expecting no class. I hadn't planned for them to do anything. (I had moved the plans for the day as ELPAC was to take priority.) 

But Wednesday, the kiddos showed up. They had been called out of class the previous day and had finished their test. 

Uh... 

Well, the actual lesson plan for the day was study hall. That's what Ms. A had originally scheduled. It was a "buffer day". She had put in an extra day just in case I got behind on Of Mice and Men. I hadn't. 

I had the next day's plan ready to go, though, too. So, I gave the kiddos the option. They could get the study hall day on Friday. They picked Wednesday. Fine by me. 

It would have been nice, though, if the assistant principal would have let me know that all the students would be tested on Tuesday. You know, so I could plan ahead. 

At least it's done. And as I get ready to leave this long-term assignment (when this post goes live, I'll have already left), it's good to know this major component did get completed. Even if I didn't have to do any of the actual work involved. 

Caught Red-Handed

Monday. Period four. We had finished up chapter six of The Great Gatsby in the last class period, so on this day they had an assignment analyzing quotes from the novel (chapters four through six). 

They had a similar assignment for chapters one through three. I was saddened as I read through their work. Their analyses were too good. Great word choice. Some insightful takes on the scenes. 

Yeah, that wasn't their work. 

Too many of them said the same thing. I didn't go back and check, but if I did, I know I would find that some papers were exactly the same. They talked of the themes in the novel. They hinted at things that were to come (that they hadn't read yet). I know they pulled answers from elsewhere. 

(Not everyone. Some clearly had done their own work.)

So, I pointed this out to period four as they began. 

I took a couple strolls around the room. Some of them were working. Some were not. 

Virgil was sucked into his phone. I sidled up behind him and glanced at what was on his phone. 

ChatGPT. 

Me: "You need to do your own work. Get off the ChatGPT." 

Virgil visibly startled. I don't think he heard me come up behind him. 

I remember reading Virgil's chapter one through three assignment. Him being on ChatGPT did not surprise me at all. 

He put the phone away. And then proceeded to do no work for the rest of the period. Deep sigh. 

No Kings

I'm going to change my little graphic up top. I won't get to it until school is out, and I'm not sure what it'll say, but I'm not doing any sort of "what to do" kind of posts. What I'm doing is ranting about what's going on. 

I aspire to "what to do". But right now I don't know. Besides advocating calling your reps and telling them that you don't like what's going on. And perhaps letting you know the next major protest is a "No Kings" thing scheduled for the day our petulant man-baby leader is throwing himself a military parade like all the despot dictators hold for themselves (that would be June 14th). 

Today I have a request. Does anyone know where to find a good article explaining how the most recent presidents did on the budget? 

On Saturday, I got into a yelling match with a MAGAt, and when I mentioned that the Repubs have basically tanked the budgets to get tax breaks for billionaires while the Dems mostly balanced things out, she attacked me (verbally), loudly proclaiming the opposite. (Fox News has rotted her brain.) Telling me that the deficit ballooned under Dem presidents. (Which it has, but that's a both sides thing.) 

I know there's something out there that breaks this down quite well, but I can't find it (and I don't have the time to go digging right now). If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it. 

Finally, I'll leave you with an article about how the U.S. is continuing its descent into villain territory. Now the ICC isn't safe in the U.S. (Because going after the people that investigate crimes against humanity is what we do now.) And an article on how those LLMs work. (That's what AI actually is.) 

• Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model

Take care of yourself. Stay safe. 

Quick Edit: They're talking about making COVID boosters only available to those over 65 or otherwise with risk factors. Everyone else would be out of luck. Public comments are open until Friday, May 23rd. Go here: public comments on COVID boosters. 

A Cable Swatch

On May 5th, I posted a picture of some of my swatching for my take-along project. My final image was of the beginning of the cabling swatch: 

I warned you that it didn't look like anything yet. And it didn't. I have now completed just over a pattern repeat, so now you can see what it's supposed to look like.

I kinda like it, kinda don't. Not sure what I'm going to do. The idea is to take four different cable patterns and do them in different colors. We'll see. I have to test it out and see how it all looks together first. 

It's something to work on. Until something better comes along. 

That Teen Attitude

Thursday. Third period.

It was a pause day in our reading of The Great Gatsby. The students had an assignment on various quotes from the book, and I was giving them the period to complete it. It was also some time for them to go over the chapters to prepare for an upcoming quiz. 

I had explained the assignment, solicited questions, and released them to work independently. The room settled. I took a quick walk around the room to make sure they knew I was available for questions. 

I passed behind Aria. She had a computer out, but propped on it was her phone. With a movie playing. Deep sigh. 

"Are you going to get to work?" I asked, in my sweetest, quietest voice. 

Aria turned towards me with a look of such malevolence that I was surprised her head did not continue all the way around in a full circle. 

This is the girl who complained that I didn't give them more in class time to complete a previous assignment. 

And so many of them had phones out and were clearly not working on the assignment. 

Ah well. I suppose they don't need class time to finish their work anymore. Fine by me. I'd rather spend time on the chapters, anyway.

Sideways

Tuesday. 

You ever have one of those days? Nothing wrong, exactly. It's not a bad day. But things just kinda feel off. 

First off, I was running late. (I ran late all week. Just tired. Even though I'd been sleeping.) When I got home and looked in the mirror, I realized I had forgotten to apply makeup before leaving for school. And I didn't even notice all day. Sigh. 

I start my day with the daily Wordle. I do this as I log into the computers (for this gig, I've been using three, daily... well, four if you count the in-class TV screen). And... Hole in one:

And you know my first reaction? "Damn it! Now I have to find a new starter word." (It's now "tenor". In case you're interested.) 

Just as I was coming to terms with that (and while I was eating a muffin), the assistant principal dropped in. (It was my prep period. I was kind of trying to sort of prep.) I did need to see him. 

I have two ELD classes. They have to take a test yearly called the ELPAC. A few of them really need to take it so they can reclassify. (They'd be considered "fluent" in English, so they would no longer need to take an ELD class.) I can't give it because sub, so I have to coordinate with another teacher to get it done. 

The assistant principal came by to discuss when we'd get this done. He proposed doing it Wednesday/Thursday. But, long story short, that fell through as the teacher who would have done it then was actually out on Tuesday, so he couldn't coordinate anything. Naturally. 

I went back to getting prepped for the day. I looked over the next quiz the eleventh graders would take on The Great Gatsby. And as I read through it, I discovered that there are questions on it that I have not covered. Stuff like symbolism. And... Yeah, probably should mention some of this stuff so the quiz doesn't take them by surprise. 

It's always something. I suppose I should have realized that things were going too smoothly. I had to be missing something. Hopefully I found most of the issues. 

No Spoilers

Monday. Seventh period. 

It was the end of the period. The kiddos had put away their Chromebooks and were lining up at the door. 

Elliot: "Oh my god! Chapter seven..."

The eleventh grade English classes are reading The Great Gatsby. I may have mentioned this once or twice. On Monday, they had a quiz on the first three chapters. And then we started reading chapter four together. 

However, some students are reading ahead. I'm not sure why as we will be reading the whole thing together, but whatever. I'm not going to stop them. 

Elliot's been a chapter or so ahead for over a week. He was kind of bragging how far ahead he was. But this day, he was blown away by the events of chapter seven. 

And... Well... Yeah. I'm not giving spoilers for those of you who may be tempted to read it. But here's a link to the chapter summary for those of you who would like a reminder or aren't worried about spoilers. Anyway, chapter seven is a humdinger of a chapter. 

I nodded in understanding. Dennis, who sits next to Elliot, was also a bit blown away, as he said he looked over at what Elliot was reading. Elliot pointed out that Dennis really needed to read the prior chapters as they set the scene for chapter seven. 

"Just don't spoil it for the rest of the class, please," I asked. 

Elliot: "Oh no. I want to see their reaction when they read it." 

Me too, actually. 

Although, considering how bland their expressions are, I rather think they won't visibly react. We'll see. 

As for the quiz, they did pretty well. So, maybe they're not reacting, but it seems like they're following along with the plot just fine. 

Information Is Key

There are some people we can't reach. These people are fully in the cult. No matter what arguments we make, they'll still believe the lies of the regime. In fact, they might actually approve of what the regime is doing. 

And yet, it seems like in general, they seem to be the ones that get targeted by all the memes and arguments and media. 

We forget that there are so many people who just don't want to get political. The low-information voters. And the mass media has downplayed and normalized all the horrors. These are the people we need to reach. Because they don't realize how bad things truly are. 

And things are bad. ICE arrested a sitting mayor and disappeared him. A woman who was arrested for writing an op ed (and denied her asthma medication, so she was in severe respiratory distress) was finally released, but only after hard fighting to get her out. RFK Jr wants to create a list of autistic people (and why would the government want a list like that?). The regime is ignoring judicial orders. And that's just the things I can think of off the top of my head. 

So, what should we do? 

Well, first, call your reps and register your opposition to them cutting Medicaid. Then, don't help the regime make any lists. Be aware of where ICE is in your community, and if you see them kidnapping people, do what you can to impede them. (I know, some will only get themselves kidnapped too, so only what you can safely do.) 

Finally, I'm including last week's Last Week Tonight (just because)... 

...and a video that popped up on my BlueSky feed. It'll be interesting to see who agrees and who is offended by this one. 

Take care of yourself. Take care of your community. Stay safe. 

Two Rows

The last time I mentioned my dragon swatch was in April: 

And I pretty much hadn't worked on it since. There's just something about how complicated it is that stalls me out. I feel like I should have a couple hours of time to just sit and knit before I'll even contemplate pulling it out. 

So, last Sunday, after spending the day busy (with laundry and blog writing and such), I again found myself in the evening hours without having pulled out the dragon even though I wanted to. And so I told myself, "Just two rows." I could do just two rows. And I did. 

At that moment, I determined that I could do two rows a day. It's not much, but it's way better than the nothing I've been doing. 

So, before my two rows for yesterday: 

Progress. Definite progress. 

I counted. I've got 14 more "two rows" days to complete the dragon. (There are a few rows of straight stockinette stitch to form the border. I'm not counting those as I don't have to focus on them.) This is doable. 

(I'm not going to say it'll take me 14 days as Saturdays I'm busy elsewhere, so I won't commit to the two rows that day. And there's the possibility that a day might get away from me.) 

I'm getting there. Finally. I've been working on this thing off and on for two years now. Two years? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been two years. 

Missed a Step

Friday. Sixth period. 

This is the ninth grade ELD class (English language development), and they're reading Of Mice and Men. Friday, it was chapter five. 

In case you are unfamiliar, chapter five is where Lennie does a bad, bad thing... 

I mean, perhaps I could have warned them. But nah. More of an impact if they don't see it coming. 

After we finished reading the chapter, they had questions to answer. Like a prepared teacher, I had set up the assignment before class. I added it to their Google Classroom. I didn't release the assignment until after we finished doing the reading, as I had done for chapters one through four. 

They got to work. But then, a hand... 

"I can't type on the assignment..." 

And I instantly knew what had happened. 

When one uploads an assignment, one "attaches" it to the specific assignment. Then, one has a choice of selections. Either the uploaded doc can be "viewed", "edited", or "make a copy for each student". The correct answer is "make a copy for each student". That way, each student gets their very own digital copy that they can modify in any way, like by adding their answers to the questions. 

Sure enough, I had not chosen "make a copy for each student". 

There are like a dozen choices one must make when uploading an assignment. Points. Due date. Title. Instructions. Attach the assignment. And others. I try to be very careful when doing this as to not miss a step. But sometimes... 

The worst part? I can't go in and edit it to make a copy. The only thing I can do is delete the assignment and reupload a new one. (Yes, I found this out the hard way.) 

Well, it wasn't like anyone had started the assignment, anyway. They couldn't. They couldn't type on it. 

Now, do I forewarn them about chapter six? Of course not. Better if they don't see it coming... 

The Giggles

Wednesday. Eighth period. 

We were reading chapter three of The Great Gatsby. Or, rather, I had put on audio of the book while they followed along with the narrator. And every so often I'd pause the reading to comment on something that I thought they'd miss otherwise. 

Some things I know they didn't know, like when a character mentions that the pages of some books weren't cut. I didn't know that people would cut open pages while reading books back in the day, so I knew they didn't know that. 

And then there was the car accident scene. 

It's pretty clear on the page what is happening. A very drunk driver hit a wall and his car was so badly damaged a wheel was sheared from the car. No longer drivable. But the driver was so drunk that no one could get him to understand this. 

I mean, terrible scene and all, but the way it's written I find extremely funny. I assume that was the intent. 

But, the way it was written, one has to be paying attention, and one has to infer some things that aren't explicitly on the page. And teenagers? Yeah, most aren't following that closely. 

Every period I made sure to stop and point out what was happening. I know they weren't getting it as I heard no chuckles. No snorts. No intimation that anyone was laughing. I mean, these kiddos don't react much at all, but even correcting for this, there was still no way they were getting it. 

Then, eighth period, my fourth time through the scene, I broke. We read through...

"Wha's matter?" he inquired calmly. "Did we run outa gas?"

"Look!"

Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel—he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.

"It came off," some one explained.

He nodded.

"At first I din' notice we'd stopped."

A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarked in a determined voice:

"Wonder'ff tell me where there's a gas'line station?"

At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond.

"Back out," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse."

"But the wheel's off!"

He hesitated.

"No harm in trying," he said.

And it was the "wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond" that got me. I was explaining, and I couldn't hold it any longer. I began to laugh. And then the laughter just took over. I couldn't stop. 

I've had moments where something struck me as so funny I couldn't stop laughing. Usually I'm alone. Sometimes I'm with others who find it just as funny. This time? Yeah, all of them looked at me like I'd lost my mind. 

So, I hit play on the audio while I got the giggles out. A joke explained is a joke lost. Even if they didn't find it funny, at least I was able to convey that the guy was so drunk he didn't understand what was going on. I hope. 

At least I'm enjoying the book. They aren't. I mean, they're really too young. So many of the nuances of the story you can't really get until you've lived a bit. 

You'd get it. You might be surprised at how much better the book is when you've experienced more of life than a teenager has. 

Modern Video Problems

Tuesday. Third period. 

Upon finishing reading chapter three of The Great Gatsby, we were to watch the scene from the 2013 movie version. 

This was in the lesson plans. I saw it weeks before. So, like any prepared teacher, I set about making sure I had what I needed to get this done. Because technology wasn't going to make this easy for me. 

The movie was on Netflix. Was. But, alas, since Ms. A had found it there, it had been removed, for when I went to look for it, it was gone. And it wasn't streaming anywhere else. (If you ever want to know where some movie is streaming, just search it up on IMDb.com. It lists it there on the first page.) 

Ms. A had it on DVD. But, no one has a DVD player any longer. I have a teacher computer. No DVD player in it. (The old, out-of-date computers have DVD players in them, but they don't work all that well. And I couldn't get a hold of one.) I called the library to see if they still had a player (as I had heard that they were getting rid of theirs). They did. But, it didn't have a cable that would connect to the in-class TV. (It had the RCA connector, not the HDMI cable that the TV has connections for.) 

I looked on YouTube and found some video clips of the movie. That were heavily edited and not very long. Sigh. 

After discussing it with another teacher, Ms. K, the co-teacher, bought a digital copy on Amazon. Phew. Problem solved. 

So, it was Wednesday, the day to show the video. We were on a shortened schedule for state testing. The audio for the chapter took about a half hour. 

But, I stop. And discuss. So, even shortening my discussion because I knew it was going to be a time crunch, we finished reading with about ten minutes left in class. The video clip was ten minutes long. Close, but I could make it. 

I went to play the video... 

It worked just fine. On my computer. The projection? They could hear, but they could not see. Deep sigh. 

I did not have time to troubleshoot. (I saw it worked on my computer and hadn't bothered to make sure it projected.) I had a YouTube clip to show to finish out the period, but that was all I could do. And since I wasn't going to have time for the other classes, I took my time stopping and discussing with them. 

But Ms. A wanted the clip shown, so it was time to figure it out. 

I know five ways to connect the computer to the TV screen. The way I was using wouldn't show the video. I knew another way that would show the video, but it was jerky. Not smooth. I managed to scrounge an HDMI cable, but when I found the cable, I also found a wireless display adapter. But it wasn't connected. 

Luckily, I had kept a copy of the instructions on how to connect the thing in my files. Still, it took me 45 minutes to get it to work. Sigh. (And then it turned out there was an easier way that I figured out two days later.) 

The good news: it worked. Finally. 

When I went to show the video the next day, it played. And I watched as they watched it. So, success. Eventually. 

It's always something. 

School Choice

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 😉

Yes, I know, an actual "what if?" post. A question occurred to me (for no reason whatsoever), and I thought I might as well post it: 

What if every child was required to attend a public school? (Specifically, private schools would no longer be allowed.) 

Keeping My Hands Busy

I took this yarn... 

...that I blogged about almost a month ago, and I began swatching. Then I knit a garter stitch bottom and attached a moss stitch kind of border... 

...but while taking this picture, I measured this against the tote bag. It'll stretch, but it's smaller than I anticipated. I think I need to rip this whole thing out and start again. 

I don't really have any good project ideas. And I need a take along project for Saturdays. So, this is it for now. Since I don't actually have need for this thing, it can take as long as it takes. Or until I find something else to work on. 

At some point, I'll switch yarns and patterns, so I swatched a cable pattern that may or may not end up on this. 

I'm not even at half a pattern repeat yet, so it doesn't look like anything. But that's okay. I'm playing right now. Just seeing what'll work. 

I may get a project out of this. I may set it all aside and do something else. But it's something to keep my hands busy. For that, it's working perfectly. 

Make Work

Last week we started our annual state testing. (This week we'll finish it up.) I explained the schedule on Wednesday. As I mentioned yesterday, what this meant for me was that I had two hours of "free" time to get some things accomplished. Which meant some things got done that I might not have gotten to otherwise...

Before spring break, the eleventh grade classes did a whole lot of anticipatory stuff for reading The Great Gatsby. We talked about the 1920s. They read about the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. And they had a couple videos to watch. 

I had them take notes. And then I gave them points for taking the notes (mostly because I expected that they'd ignore the material and spend the time on their phones if I didn't). Or, rather, I gave them points for the first day of notes, but for the rest of them I wasn't going to bother. Because it was practically spring break. 

Thursday. Jocelyn had to go home early. She came to class briefly to find out what the assignment was going to be. She got the title of the video so she could watch it and turn in the notes so she wouldn't miss any assignments. 

I would have told her not to bother, but she did this so fast. Mostly, what I was concerned about was that the video, a biography on F. Scott Fitzgerald, briefly discussed The Great Gatsby including how it ended. This part I skipped over while showing it in class (as we didn't want spoilers before reading the book), but how did I explain this to Jocelyn? 

When I wrote last week's blog post mentioning the video, I looked it up, searching for it rather than clicking on the link Ms. A left. And, surprisingly, the first video to pop up on YouTube is without spoiler. Someone edited it out! Meaning, Jocelyn most likely saw the version without the spoiler. Big Whew!

Then, on Friday, during eighth period, I informed them they'd need to take notes...

Evan: "I'm not going to take notes. You're not going to grade them." 

Yeah, so now I have to grade them. 

So, when all this time opened up this week, the first thing I did was to grade all the notes from before spring break. 

Because, seriously? I'm pretty easy going most of the time, but when someone challenges me like that? Don't tell me I'm not going to do something. I will so do that thing. 

Settling into the Long Term 13

Now that I've kind of settled into this long-term English assignment, I find that I have a lot of things I want to mention, but none have really risen to being the point of a whole blog post. So, I believe it's time for a Thursday 13, Ms. A's English class long-term sub edition. 

One

I mentioned that I have a lot of familiar faces in these classes. A few of them have made the blog before. Considering how things are going, I don't expect they'll do anything blog-worthy before this assignment ends, so I wanted to mention them. 

First off, I've got Lou again. Remember Lou? They (not sure what pronoun they're using at the moment) are in eighth period and they're still, well, like freshman year. But they seem to still like me, so they're not making things hard for me. 

Xerxes is in seventh period, but he's been absent a whole lot. (My naming convention is their blog alias starts with the same letter, usually. So, you know what his name actually is. Unless it's that other X boys name.) 

And Marta, although she's been very under the radar for me now.

There are several others who weren't given blog aliases, but I'm pretty sure I mentioned them. Tracking down those posts, however... 

Two

Last week we started state testing. Or, I should say, "they". They don't let subs proctor the tests. We're "supervision" for students who don't need to show up early, but do. I've had lots of time to get caught up on things. (See tomorrow's post.) 

Three

The eleventh graders (who have to do the state tests) have been reading The Great Gatsby. Which I have taught twice before. Once for this teacher and once for another eleventh grade teacher at the same school (so they use the same assignments). It makes prepping really easy as I don't have to do anything much but make sure things are ready to go. 

Four

Alas, when I go to discuss various aspects of the text, I get lots of blank stares. Sigh. One thing I am terrible at is selecting a student to answer my questions. I don't want to pick on anyone (as no one is behaving in such a way that I need to call them out), but I do want someone to answer. This is why teachers have pull cards. 

Five

As Ms. A doesn't have pull cards, I thought I'd make some. Just to randomize who I call on. But, lazy. So, it occurred to me that there has to be a computerized way (much like a random number generator) to do this. And, it turns out, there is. I searched online, and I found a couple different ways it could work. But then...

It turns out that Google Classroom has a randomizer built in. And... OMG! I love this thing. Two weeks ago I had no idea this existed, and now I'm absolutely obsessed. I can pull it up on my phone. I open it up, and a student's name appears. I can then hit "next" and I can call on another student. Best. Thing. Ever.

Six

I decided that I wasn't going to do any work over spring break. And then I broke that vow. I did some "lesson planning". Not really, though. I went looking for a back up assignment in case Ms. A didn't fill in what short stories she wanted the tenth graders to read. And then I wanted to "pretty up" the slides I was using with the eleventh graders for The Great Gatsby. (I put links to the audio from YouTube in one place so I didn't have to search it out every day.) I even found some video clips of the 2013 movie for a couple parts of the book. 

Seven

And then I didn't need any of it. Not a bit. Ms. A came through with lesson plans for the tenth graders. The co-teacher, Ms. K found a digital copy of the movie. And all the time during testing time gave me enough time to "pretty up" The Great Gatsby slides. (What I had done over the break looked terrible. I redid them, and they came out better.) 

Eight

Remember when my school bag broke? I finally purchased a replacement. 

Nine

Ms. A actually stopped by campus. To pick up boxes. Not only does she have a newborn (who she brought with her), but now she's moving. At least she's still on leave...

Ten

My co-teacher, Ms. K, used to work at a different high school (for LAUSD). That my father worked at. Turns out, her father worked at the same high school at the time my father worked there. Teaching can be a small world. 

Eleven

I can't keep the periods straight. I blame this on having the first block as conference period. I keep thinking third period is first and fourth period is second. And then I can't keep track of whether fifth period or sixth period is the ninth graders. I keep saying wrong period numbers and mixing up my days. Somehow, I haven't started teaching the wrong thing, but it's a close thing. 

Twelve

The above being said, I don't like third period very much. But seventh period I enjoy. And the even day is a little weird, but in a good way. I think part of this is me making all my mistakes in third period (the first time I'm teaching the lesson). And just having it down for the second day. (Block schedules mean it takes two days to get through all the classes.)

Thirteen

Reading chapter two of Gatsby, period three was all blank stares. Then period seven actually seemed to get it. It was quite funny to listen to them discuss what we had read (while they were doing the assigned work after we finished reading for the day). It's classes like that that make the whole thing worthwhile. (I haven't gotten to the even classes for this lesson yet. Odd classes were on Friday, so the even classes have the same lesson on Monday. Block schedule means some weeks start on an even day, some weeks start odd.)