All Excuses

Friday. Period three, study skills.

Study skills is just a fancy way of saying study hall. I mean, technically the teacher is supposed to have curriculum that teaches skills for studying, but most of the kiddos who really want that are in AVID or success. (Or even if they don't but have someone urging them in that direction.) Study skills is the special ed equivalent, and most of the time, the teacher gives them time to work on missing assignments. 

This is a very long-winded way of saying that I had a class that had nothing to do. They were allowed to be on their phones once they were done with all their work. They were done with all their work. 

Except...

I had an instructional assistant, and she warned me of Nick. In semester one, Nick had claimed that he was doing all his work and he had no homework. Alas, his semester grades showed these claims to be lies. Miss B no longer trusted him. 

Miss B then told me that Nick would have many excuses. His work would be on paper, but the paper would be at home. And as it was homework, he'd do it at home. 

Nick arrived. Miss B asked him what he had to work on. He told her he didn't have anything. But Miss B wasn't having that.

It came out that Nick had some maps to complete for his history class, but he had left the papers at home. Miss B sent him to his teacher to get another copy. Upon his return, Miss B sent him to his math teacher to get work from her. 

And then, while he was out, I got a call from the speech therapist. Nick was needed for speech therapy. 

Naturally. 

Miss B set up his computer so the map he'd need was on the screen. She made sure he had everything he needed to complete his work. And when he returned, he did work. Kind of. 

I looked down at his map of the Middle East, and on the Arabian Peninsula he had written "France". He did get Africa and Asia in the right places, though. (My knowledge of geography is pretty terrible, but I can locate France.) 

When I pointed out where various of the list of places he needed to label were, he immediately wrote those down. But he was slow walking the looking up and figuring out where the places were on his own. I wasn't going to do it for him, so I walked away.

If you want to get something done, you find a way. If you don't, you find an excuse. Nick was all about the excuses. Sigh. 

One would hope that at some point he'll want good grades. Until then, he's going to fight us about doing his work. 

He's young. He may grow out of it.