Monday of the last week of school. Eighth grade English, co-taught. Fourth period.
The eighth graders were done. Their grades had been submitted the prior Friday. Eighth grade promotion activities started Tuesday. So, the lesson for the day was a streamed movie.
As it was a co-taught class, Ms. R was there. (I was subbing for the special ed teacher.) And she was really done with them. She wasn't going to permit them to sit next to their friends, but she was going to permit them to sign yearbooks.
After going over the agenda for the rest of the week (she made sure to stress that the quicker they followed directions on Tuesday, the quicker they could be done with promotion practice), she put on the movie.
A boy pulled out a red Sharpie...
The kiddos are not allowed to bring Sharpies to school. The kiddos have not made good choices with regards to where they write with that permanent ink marker.
Ms. R, exasperated, reminded the kiddos that she had spent a lot of time at the beginning of the year warning them about having Sharpies at school. She was not in the mood to deal with it, though, so she told the boy to put it away.
He explained that he brought it so that people could autograph his shirt.
Okay, I might need to back up here a bit. It was tradition in my elementary school, and likely many of the elementary schools in the area, that on the last day of school, the sixth graders got to wear a white t-shirt that everyone could sign. I still have mine. Someplace.
He was in a white t-shirt. In fact, there was a good portion of the class that were in white t-shirts that had various writings on them. (This is the first time I've seen it in the middle school.) Okay, then...
So, people were signing shirts. A few of them had yearbooks, but more had shirts. (They were complaining about the price of the full-color, hardcover yearbooks. Their yearbooks were much nicer than my junior high yearbooks were.)
I mean, it is a Title I school. I'm sure some couldn't afford the yearbooks.
Yearbook prices are crazy! Especially High School.
ReplyDeleteLast year the elementary where my son works had yearbooks, $20. There is a pile still left out for free. It was a standard yearbook, individual photos with names, hardcover. This year they went with soft cover, not individual photos but classroom shots of the students doing things, field trips, school events, fun stuff. Much more interesting for the students. And they were FREE! It's a Title 1 school too.
ReplyDeleteThe tradition of autographing on t-shirts is interesting. That's not common here, or at least not during my time. Here autographing is more common after, what we refer to as, higher secondary school, which in the US is high school. And there are "autograph books/albums" available for this, at least during my time.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of this, but why not? I would want different colors of pens though…
ReplyDelete