The Gardener

Friday. High school art. Seventh period.

It had been a fairly mellow day. The students had projects to finish. Most weren't, but they were chilled out on their Chromebooks. (As the following week was finals week, and final grades would be due in a week, I figured they were either done with their work or they had given up. As long as they didn't disturb the handful of kiddos who were clearly on task, I wasn't terribly concerned.) 

And that is how seventh period started. 

But, about 45 minutes into class (we're on a block schedule with 90-minute periods, so this was halfway through class), Ashton, a boy seated right in front of me, decided he needed to talk to the boy in front of him. He called him "BJ" but then changed that to "blowjob", informing me that was really his name. 

(While the boy's name did start with a B, neither his middle initial nor his last name started with a J. Nor was his name something like Benjamin, which would have made sense being abbreviated to BJ.) 

The boy ignored him, so Ashton got louder. 

When I stepped in, Ashton suddenly had to do his art project. He "needed" a leaf from outside. Fine, then. Go and get a leaf. 

Five minutes later, Ashton attempted to bring in a branch that was taller than him and about as wide. When I reacted as one would expect, he couldn't understand why I wouldn't allow him to bring this into class. 

He left only to return with part of the branch that he had pulled off of it. Still rather large. Not the leaf that he claimed to need. 

(His seat partner was with him, but he brought back a leaf and a flower and things that were more appropriately sized.)

Ashton kept getting up to go outside to get something else, and kept returning with branches. Huge ones. He put them on the desk of the girl behind him (until I told him to put his mess on his own desk) and he could not fathom why I was not pleased with what he was doing. 

Did he attempt to sketch what he had brought in the classroom? Of course not.

Ashton eventually cleaned up his mess, leaving most of what he collected in the trashcan right outside the door. 

And it was a mess. 

Not all ended up in the trash, though.

You can't really tell from the photos, but he had left leaves and other debris all over the ground there. 

The plant destruction wasn't great, but after class the teacher next door said that the tree really, really needed a trim, so this was a great excuse for him to use to complain to site maintenance. 

(I took all those pictures while talking to Mr. A.) 

I think Ashton thought he was funny. But on the bright side, this was a high school class. If I had had middle schoolers, I would have had bedlam. But, high schoolers? They barely reacted to all of this. (Which is probably why Ashton kept going bigger and bigger, hoping for a reaction from them.) 

Surprise Fire Drill

Wednesday. Economics, special ed. First period. 

This was Mr. B's class, a class I'd done a long-term stint in two years ago when Mr. B was out recovering from surgery. So, I wasn't terribly surprised to find no written plans, only an agenda on the board along with three folders each labeled with a class period. 

The agenda on the board said finals. I assumed the work in the folders were their finals. Okay, then.

Class started. I passed out the finals. I recognized about half the students as ones who had been in the special ed class I covered long term this past February/March. 

They got to work. 

A half hour later, the fire alarm went off. It was not until that moment that I recalled that there was a fire drill scheduled. I had seen the reminder email the previous week and promptly forgotten about it. 

(Usually, the front office informs subs of drills when we check in. And usually the teacher makes mention of it in the lesson plans. Neither of which happened on this day.) 

So, I announced that it was a fire drill. They needed to leave their work and evacuate. 

And that's when a student, Edgar, grabbed the signage we use for fire drills and asked where the emergency backpack was. He led us to where we were supposed to line up, and he held out the green sign (for "everyone's present, no issues") once I informed him that I had accounted for all the students in the class (all seven of them). 

Well, that was painless. 

I hate fire drills. Besides being an interruption, usually it's a matter of corralling students and dealing with the crazy that the interruption starts. This time? None of that. 

We got back to the classroom, and they went back to work. (They all managed to finish the final before the end of the period.)

If only every fire drill I have to do goes like that, I wouldn't hate them so much. Very nice. 

Distractions

Monday. Senior government, seventh period. 

In the lesson plans Ms. P warned me about Lou. But, I know Lou. Have since their freshman year. (Not sure what pronouns they're using at the moment, so let's leave them general.) I have written about Lou before: freshman English, success, junior English, and I'm sure there are other posts I can't locate at the moment. 

Lou's now a senior... Oh my, how time flies. 

So, of course Lou has matured and is no longer a problem? Of course not. 

Lou arrived just at the bell. I tried to get their attention, but they didn't even seem to notice me. Sigh. I guess out-of-sight, out-of-mind. It had been a while since I'd seen them. 

Ms. P had given her usual sub assignment which was questions on the chapter. She has her classes do packets of work, so I knew I didn't have to collect anything. Lou took one look at the assignment and declared, "I'm not doing all of that." Okay, then. 

First distraction, Lucia. Lucia had samples of honey that she was sharing with the class. She had gotten the honey from Mexico (I guess a family member cultivates bees, or something), and she was asking how everyone liked it. Lou? Hated it. Vociferously. 

Then Lou bounced over to Lilith. She had beaded bracelets all laid out on her desk. Lou went shopping. But, alas, Lou had no money. So, Lou called out to Asher. Asher would give them the money. 

And so began a back-and-forth. Asher said he had no money. Asher asked when Lou would pay him back for the last time Asher had lent Lou money. Lou admitted that they'd never pay Asher back. 

And Lilith? Lou tried to haggle down the price of things. I jumped in to state that handmade goods were worth the price, and if Lou wanted the bracelets, Lou should pay what they're worth. 

Lou complained that they wanted them for a Christmas present for their girlfriend. 

Eventually Asher relented, and Lou acquired a couple bracelets, but not as many as they wanted. 

Lou finally settled, getting a computer and settling down to watch some movie or other. The work? Yeah, they stated they weren't going to do it, and they didn't. 

Sigh. 

I communicated all this to Ms. P. She wasn't surprised. 

Nor was I, really. 

Lou's a senior now. If they don't do the work, if they don't earn all the needed credits, they won't graduate. We'll see. 

The Nero Decree

When I was trying to figure out what I was going to talk about today, I went over to Bluesky to jumpstart my brain. I ran into this post: 

Link to post

And I thought he said this way better than I could, so I thought I'd share the thread. 

Link to article

Link to article

These are the things that worry me. I'm not the only one who worries about this, am I?

Not Worth the Effort

After avoiding it for a week, I finally sat down to bind off the front and back of eldest nephew's sweater. It went about as I expected. That is, badly. 

I had bound off maybe a dozen stitches when I decided to reevaluate. 

Reminder: tubular bind off is basically Kitchener stitch, which is grafting stitches together. I'm sewing them, not actually knitting. 

So, to get the dozen stitches bound off took a while. And as I examined what I had done, well, it didn't look good. (That's my big issue with Kitchener--I can never get the grafting to graft. It does not look like seamless knitting when I do it.) Plus, it didn't stretch that far. 

At which point I was done. My stretchy bind-off would be way quicker, actually stretchy, and it would look good. 

That meant that I had to undo the dozen stitches I'd bound off. This wasn't knitting, so I had to unstitch each stitch. Then, I had to unravel the last row of knitting as that row was preparation for the tubular bind off. This all took a while.

And then binding off took basically no time at all for both the front and the back. If only I had started there... 

But, bright side, when I finish the sleeves, I won't do all those extra steps. That'll make it easier. 

And my bind off looks like this: 

The other bind-off? Not worth the effort. This looks fine.

I'm at crunch time. Christmas is in 10 days. Will I finish the sweater in time? (The answer is no. This is not getting finished in time. Deep sigh.) 

Sweater Tracking:

• Starting the Sweater
• Getting to the Back
• Missed Deadline
• Distractions from Knitting
• A Month Late
• Inching Along
• Tracking the Growth
• Weekly Sweater Update
• Moving Right Along
• Good Progress
• Almost to the Interesting Part
• Plot Twist

Issues of the Day

Friday. BEST. 

(I finally found out what the acronym stands for. Behavioral and Emotional Support Teacher. It was driving me crazy not knowing, and now I do. Phew.) 

Small class, but it has to be as the students need extra support. Academically they're at grade level, but emotionally, not so much. 

We were warned early on that it might not be a good day for Gavin. The previous night he had switched foster homes, so we weren't sure if it was going to be a good day or a bad day for him. 

Gavin started off okay, but by the second period, he and his friend were disappearing from class (not bothering to ask permission or even inform anyone of where they were going) and returning only to go out again. (Eventually we learned they were going in search of snacks.) 

It all came to a head when Gavin took something from the instructional aide (a ski mask) and wouldn't return it. This was when Gavin was sent to the principal's office and he did not return. 

And then there was Dennis. 

As it was Friday, it was make up work day. Dennis had one assignment to make up, and then he pulled out his PlayStation. 

Mr. T had told me that if they were finished, they could play games or watch a movie. It was kind of a reward for getting through the week. No worries, then. 

Dennis logged into his account only to find he had been suspended. For a year. 

I threw out some ideas as to what the suspension could have been for as the notification did not specify. Dennis had to do some searching to figure it out.

He had been suspended for pornography. Which was confusing to him as he had not done anything that would qualify as pornography. He complained that he was fourteen, there was nothing he could have done to warrant that. 

Now, there have been days and students and situations where I'd say that the kiddo clearly did something that was a problem. For Dennis? Nope. I believe him when he says that he did nothing wrong. 

He tried to find a way to appeal the decision, but he couldn't get in contact with a human. As he went through that, he figured out what must have happened. He had reported a fellow player for bullying him. He figured that that player had falsely reported him as retaliation. 

That tracks. 

Dennis did not get his account restored. Instead, we started a movie and another student requested a board game that Dennis joined. (Monopoly.) And that was the day. 

Not too terrible of a day. And I had two instructional assistants who were able to keep things on track. 

Contraband Chips

Thursday. Spanish 1. Seventh period. 

(This was the same day as yesterday's post. I covered an extra period. Two doors down from the French class.) 

Because Spanish 1, the class was mostly freshmen, and it took some time to get them into the room and into their assigned seats. (I had a seating chart with their pictures.) But then, once they knew what they were supposed to do, they got to work. 

The room was quiet. They were all making a good pretense of working. That's when the assistant principal walked in the room. I looked over, and there was the drug sniffing dog. 

I knew the drill...

We all exited the room. I was the last one out. The students were chatting, as they do.

One girl was in a near panic. Her friend explained...

"She's worried that they're going to find her chips." 

Chips? Unless they were laced with marijuana, no one was going to care if she had chips in her backpack. 

This I did not say. I did say that they weren't looking for food. I assured the girl that her chips were safe. 

Seriously, I'm sure half the students in that room had some sort of food in their backpacks. (They'll pull it out during class time.) 

The assistant principal and dog and dog handler and counselor all exited the room. They let us back in.

The dog hadn't found anything. 

I'm not sure if I was surprised or not. I mean, I wasn't surprised the dog hadn't noticed the chips. But freshmen? I wouldn't have been shocked if they had found drugs. But it was good they didn't.