Not Going Anywhere

The big internet issue has been resolved, but the new company is waaaaay sloooower than the old company, so I'm feeling my way along with this new normal. Ah well... 

Last week was the penultimate week of school, which can be an odd time at the continuation high school. The kiddos are either frantically trying to get those last couple credits finished, or they've given up for the year.

So, rather than fight this, Mr. M gave them a project to work on. They were to plan a backpacking trip through Europe. 14 days. 5 cities. Everything else was open to their choices. They could choose which cities, how long to stay in each city, and what they wanted to do there. And they needed to figure out how much it would cost.

They were to submit (online) a Google map with their cities marked. They had to do a write up of what they'd see. It would entail a lot of research online (and not a lot of lecture from the teacher).

Cool assignment, right?

Mr. M warned me some weren't doing it. Which is normal for the continuation high school.

One boy, who had done no work all period, claimed he was already done. (They had been working on it for a couple days already.)

Me: Okay, cool. Where are you going?

Boy: To Europe.

Me: Yes, I know. Which five cities did you choose?

Boy: Ones in Europe.

Me: Which ones?

Boy: Um... France.

Ahem.

On the one hand, I wasn't surprised that he hadn't done the assignment. They frequently claim they're done when, in fact, they haven't even started. But I did expect a better bluff. I mean, can't you just name five random European cities off the top of your head?

This was a geography class... (Well, and world history, depending on the period.)

So, quiz time. In the comments, name five random European cities. I won't even ask you to list the five you'd visit if you were planning a trip.

Better to Ask Permission

It was 7th period at the continuation high school. The bell rang. One boy stood at the door, looking out.

I urged the boy to sit down. It was time to get class started. He informed me that he didn't feel like sitting. So, I went over and closed the door.

(That was only half about him. I had the air conditioning on. I leave the door open between classes to urge the students to come in, but once class starts, I want to keep the cool air in.)

I passed out the assignment. I turned to the class to explain what they were to do, and the boy walked out.

Um... Okay...

After explaining what they were to do, I called roll. When I called the name Nathan, someone informed me that was the name of the boy who had left. Okay. I had a name. But I was marking him absent, because he wasn't in class and didn't have permission to be gone.

About a half hour later, Nathan returned. With the assignment. Not complete, because he hadn't been in class to get the instruction as to what all needed to be done.

I asked him where he went. He told me that he went to work in another class. Why? Because he didn't feel like being in the room we were in. (He might have been irritated with me.)

Have you heard the expression: it's better to ask forgiveness than permission? It seems like there's a lot of that going on at the continuation high school lately.

But it doesn't work there. Because, if he had asked to work in a different room, I probably would have let him. I did, in fact, give permission for five different students to work in different rooms that day. Each one of them asked to go.

Nathan? I informed the office about what happened, and he was marked as cutting class that period. Because, in this case, it is much better to ask permission.

Match Interrupted

Surprisingly, we got through the assigned reading. (I didn't expect these boys to be all that helpful, but they actually were!) The rest of the assignment was to do some questions as a class.

Number one was a long answer. I read the question, pointed out where the answer was, and then went to the teacher's desk to deal with the roll while they wrote down that answer.

The teacher had his own rosters, but I had rosters I had to turn in to the office for attendance. I only took roll on one, then transferred the information to the other when I got a spare moment. This was my spare moment. It took maybe a minute. I returned to the front of the room...

Two students had positioned themselves on the same chair. Arms linked. Elbows on table. An arm wrestling match about to begin.

The rest of the class watched, cell phones out and set to record.

I don't often yell. It does no good. I may get a momentary lull in crazy, but then the crazy comes back only worse.

But still, I lost it. I think I said, "Oh, no, you don't!" I said something about phones. Yelling was involved.

The tirade is probably posted on YouTube somewhere. But not much of it, because those phones got put away quickly. And the arm wrestling match did not happen.

I turn around for one minute...

Fight Talk

They started off describing the time they got arrested in Redondo Beach. Then the conversation veered into fighting--who they beat up, when, and whether they "won".

I know this because I heard every word. So did most of the school, I'd imagine. Probably the elementary school across the street heard it as well.

I knew I wasn't going to get any work out of them. (I suppose I could have tried harder...) I asked the boys to take their volume down. They didn't have to project their voices quite so much. The room wasn't that large, and they were sitting next to each other.

This, of course, they did not do.

But the rest of the class was on task. Certain questions about the assignment repeated all day. I turned to help a student with one of these.

One of the boys suddenly turned in his seat to the boy behind him, asking about question number 2. (This was more than 45 minutes into the period.)

I wasn't surprised to find the principal and a district official had dropped in. (I heard they were coming before class.) I was surprised how quickly the boys went from fight talk to a pretense of doing the assignment.

As soon as the visitors left, the boys went back to their previous conversation. Naturally.

But before the end of the period, they suddenly got busy. Curious, I checked their desks to find them busily copying the finished work from one of the girls in the class.

Sigh.

I took the paper from them. They did not protest.

Why, oh why, do students do this? They let the boys goof off for the entire period, and then give them their hard work to copy. I don't get it.