Big Hint

Special ed. middle school science. Friday. They had an open book quiz.

About halfway through first period, the instructional aide (Ms. S) noticed that the four blood types were listed on the board. Identifying them was one of the questions on the quiz. Oops.

Since erasing them would have drawn attention to them, we decided to leave them up. It was an experiment. Would the students notice?

The students who finished early enough had the opportunity to fix wrong answers. (They get docked a point.) Many had found the blood types. They were in the book. What wasn't in the book but was a question was, "What's the universal donor?" And they all missed that one.

Ms. S pointed out that their teacher Mr. M had gone over that with them. But still, they couldn't recall it.

Towards the end of the period, Mr. M came by. (He was out due to a field trip, but the group hadn't left yet. He was checking in.) We pointed out the blood types listed on the board. We also mentioned that the class didn't remember what the universal donor was.

Instead of erasing the blood types, Mr. M made a slight modification to the board...

So, the rest of the day saw this right away and got the answer correct, right?

Eh, not so much.

We basically had to hint rather strongly to get them to notice. And still...

There's a reason they're in special ed. Although, I know plenty of regular ed students who would miss the obvious as well.

Okay with an F

I was back in Mr. M's class. (This is getting to be a habit.) It was Friday, so they had a quiz.

It's a special ed. class, so their quizzes are open book. When they finished, if there was time, the instructional aide corrected their quizzes. If there was time, and if they didn't do so well on the quiz, the aide gave the quizzes back to the students to fix.

(They don't get full credit, however. They only get the full points if they got it right the first time.)

It was first period. The aide handed back a quiz to the first student to finish. And he was not pleased.

You should have seen him. He flailed about. Rolled his eyes. Cried. Threw his head towards his desk. From across the room I could see his performance.

Even more impressive, he did this all silently (as the rest of the class was still working on their quizzes).

Later, I talked to the aide. Apparently he always does this. You'd think he'd be more grateful with the help on getting a better grade.

In a following period (period 4, I think), I was the one correcting quizzes. I gave a boy back a quiz with a bunch of mistakes. I got busy with other things, so I didn't re-collect his quiz until the end of the period. That's when I saw he hadn't touched his quiz.

He got seven wrong. Out of twelve. That's more than half. I don't need a calculator to know that's less than 50% correct, so that's an F. I told him so.

"I'm fine with that grade."

Um, really? Even when I told him he didn't get half right?

It's a middle school thing, I think. I hope.

If you had failed a quiz, and your teacher gave you back your paper with the opportunity to fix your mistakes, would you fix your mistakes? (I know I would!)

Requested

Monday morning. The teacher was there before school to give me the rundown of what he wanted done in his classes. It was a chapter on vertebrates in the simplified science textbook for the middle school special ed. class. Standard stuff.

Mr. M was in and out of his classroom for the first couple periods. (This sometimes happens when the start time for the teacher's thing is later than the start time for school.) I don't particularly mind, but I do get a bit of stage fright.

(There have been instances where I got a "critique" later, so I worry.)

Luckily, the classes were cooperative on this day, and we got through the material. Before Mr. M was ready to leave, however, he mentioned that he'd be out again on Wednesday. And, if I wanted and wasn't already booked, I could cover his class.

As it was a pretty good day, I figured I'd try to get the class again. But when I called in for an assignment for Wednesday, Mr. M's class had already been taken.

Ah well. There are other classes. I didn't think too much more about it.

I happened to be on the same campus Wednesday. I was scheduled to cover a general ed. English class. But the secretary had a request for me. Mr. M had gone to her and asked her to have me cover his classes again.

When we're booked to cover a class, we're booked to cover a particular class. There's a whole system in place. The secretary sometimes does switch subs around, but it's something that only happens under extraordinary circumstances. (Or if there's a mistake in the scheduling.)

However, on this day, the secretary asked if I'd be willing to make the switch. It was okay with me, but what about the other sub?

He's been subbing about as long as I have. We're on friendly terms. I figured that he'd be okay with the switch. I mean, general ed. instead of special ed? I think he actually got the better deal.

(I told the secretary that if he didn't want to make the switch to let me know and I'd take back my originally scheduled assignment.)

It amazes me that teachers actually request me to cover their classes. And so this is how I covered the same class for two days this past week.