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Ninth grade math. (It's basically a bit of algebra and a bit of geometry, the easier topics of both.) 

It's early in the year, so the class had a simple review of solving for X worksheet with a coloring component. 

(To make some of these math review worksheets "fun", they make them with puzzles that can only be solved if the students work the problems correctly. It can be a riddle with the answer being a really bad pun. Or they might make a picture in a color by numbers thing. There are hundreds of these things for most math levels, and teachers generally give them out on sub days.)

I got class started and passed out the worksheets. 

I noticed a boy not doing any work. In fact, he didn't have his worksheet on his desk. I questioned him on this. 

He explained that he was waiting for his neighbor to get done. They were "working together" which he interpreted as meaning his neighbor did all the work, and then he'd copy. 

Yeah, no, I wasn't having any of that. If they wanted to work the problems together, fine. But the whole copying thing... Doesn't fly with me.

The boy didn't understand why I had a problem with this. 

I asked if the neighbor was going to be available to do the boy's test for him.

(He had some excuse, but I got distracted by something else.) 

Did he do his own work? Nope, not really. But this is how one gets one's name in my note, so his teacher knows to watch out for him.

Sadly, this sort of thing is common. They never listen to my explanation of why it's a bad idea, so it always gets referred to the teacher. 

Progress?

Back from winter break, I was called to cover "culinary arts". (Not the picture above. Someone *ahem* forgot to take a pic of the classroom...)

Period three was "culinary arts 2", or those who were taking a second year of cooking. Surprisingly, Kevin was enrolled.

There were seven students enrolled in the class. Six were present. And basically this is the class where they do competitions and things. (There are all sorts of programs through the county for various technical and vocational programs.)

It was a make work assignment, but they were on task. Even Kevin.

He figured out what he thought an answer was, and then he asked the class if he was right. And on that went for a while. Until he needed a restroom break.

A bit later, another student asked to use the restroom. That's when I noticed that Kevin had been gone a while. I mentioned that Kevin was out...

"Oh, he's not coming back."

Apparently, the other students are familiar with Kevin's lack-of work ethic.

Although, Kevin did return. After a while. At which point he gave up doing the assignment. Sigh.

(Which is not surprising considering what I saw the last time I had Kevin in class. If you go back and reread that post, Ms. S in #3 is this class.)

The Conservative Tide

I don't talk politics on this blog. (I save that for Talking It Out.) And while I'm not going to start today, I do feel I need to preface today's post with a nod to my bias.

I'm a liberal. (You all already know that, right?) Which is why I found this so funny.

11th grade U.S. history. They were to do a guided reading (read: worksheet) on a section entitled "A Conservative Movement Emerges" about the '80s and Reagan and Bush Sr.

As they turned in their work, I glanced at it. And then I took a closer look.

The question (if it's too small to read, click on the image to blow it up):

And their responses:

As you can see, they "worked together". And it's pretty obvious they didn't read the chapter carefully (or at all, probably). They may have looked it up on their phones.

Still, it gave me a good chuckle.

And I made sure my instructions to the next class were a little clearer. As in READ THE CHAPTER. (You'd think this goes without saying, but apparently not when they want to get done so they can goof off.)

Oh, and the teacher is a conservative. So, when their papers are graded...

Busy Work

Economics. 12th grade. Written on the board, they had a huge list for their assignment. But, each item on that list was only a question or two. So, not a terribly bad assignment. Not even all that long, really.

They groaned a bit when they saw it, but it didn't take them that long to settle to silence. And most finished easily before the end of the period.

It was a normal Friday. By that, I mean that there were a lot of teachers out. There were so many absent teachers that the district was unable to get subs for them all. Five teachers at that school didn't have their very own subs for the day. Including the teacher for this class. I was covering this period as it was the prep period of the teacher I had been called in to cover.

This teacher had called out Friday morning. And he did what many teachers do when they call out at the last minute. He made sure his classes were busy while he had a sub.

This is a good thing. Students with nothing to do tend to get into mischief. (Although, I doubt this group would have been a problem.)

But... Sometimes it's pretty clear that the assignment is just something assigned to keep them busy. And by senior year, the students are pretty adept at recognizing assignments as such.

I got one paper back titled "Busy Work". I had to laugh. It was true.