Class Picture

Sixth grade. Science. 

It appears that sixth grade classes rotate in a way that hints at what the kiddos will be doing the next year in middle school. On this day I got the science class. 

After lunch and before afternoon recess, they were to go outside to take the "panorama" class picture. It's just a long image of all the students in the grade. 

All "second period" they had been asking me when it would be time to take the picture. I assured them that I was on it. And then about ten minutes before the scheduled time, the next door teacher poked her head in to say the photographer was ready early. So, we got ready and headed out.

With my limited experience in elementary school, I did not anticipate being there to witness the photographing of a bunch of 11-year-olds. They got arranged loosely by height and lined up accordingly. By the time half of them had been placed on the bleacher-like stands, the bell rang to get the youngers out of class for their recess. 

So, with an audience, the sixth graders all got put into position in direct sunlight with the sun in their eyes. They were not happy about this. The other teacher told them to just deal with it as it wouldn't be for long. 

I stood off to the side to watch. The photographer asked the principal if the kiddos had to remain masked. The principal said they did not, that they could remove their masks for the time it took to snap the pictures. When the photographer informed the kiddos they could remove their masks, maybe five of them did. 

They took several shots, and then it was all over. Alas, because we were early, they did not get dismissed to recess. They had just enough time to go back to class... and then they were dismissed to recess. Sigh. 

It's definitely a moment in time, these pictures. I wonder how they'll look back on this picture. (They could purchase their own copy.) The masks will definitely tell a story.

Burning Up

Guess who spent another Friday in another sixth grade class? 

The lesson of the day was "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. (Yeah, for sixth graders. Yeah, I know.) 

As an introduction, I was to ask them for instances where people had to make difficult choices. I wrote their responses on the board. (I did this three times as the classes swap out, kind of like they'll do in middle school.) I got some standard answers, and I had to give a couple examples to get things going. 

The third group, after giving me several pretty standard answers, came up with "leave someone behind in a fire". 

Well, that qualifies. 

Then we were to discuss if they'd ever faced a choice like this, what choice they made, what effects the other choice might have had, and what advice they'd have for people facing hard choices. 

So, I picked a couple choices from the list to discuss, choices like "moving" or "doing your homework". (The second group came up with that one. The class vehemently protested that this was a choice. Having met many kiddos who don't do homework, I assured them that it was, in fact, a choice. We also discussed consequences.) 

I couldn't resist. I decided we had to go down the "leave someone behind in a fire" rabbit hole. 

They hadn't actually experienced that. (Whew!) But we talked about why someone might be forced to leave someone behind. 

Somehow, that turned into them saying if the other person was someone they didn't like, it wouldn't be a hard choice. 

I told them that they were wrong. I said that if they were in such a life-and-death situation, if it was them and their worst enemy, they'd save that enemy. They wouldn't leave that person to die in that fire. 

They didn't believe me. They said no, they'd have no trouble leaving that person behind. 

I'm not so sure. But rather than get into a shouting match, I moved on to the next part of the lesson (reading the poem). It was going long, anyway. 

Sometimes I wonder about me, though. I could have picked a way less controversial item from the list they generated to discuss. Ah well. 

So, do you think I'm wrong? Would you save a person you disliked from a fire? 

Disputed Tech Deck

I may have mentioned once or twice that there's a bit of a sub shortage at the moment. So, when I didn't have an assignment for Friday (on Thursday), I called the sub caller to see what was up. She told me it was going to be another day of her scrambling to cover as many classes as she could, and that I'd have to cover an elementary class. 

Ugh. 

Because elementary schools don't have teachers with prep time who can cover classes, they have to get covered by subs first. The subbing situation has gotten so bad that they don't have enough bodies to just get those classes covered some days.

But, she wasn't pulling me at the last minute (when I was starting a long term assignment someplace), so I resigned myself to doing what needed to be done. And she gave me sixth grade, so not too much of a difference from seventh grade.

How short were they subs this day? A class across from mine was also out a teacher, and the only person they could get to sub that class was the school's principal. 

All in all, it was a pretty mellow day. The kiddos had tests all day. I was covering the English portion (but the math and science classes had tests, too). The sixth graders rotated through the classes. 

When the second group came in, one boy immediately caught my attention. He couldn't sit still, had to go back to his homeroom to retrieve the book (the test was open book), and then returned without the book. He pretended to stutter, and then he proceeded to speak without that stutter for the rest of the time. 

While he was out of the room, I asked another student his name. Cannon. 

Cannon returned from a restroom break. As he was walking to his desk, he threw his Tech Deck at another student. 

A Tech Deck is a miniature skateboard made to be scooted about using one's fingers. It's pictured above with a pencil for size comparison. They've been around since the time I worked at the evil toy store (now defunct). That's over 20 years ago now.

I asked the student to hand the Tech Deck to me. I placed it on the teacher's desk. 

Cannon came up to me to ask for something, only he spotted the Tech Deck. 

"That's mine."

Yup. I was aware. 

"Can I have it back?" 

He was not happy with my answer. When he asked why, I asked him why he had thrown it at his classmate. 

But he hadn't thrown it at anyone, he protested. It had just fallen out of his pocket. 

Yeah, it fell out so violently that it bounced off a desk and made a clatter. 

I didn't get into the argument over whether or not he had thrown it. I informed Cannon he could have the toy back... from his teacher upon her return on Monday. 

I like to employ this trick over disputed property. If the kiddos want to get into an argument with me over what was or was not done, they can take it up with an adult who is more familiar with them. And they can explain why there's a toy on the teacher's desk when the toy shouldn't have been at school (or at least out of the backpack) in the first place. 

Cannon tried to get the Tech Deck back from me a couple more times. He did not succeed.