Naturally, Of Course

Wednesday. Seventh grade world history. Fifth period. 

The kiddos had work in their Google Classroom. They had vocabulary words and questions to answer. Easy enough. 

They were working pretty well, for seventh graders. There were a couple not doing much. One boy kept turning to the boy behind him, annoying the second boy. The usual. 

I went to look something up on my computer when I got the spinning wheel of doom. I tried a different tab, and spinning wheel of doom. Oh no.

A student noted that they couldn't get something to load on their computer. 

Crap! Did the internet just go down? 

I called the office. The internet had just gone down. 

Deep sigh. 

Why does this always happen when the work is all online?

The teacher had left extra work in case the kiddos finished early. They could work on other class's work. Mr. D also left word searches. Okay, then. 

I announced to the kiddos that without internet they could not finish their online work, but they could work on, and then I gave the list. Several of them pulled out the success assignment (as I had had them earlier in the day). Several of them wanted to attempt the word searches. One girl pulled out her book, and she asked me if I liked to read. (She said I looked like someone who likes to read. I think she meant that as a compliment.) 

I no longer had the good, studious behavior I had had before. But, that couldn't be helped. At least they had something to do. 

The internet returned towards the end of seventh period. At least the seventh period class, another success class, had work on paper. 

The Easy Class

On Tuesday of last week, I was asked to cover a class on my prep period. No problem. (I get paid extra for this, so it's not generally a hardship.) 

The teacher, Mr. H, had a meeting, so he was there to start class. There were eight students. And they had a story to read and questions to answer. The assignment was online. 

Mr. H explained to me the class was really good, so I'd have no problems. 

Well, I didn't have any behavior problems...

First up, one of the students couldn't log into the assignment. We tried everything. She switched computers. We reloaded. Nothing. 

Apparently she'd been having issues. Nothing I could do about that.

And then, just when things were going well, the internet went out.

Naturally. 

(Later I found out the internet went down for the entire district, so at least it wasn't some weird dead spot where we were.)

The good news was by that time half the class had already completed their assignment. And their phones worked fine. So, they kept themselves entertained. 

Why is it that the internet goes down when I have only online work for kiddos and no way to pivot to something else? Sigh. 

The Ideal Consequence

It was Monday. We had no internet. But, luckily, the assignment for the day had the kiddos looking at "cards" of various images, some science related, some not. They were sorting and categorizing the images based on questions I wrote on the dry erase board (as my lovely little slide was inaccessible due to no internet). 

Third period. Every teacher has that one class. The difficult group. The period they dread. For me, that has become third period. 

The kiddos were working in the groups I had assigned. One group was having a personality conflict. A girl told me that Simon was bothering them, and they couldn't work with him. 

The group wasn't one of the better behaved groups. But Simon and I have already had our issues. (This was the fourth time I'd had the class, and I already was aware of Simon. Enough said?)

Luckily, there was a group that was only two students, so Simon could join them. (I was going for groups of four, but there were a few groups of three just due to class numbers.) 

Simon did not like that idea. He lashed out verbally. I let him say his piece, and then I insisted he move to the new group. 

Later, Simon approached. His new group... Well, if I wanted a fitting consequence, I think I found it. The two students Simon was with were silent. Completely. They wouldn't talk. 

This wasn't ideal, as the assignment was a group thing. 

But, Simon was unable to irritate these students as they weren't engaging with him. 

Perfect. 

Cascading Failure

Wednesday. It had finally stopped raining, and it was likely to be an easy day. I got into the classroom, turned on the lights, and I headed for the thermostat. It was 58℉ in the room. I turned on the heat.

The heat switched on. Then BANG, and the lights cut out.

Uh oh... Power outage...

But wait. The clock was still lit.

So, not the whole school? 

I called the office. Nope, just my classroom was without power. They sent maintenance, and he managed to get the lights back on before the first class started. (It was the breaker, but it wasn't as easy as flipping the switch. He had to toggle it back and forth before the power came back on.)

He left. I got class started. I turned the heat back on. And then the thermostat went blank. (I called for someone to fix it, but it never did get fixed that day.)

Well, that makes for a good blog post. The day should be cake now, right? 

Fourth period. The assignment was in their Google Classroom. Only, it wasn't. I emailed the teacher. The assignment finally appeared. (I think the timing was just off; I don't think the teacher saw my email.) 

We had about a half hour left of class, and most of the students had finished their assignment. (It was a government class for seniors.) Good thing, as that's when the internet went out. 

I wasn't too concerned. Then. They were done. But when sixth period came in a half hour later and there was still no internet...

Sixth period was U.S. history for juniors. And their assignment was in Google Classroom. Which was inaccessible due to the internet being out. And I didn't have a backup assignment for them as I was the sub.

Deep sigh.

They were quite happy to entertain themselves. A group played Uno on their phones. 

The internet came back up about a half hour later. I informed them of this. They attempted to convince me that there wasn't enough time for them to do the assignment. I told them they could do the assignment and then go back to their game.

Hopefully most of them did that. (It seemed like they had.) Because just before the end of the period, the internet went out. Again.

(Luckily, by that time I had my note for the teacher in the drafts of my email, so I was able to sent it to her from my phone.) 

She had a prep period eighth period, so I happily left campus early as I didn't want to get slammed by any more technical issues.

Why did the internet go out on us? There was a power outage at another high school (and its neighboring elementary schools) in the district. That power outage knocked out the internet to the entire school district. Sigh.