Deadlines

 Friday. Eighth grade English, fifth period.

The kiddos had an assignment on culture. It was a project that they had had a couple weeks to work on. It was due, but eighth graders. Ms. R knew most of them had not finished it, so she was giving them one last period to get it done. 

Those students who actually had done what they were supposed to do got the period to get a jump start on an assignment that wasn't going to be due until January.

Jesse informed me he had "short term memory". No, I don't know what that means. To him, it meant that the fact that he got so easily distracted that he got practically no work done was justified by some amorphous brain issue. 

He suffers from being an eighth grader.

Jesse asked if his friend could sit next to him. The co-teacher pointed out that the two of them were holding a conversation just fine from where they were sitting. (They were.) And they continued to do so, even though I repeatedly asked Jesse how his assignment was coming along.

The girl between Jesse and his friend wasn't getting much done either. Mostly because she was contributing to the conversation. She was attempting to write something about being a tuba player. I gave her a couple ideas. She didn't think they worked. (Fine. I was just trying to get her working.)

Considering that the end of the semester is a couple weeks away, you'd think they'd be more on top of their work. Nope. They spent a lot of time looking at their grades. And being unhappy with their grades. I did point out the obvious, but at that age, they'll talk something to death before attempting to do anything.

At the end of the period I went to collect their projects. A few had finished. Jesse and his group? Nope. I pointed out the last day to turn in late work (as if they hadn't turned in the work, it was now late) was the following Wednesday. 

I wonder how many of them will get the assignment in by then.

Corporate Espionage

With Ms. A's return from maternity leave, I am now back to day-to-day subbing.

Tuesday. Biology. The end of the semester is less than a month away, so the biology classes were assigned their end of the year project. 

In groups of up to three, they were to "create" an eco-friendly product/company. They will present this product to the class à la Shark Tank for their final.

They were given videos to watch. They were given a template to use as a "business plan". They were to come up with a company name and slogan. 

(One girl didn't know what a slogan was. I asked her to name a fast food restaurant. She chose In-N-Out. I said, "That's what a hamburger's all about," and she understood.) 

But, freshmen. And freshmen do what freshmen do.

Sixth period. Two groups of boys were seated almost next to each other. And they were suspicious of one another.

See, some of the kiddos were asking various groups what product they'd come up with. They were looking for ideas. (I threw a few out there to help.) But boy group one thought boy group two was stealing their idea.

Some assignments the kiddos can copy. I've got to be careful during tests for that reason. But a project like this? Even if the two groups came up with the same product, their presentations would be completely different. They'd have to be. 

Still, boy group one was sure boy group two was after their idea. And then boy group two claimed that boy group one was going to steal their idea. 

(One of the boys in group one compared it to McDonalds and Burger King. I pointed out that those are totally different companies. He seemed to think that Burger King copied McDonalds, and I had to try to explain that that's not how that works. Sigh.)

What was this big idea that each claimed the other was stealing? Um, well, I didn't hear it. I'm pretty sure they didn't actually come up with any idea at all.

They've got two and a half weeks to come up with something. Let's hope they don't get so wrapped up in worrying about having their idea stolen that they don't come up with any idea at all.

Last Day Scramble

Seniors (twelfth grade). Government.

The teacher was out all week. (Bereavement. Her mother passed away.) She gave them a project.

It was a very clever project. They were to write a "bill" for the House or Senate. They could pick any topic, and they were given a template for how the thing should look. Then they were to create a poster to go along with this fictional bill.

They had four days to work on it.

I did not cover the first day, but I was there for the last three. So, on day two, they acted as if they had it. Quiet classrooms. They appeared to work on the computers.

But on Friday...

Oh, the scramble. So many of them needed to get their "bills" printed, so there were a bunch of them who needed to go to the library. (They can print their work out there. There was no printer in the classroom.) And so many of them had barely started their posters.

It was entertaining to watch, really.

I got a good stack of finished projects. They had come up with some interesting "bills".

And I can't complain. No one was surprised by the deadline. They were told it up front.

It's the same everywhere. We all kind of scramble to get things finished on time.

The Pinata Project

Eighth grade math. It's the end of the year, so they were working on a final project. They were making pinatas.

It's a volume exercise. They were to use at least three different shapes, put them together in such a way as to suggest some sort of critter, and then calculate how much volume (for candy) was in the thing.

As you can imagine, they made quite a bit of a mess. This was the last day they could work on the project (it was due Monday), so mostly they had the main body complete, and most were doing some detail work.

(That may be a bit simplistic. We are talking about eighth graders. Some of them had barely started the project.)

The teacher had left all sorts of materials for the kiddos to use. (I imagine many of them were paid for out of her own pocket, such is the state of school funding these days.) They had rulers and scissors. There was construction paper and tissue paper. They had glue sticks and markers. And there were two hot glue guns the students could use.

I bet you can see what's coming...

"Ouch! That glue is hot."

Well, yeah. When you plug the hot glue gun into the wall, melt the glue, and then touch that melted glue, I'd imagine it's hot.

I didn't say this, however. I feigned concern.

"Are you okay?"

I offered to let the student go to the health office. I'm not a monster. I even suggested using the restroom and running cold water over any burns. But the girl didn't get burned. She had just not been as careful as she could have been.

Then it happened again. And again. Throughout the day, various students yelped in pain at the hot glue. (The glue guns weren't thrust upon them. They had to choose them and then use them. I imagine the teacher spent some time going over the proper use of them on a previous work day.)

I found this quite entertaining. Does that make me a terrible person?

A Likely Story

Eighth grade English. At this time of year they have their Anne Frank unit which includes studying the Holocaust.

I try to avoid these classes at this time of year for this very reason. I do consider the Holocaust to be a very important topic, and I'm glad that it's part of the curriculum. However, I have a very low threshold for other people's pain. Being exposed to the horrors makes me physically ill. Usually it's just a migraine, but that migraine will be with me all day. 

This is why I will never again watch another Holocaust movie (if I can help it). I don't read the books. Whenever the topic comes up, I exit the situation. If you've ever wondered why trigger warnings exist, this is why. 

I may try to avoid, but I can't always do it. This day was one of those situations. Luckily, I was able to avoid the worst of it and I came out of this day unscathed.

For their final project they're researching one topic related to the Holocaust (they got to choose from a list), and the following week (as you're reading this) they'll be doing a two minute presentation.

They got to use the computers (you can see them on the desks in the picture). So, my main job was to police computer use. (Fortnite is the game of choice at the moment.) Surprisingly, I had very few issues with the kiddos doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. Most were diligently researching their assigned topic.

Gavin asked to use the restroom. This is not an unusual occurrence, nor is my permission. While he was gone, however, Connor, the boy seated behind him, got out of his desk and sat at Gavin's. Then he started doing something with the keyboard...

Um, no.

I made my way over there very quickly. What was Conner doing on Gavin's computer?

Conner claimed innocence. "I was just making sure his name was on it."

Sure he was.

The Google document appeared unmolested. I shooed Conner back to his seat.

When Gavin returned, I waited. Was something amiss with his document? No, it appeared that he didn't notice anything wrong.

Whew. That means I caught Conner in time.

But, still. What was Conner doing? What did he hope to accomplish? It's not like they had the same topic (the teacher had specified that each student had a different topic), so there was nothing to copy. The only thing he could have been doing was sabotage.

I guess it'll remain a mystery to me. Whatever it was, I hope I did catch him in time.