The Usual

Tuesday. Seventh grade science. 

I had gotten the assignment at 1 AM. In their Google Classrooms, the teacher informed the kiddos that he'd had a medical emergency. He left them plenty to do. 

And some of them did the work. 

Others...

Two boys immediately logged onto a game. Fortnite, I think. I told them they had work to do. As I walked up behind them, they showed their screens with the actual work. And no open game tabs. 

They set it up with two desktops. (I think that's what it's called.) I do similar. You can flip between one screen with appropriate tabs, and the other screen has something else. (Usually for me it's blogs.) Somehow, they thought they were fooling me. I don't know why. 

I told them to close the game and get to work. Of course they didn't. 

My philosophy in this circumstance is that it's their grade. If they don't do the work, they don't get the points. I can point out that they're not making good choices, but they're their choices. (I also note who was blatantly not working in my note to the teacher.) 

Considering the time of year, things went pretty well. At least they entertained themselves. Better than what they could have been doing. 

I'm ready for some time off. It's coming soon. 

Pac-Man Fever

Thursday. First period. Co-taught freshman math. 

It was the last ten or so minutes of class. I was seated in a corner, watching. And then, the opening strains of the music for Pac-Man rang out loudly in the middle of class. 

I walked over to the student. Stood there. He looked up.

And he got very, very defensive. "I'm completely finished with my work. I have no other work to do. Class is almost over. I can play this game."

I continued to stand there. 

That's when he realized why I had targeted him. 

"Oops. Sorry."

He quickly muted the sound, and continued with his game. 

He had headphones on, so he hadn't realized that his game's music was being broadcast to the entire silent classroom. 

(He was right. He had finished his work. He could play a game for the remaining time in class. But, we weren't supposed to hear his game.)