Modern Problems

Friday. Seventh grade science. Third period. 

The lesson plan had them working on a Friend or Foe paper. (They were given two organisms--plants and animals--and they were to determine if the relationship was beneficial or parasitical.) I passed that out, and they were to fill it out using information found in their Google Classroom. 

Only, the information wasn't in their Google Classroom.

Luckily, this happened at the school I had started the school year out in. You know, the school where I did the long term for the seventh grade science teacher? (She's back now.) So, I knew just who to call for assistance. 

Ms. W didn't have access to Ms. H's Google Classroom, but the three seventh grade science teachers are all friends, so she was able to contact Ms. H to get the issue dealt with. (I actually have Ms. H's cell phone number, too. I was going to text her, but I thought Ms. W might have access, so I thought I'd try the teacher on campus first. Ms. H might not have been easily reachable.) 

Within a couple minutes, the info the kiddos needed appeared in their Google Classrooms. Phew. 

Digital assignments are great, until something occurs and the kiddos can't access them. 

Of course, they also were to start working on their study guides for their final (fast approaching), so I did have a backup in case things went totally awry. But it's much better that I didn't have to resort to that. 

Three Days at the Continuation High School 13

After finishing up the long term in the English class, I was able to snag three days at the continuation high school. The last time I was there was December. And, things went about how I'd expect. As none of those things were terribly blog-worthy, I figured this was a good opportunity to do a Thursday 13. Because while nothing that happened merited a full blog post, it was an interesting three days. 

ONE

My long term ended on the day the internet went out for the entire district. So, I could not do the grading I had intended to do before leaving. But Tuesday the internet was fine, and the classes were small in the computer class, so I was able to finish that stuff off. I still had access to the class (that hadn't been turned off yet), and I was on district time... 

TWO

On Tuesday I covered Mr. M's class. One of his periods is orientation. That is the class the newbies take first, right when they are first transferred in to the school. 

At the beginning of May, I lost a student in one of the English 11 classes. She dropped suddenly. So, when I saw her name on the orientation's roll, I was not surprised. 

She asked about Ms. A's class. I told her that my last day had been yesterday. 

THREE

I had a prep period. On Mr. M's bookshelf happened to be a copy of The Great Gatsby. I had missed out on reading the last two chapters in the English 11 long term. (Timing.) So, I took the time and read them. Of course, I only read them once, whereas I read the other chapters four times (this go around), but at least I got to actually finish it. 

FOUR

Seventh period, credit recovery. The kiddos worked on various assignments in various subjects that they needed to earn credits for. (Classes that they had failed the first time through.) A boy sitting near the teacher's desk was working on math. 

I watched him get out his phone, take a picture, and then input something into the software. Deep sigh...

I pointed out that what he was doing was cheating. I told him to put away the phone. He could do it on his own. He explained that he knew the material, but he wanted to get it done quickly. 

I sat with him and helped him. And no, he didn't know the material. But, he caught on as we worked through a few of the problems. 

He was not the only student I had to urge to do their own work and not rely on "help" from their phones. 

FIVE

As I left school on Tuesday, a couple students caught my attention. After school, there's an occupational program that students can sign up for. (These students were taking the childcare class.) 

The two students had been in Ms. A's class. They complained that I had left them. I reminded them that I had hit my max number of days, that I had warned them of my leaving, and that Ms. A was to return the next week. They said I should return to the class. I told them they'd see me around as this wasn't a goodbye, but more of a "see you around". (Ms. E was there, and she agreed that I was around a lot so I wasn't going away.) 

SIX

Wednesday and Thursday I covered Mr. A. He was chaperoning two field trips. On Wednesday, they went to Disneyland. On Thursday, the L.A. County Fair. Which shrunk the classes a bit as many of the students had gone. 

SEVEN

Mr. A teaches two periods of woodshop, two periods of graphic arts, one period of leadership, and a video editing class. The woodshop has its own room. The other classes are in a different classroom. 

When there's a sub, due to safety issues, the woodshop class meets in the room where all of Mr. A's other classes meet. They do know this, but I still did put a note on the door to alert the students to go to the other room for class. 

EIGHT

On Wednesday, I was surprised to have no students in first period. Sure enough, though, a student did arrive late. By a couple minutes. 

Upon a couple minutes of conversation, I discovered that the kiddo had been on time, but had been waiting beside the woodshop to go in. Sitting on a bench. Then he remembered Mr. A had gone on the field trip and that he had to go to the other classroom. 

At no point did the student notice the sign I left on the door...

NINE

Fifth period leadership. I perused the names on the roll, and I was surprised by one. Well, not all that surprised... But I had just seen him at one of the traditional high schools. Okay, so that was in January. Of course, he was not in class that day. Probably for the best.

TEN

Wednesday was advisory day. I read over their announcements, which were all about graduation stuff. Student had a serious question for me. What was he supposed to do after graduation? Was he required to go to college? 

We ended up having an interesting conversation about him. He's been doing computer coding, and he's already making decent money at it. As for what he should do with the rest of his life, I had no answers for him. I replied with a question: what do you want to do? 

ELEVEN

On Thursday we were supposed to have even fewer students. When no one showed up to first period, I went looking to make sure no one was waiting at the other classroom. That's when I ran into the teacher next door, and we got to talking. For the whole period. 

I was in his room, but the two rooms had a connecting door. It was open. At some point, a student did arrive. Late. I only learned this at the end of the period when he left as he gave me his late pass. 

I mean, technically I was supervising him, as the door was open. And he knew what the assignment was as it was the same as the day before. And, as the day before, he didn't do it. (He was late on Wednesday as well.) 

TWELVE

As I headed to the restroom on our break, I learned that the school now has a pickleball court. Four of the teachers were playing. I asked another teacher if the pickleball court was for the students or the teachers. I was told both, but it appeared that the teachers were enjoying it more. 

THIRTEEN

Sixth period was video editing. Apparently the kiddos have a screening of the film they've been making next week. On Wednesday they did little to nothing (even though I pointed out they were supposed to be working on their poster). Then Thursday, when the experts were there (able to actually direct what needed to get done), they got quite a lot of work done. I'd've been more upset at the lack of work on Wednesday, but the editor had been on the field trip. I can't really blame him for enjoying Disneyland. 

Paper Deficit

Monday. My last day in the English class. 

As is my habit, the first thing I did was to get out my computer(s) and log on. Very quickly I discovered that there was no internet. I soon learned that the internet was out for the entire district. 

Not only was this a "transition day" where I was going to give the next sub access to the Google Classroom, lesson plans, and slideshows she would need to teach the class for the week, I also had grading to finish up from my tenure in the class (all done online along with the online gradebook). 

Oh, and the classes had a quiz. That was online. 

After I panicked, I began to contemplate how I was going to approach the day. Luckily, I had a prep period first, so I had some time to adjust. I thought about how I had seen the paper copy of the quiz in the digital file of quizzes for the class, and how I wished I had internet access to print out said paper. And that's about the time I remembered that Ms. A had a file cabinet, and wouldn't it be cool if there was a copy of that quiz somewhere in those files? 

There was a copy on paper of that quiz in Ms. A's filing cabinet. It took me not all that long to locate it. 

The copy machines are not dependent upon the internet. 

I decided to make an answer sheet to go along with the quizzes. (I had time. That lovely prep period.) I was in process when the sub who was taking over for me arrived, so I got a little sidetracked explaining what she was going to need to continue teaching the class. But eventually I got the answer sheet completed, and we headed to the copy room to make the copies we would need for the day. 

It was interesting to do the quizzes on paper. The kiddos were not used to this sort of thing. I had to explain how it worked. It wasn't all that long ago when no explanation would have been necessary. How quickly we adapt to new technologies. 

The online quiz and the paper quiz were pretty much the same. The only difference was the format. And yet, the kiddos who took the paper quiz didn't do as well as the classes that took the online quiz the previous Friday. (There was a 20% difference in average scores.) 

This makes me wonder. Was it the technology? Or were the kiddos who got to take the quiz online cheating somehow? (The quiz was "locked down", so the kiddos couldn't access another tab while taking the quiz. And I monitored them for cell phone use.) 

This is not the first time we've had an internet outage. (There was this time and this time that happened fairly recently.) I'm sure it won't be the last. 

Exhaustion, Grief, and Uncertainty

While perusing BlueSky, I happened upon this article: "From Aspiration to Action: Organizing Through Exhaustion, Grief, and Uncertainty", and I felt like it captured kind of what was on my mind. It's a long one, but it might resonate with you, too. 

So, last week, after my Tuesday post went live, I heard about the public comment opportunity for the restriction of COVID vaccines. As soon as I could, I amended last week's post to include the link. (I'd've included it in this week's post, but the deadline was Friday the 23rd.) As things like that might pop up again, I wanted to make you aware of the possibility. Most of this stuff I find on BlueSky, and when I see it I repost it. You can follow me there at: @zizirho.bsky.social. Things are more timely there, if you're looking to keep up. 

As I'm drafting this post, the budget bill that wants to take our money and kill us (I'm not exaggerating all that much) is making its way through Congress. Here's a list of some of the awful things it contains. (You don't have to subscribe to access the piece. Click on "no thanks" or whatever it says in small print at the bottom of the pop up.) 

Oppose the bill? Call your senators and reps to let them know. Even if they're all in for it, registering your displeasure lets them know that they're on thin ice. The more of us who are vocal pressures them. If they want to keep their jobs at the next election (assuming we have one), they might think twice about supporting things that their constituents are very much against. 

And we need to remind Congress that their job is a co-equal branch of government. They are supposed to check the power of the executive. Those in the opposition party need to gum up the works as much as possible. They've forgotten that, because they aren't doing it. We can remind them of this when we call or email. 

You heard about the firing of the Librarian of Congress, right? Here's a handy-dandy way to sign a petition urging Congress to act (as this is a legislative position). 

And for fun, I ran across someone soliciting Ransom Notes from the GOP. The link has the information. The idea is to create an old-style magazine-letter-clipped ransom note for our times. They're creating a publication. I wonder what people will come up with. 

Finish the Dragon!

I seem to be in a finishing kind of mood. The school year is just about over. I finished up that long term subbing assignment a week ago. I'm using up and throwing out all sorts of things that have been lingering around me for a while. 

And I finally finished that damn dragon! 

I have gathered the story of this piece as told on this blog into some handy dandy links: 

• Time to Start Over (1/22/24)
• Plotting and Planning (3/25/24)
• Grand Plans (4/8/24)
• Finally Starting Over (11/11/24)
• Learning Curve (11/18/24)
• Rawr: Or Redoing the Dragon (4/21/25)
• Xing Error (4/28/25)
• Two Rows (5/12/25)

But, as I'm sure you don't want to peruse all those, I can give you the story in brief. I got this idea to create a small dragon bag using the first swatch I made of this dragon. I only needed to knit a second one. Easy-peasy, right? 

I didn't even mention the thing on the blog until I ran into a snag. I made a couple glaring errors. And I realized the only way to fix it was to frog it. It took me ten months to get the time and mental energy to rip it all out and start over. 

Then, I whined about the molasses slow progress I made on it since November. Until two weeks ago. It occurred to me then that if I committed to knitting two rows on this thing a day, I could actually get it finished. 

Since today is day fourteen after I said I had fourteen two-row days to complete the dragon portion of the piece (not including the border stuff over the top of it), I think I can say small, doable goals were the way to go. 

As it turns out, I did not knit just two rows every day. I did a day of four rows. That had to do with a specific cable crossing that I couldn't leave half done. And the last five rows I did at one sitting as they weren't very complicated. (The last few rows got very simple as the dragon was finished off.) 

I finished all of that on Wednesday. On Saturday I finished off the rows above the dragon itself. 

And now I get to figure out how I want to turn this and the blue one into a tote bag. Or maybe I'll just sew them together and create a pillow? I'm not exactly sure. But I've got all the time to figure that out now. 

Three Weeks Notice

Friday. Eleventh grade English, eighth period. 

The kiddos had a quiz on The Great Gatsby chapters four through seven. As they walked in and asked what the plan for the day was, I told them this. Some of them were surprised. 

Emmitt: "You are required to give us three weeks notice before you give a quiz." 

Now, normally I'd push back on this. Say something snarky. Point out that pop quizzes were a thing. But I didn't have to. 

"I kind of actually did," I said. 

Another student: "She told us about it the first day she was here." 

Now, that was a bit of an exaggeration. I wouldn't say I mentioned it the first day. When we began the book, I outlined the plan. Quiz after chapter 3, quiz after chapter 7. Final on whole book (after I was out of the class). 

I can list all the times I mentioned that they had a quiz coming, but that might be a bit of overkill. Suffice it to say that I mentioned it a lot. 

And yet still, some of them were surprised. Well, I can only do what I can do.

Unexpected Sixth

Wednesday. Sixth period. And the class showed up... 

Sixth period is ELD. The English language development class. One of the major things that they had to do during my tenure in the class was to take the ELPAC. I couldn't give it, but I got questions from the students and from the counselors as to when the class would take it. 

Last week the assistant principal got back to me about it. He scheduled it for this week. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. He told me he would get back to me with more information, but he never did. He informed me that they would call the kiddos out of class, and there was nothing for me to do. Okay, then... 

Tuesday, I had four students in fifth period. (A few of them didn't have to take the test.) This was fine as I was expecting no class. I hadn't planned for them to do anything. (I had moved the plans for the day as ELPAC was to take priority.) 

But Wednesday, the kiddos showed up. They had been called out of class the previous day and had finished their test. 

Uh... 

Well, the actual lesson plan for the day was study hall. That's what Ms. A had originally scheduled. It was a "buffer day". She had put in an extra day just in case I got behind on Of Mice and Men. I hadn't. 

I had the next day's plan ready to go, though, too. So, I gave the kiddos the option. They could get the study hall day on Friday. They picked Wednesday. Fine by me. 

It would have been nice, though, if the assistant principal would have let me know that all the students would be tested on Tuesday. You know, so I could plan ahead. 

At least it's done. And as I get ready to leave this long-term assignment (when this post goes live, I'll have already left), it's good to know this major component did get completed. Even if I didn't have to do any of the actual work involved.