Writing with My Left Hand

Last Wednesday I ended up in a second grade classroom.

Eek!

(It's a rather long and complicated story involving my assignment on Tuesday, the new sub caller, and my not paying enough attention to early morning wake up calls.)

The teacher was at school when I arrived. She was a bit frantic, as the thing that was taking her away from school that day had happened so last minute that she did not have lesson plans prepared. (She did not explain nor did I ask what her emergency was. Some things are private, and I respect that.)

I tried to get a handle on what needed doing. And figure out the class' schedule. All the while clamping down on my panic at being thrust into a second grade class. The teacher was having a rough enough day. She didn't need to know that her sub had no business being in a room with children under 12.

It was very odd. Since the district is the same, the buildings looked just like the buildings at the high school. For a moment, I felt like a high school class would walk in any minute. Then the little 7-year-olds arrived, and I had to shift into little kid mode. It's not a mode I work in, so it was odd to say the least.

But, it wasn't as bad as I had feared. (The last time I did elementary things were decidedly different. Bad. Very bad.) Somehow I managed to make it through.

The day kind of felt like if I had tried to write with my left hand. While I know what needs to be done, the muscles aren't as accustomed to what my brain wants them to do. So, it's all harder to do. Takes more time. I'm slower. But, I can get it done.

Although, I'm much happier when I can just do the easier thing and work with older kids.

Volunteers? Anyone?

English class. They were reading George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant". Out loud. Together.

This works better for some classes than for others. At the continuation high school, it's generally a bad idea. I don't get volunteers. And if I volunteer them, they balk.

(Some outright refuse to read. Some will read a sentence or two and then refuse to go on. Some pretend not to hear me. Sure, I can browbeat them into reading, but it takes me so long to get them to agree, and then after they finish their one paragraph, I have to do it again. Something that should take 20 minutes can take more than an hour this way.)

It's a good thing I like to read out loud. Some periods I end up doing most of it.

(I opt for getting through the reading to get to the written portion of the assignment rather than telling the teacher that we couldn't get through all the reading in the time allotted )

Most English textbooks nowadays have an audio component. That is, there are files with the stories being read. Pop in CD, push play, and the students only have to follow along. Easy.

But nowadays, those files are more often on the publisher's website, accessible to registered users. Like the teacher. Not the sub.

(The teacher explained that if she hadn't been slammed, she would have gotten the tech guy to download the audio files to CD for me, but she ran out of time.)

Technology. It just gives us a whole new set of problems.

Copying the Word Search

It was another Friday at the continuation high school. The assignment was a word search.

(It was an ordinary word search, much like the one the math class did. It had a bunch of letters from which the students were to find the words that were listed at the bottom. I'm sure you've seen them before, but in case you're unsure, they look like this.)

The continuation high school students aren't the type to voluntarily work on anything, so the word search was worth a lot so long as they finished it and turned it in by the end of the period. Easy enough, right?

For the first two classes it was easy. They finished fairly quickly. But the next group...

I passed out the word search. I called the roll. Then I went about straightening up from the last period (gathering all the collected work and paperclipping it together). As I settled in to observe the group, a couple of the students nearby noticed that something was missing.

"Where did the papers go?"

Turns out they were going to copy the previous period's finished word searches. Because, you know, it would be too hard for them to do on their own. (The papers were stashed in a pile under other piles because I know this trick, so I hide previous periods' work as a matter of course.)

Shortly thereafter, another student approached. He wanted to know where his word search from the previous day was (the teacher gave some students the assignment a day ahead). I didn't know. I wasn't going to look. When I questioned him, he admitted that he just wanted his assignment so he could let others copy it.

Several students congregated in a group in a corner. One finished. The others pounced. Oooh, a finished one; one they could copy.

(Until I took that paper from them.)

If they only put in as much effort into doing the work as they do in trying to find a way around the work...

Oh, by the way, does anyone know of any good YouTube videos that would be school appropriate? I had access, and putting a video on in the background might have helped things. I think it's about time I complied a list for days like this one.  

Gross National Happiness

Perusing Flipboard the other day, I stumbled across this article about Bhutan and their concept of a gross national happiness measure. In brief, Bhutan is more concerned with its citizens' happiness and personal development rather than economic progress.

It's different. An interesting idea.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three different ways I can go with this week's question. I think I'll go this way:

What if we lived by the principle that happiness was more important than economic prosperity? What if that was the basic belief that guided nations (instead of success = lots of money)? What would that look like? What would that do to a society? Would that be a utopian story or a dystopian one?

A Good Cell Phone Story

It was one of those meh days. All classes got rated "there was more talking that working going on". I explained the assignment. It was on the board. I passed out paper, offered my assistance, and then left them to it.

In 4th period, a student came over to me. He held his cell phone out to me. He wanted to know what something meant.

Cell phone usage in class is a huge issue, especially at the continuation high school. They know they're not supposed to use them, and they know I can confiscate them (although they don't believe that I will). So, having a student hold out his cell phone was curious.

The assignment was a worksheet on sentence fragments. The boy had looked up the meaning of "fragment" on his phone, and he wanted me to show him which definition applied.

If he had looked up "sentence fragment"...

I explained the error. Then I got a chance to do my job.

He caught on pretty quickly. A couple times he checked to make sure that he was correctly identifying whether the group of words was a sentence or a fragment.

He was one of the two students in class who were actually doing their assignment.

So, I probably should have confiscated that cell phone, but I just didn't have the heart. I like to encourage them to do the assignment.

Gray Area

Dilemma.

Math class at the continuation high school. They do all their work on the computer, so my job is to make sure they're on the proper program (not checking their Twitter feeds), their scores are recorded as they finish each section, and they have any extra help if they get stuck. Easy day.

Second period needed a bit of a push. Two students hung back acting like they were just going to chill until I reminded them that it was class time. They went to their computers and logged in.

The two boys were on their assigned computers. The correct program was up. They did not slip onto Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other myriad websites that the kids these days like. (I watched.)

However, they were not doing any work.

Should I mention them in my note to their teacher?

Generally, I mention the names of students who behave badly. From time to time, I'll note students who don't work all that well. But it depends on the situation. Students who end up at the continuation high school weren't the most industrious of workers. If they had been, they would never have gotten to the point where they needed to go to the continuation high school.

While the boys weren't doing much at all, they weren't behaving badly. Staring at walls is not behaving badly as far as I'm concerned. They weren't disturbing anybody. They didn't talk back to me. The only thing they were doing wrong was not doing the assignment.

But this teacher is pretty strict. Writing that in my note would get them in trouble.

Which leads to my dilemma: mention them in the note or not.

It's not like the teacher won't know they didn't work. He can see they made no progress. The computers record all sorts of things, like how long a student was on a particular problem or section.

It's a good day when this is what I worry about.

Save the Sweaters?

My great-grandmother taught me to knit. When she passed, I inherited all her tools (as well as her yarn stash). She also left behind some sweaters that she made.

The workmanship is something to behold. But, they don't get worn.

She didn't like making sleeves, but she could.

Very pastel. Very '80s.

The color doesn't come out very well, but it's stunning in person.

There are three in this color. I only posted this one.

I think this was made for my brother, as he was about this size at that time.

As you can see, they're all vests. She didn't like making sleeves. And none of them fit.  

It's time to get rid of them. I hate to see them go, but they're really just taking up space. What should I do with them?