Choices

Sometimes the students just don't have that great a grasp on reality (although, neither do I, but that's a topic for another day...). I was at the continuation high school (again) in the basic math class. Barely anyone was doing any work. Well, at least the conversation was interesting.

There was this one student. He was complaining about how short he was credit-wise. Perhaps I should explain this a bit...

The main difference between the traditional high school and the continuation high school is how the students acquire credits. In the traditional high school, if the student gets a "D" or above, he/she gets the 5 credits for the semester. At the continuation high school, the students get credits for what work they turn in. So, if they do no work for a semester, they get no credits. If they do a lot of work, they can get 5 (or sometimes more) credits.

The student who was likely a senior (he was 17) had less than half the credits he needed to graduate. He was nowhere close to graduating. And he spent the period doing no work. Hmmm...

Anyway, the student talked about how he was planning on getting his GED instead. He was grumbling about how he wasn't getting credits fast enough.

And then the conversation got interesting. He told me that he wanted a job where he didn't have to work weekends. I explained that retail jobs and food service jobs were all going to require weekend work.

I'm sure that there's a job out there that would work for him. I don't want to be a downer. But he's not exactly inspiring confidence in his future.

Not Needed

I got up at 6 AM. Got dressed. Had some breakfast. And then I drove to the school. A usual morning.

I was not expected. The teacher that I was scheduled to sub for had not left lesson plans (and this teacher always leaves lesson plans). I knew what was coming.

This is one of my biggest fears any day that I sub. The dreaded "Sub? What sub? I don't need a sub." I was sent in error.

This has happened to me quite a bit. If I find no lesson plans from a teacher, I don't assume that the teacher neglected to leave them. I assume that the teacher is going to show up any minute and be startled by my being in his/her room. A couple times the teacher did show up to tell me the lesson plans since he/she was going to be on campus (chaperoning a field trip, going to an on campus meeting, or carpooling to a meeting with teachers), but that's the exception rather than the rule.

I called the sub caller. She got her dates mixed up. I wasn't needed, so I went home. (And I was so rattled that I left with classroom keys. I turned around and went back to return them.)

I suppose if I wasn't so paranoid about this, it would happen less frequently. It's just one of those things. People make mistakes. I get caught in the middle of them.

(Oh, and Mercury is retrograde, so this sort of thing is to be expected.)

A Favor

"Ms. A., you've known me since I was 12..." the student began.

True statement. I covered his class for six weeks back when he was a 7th grader (he's now a senior). He was one of the difficult ones. But, I barely had time to acknowledge that his statement was correct before he continued...

"...So, could you do me a favor?"

I heard warning bells. What could he want?

"Would you write us a good note, even if we're bad today?"

I relaxed.

"Um, no," I said.

Sometimes I just don't get students. Do they really think that I would falsify my note to their teacher so they could spend today playing? This teacher rewards the good classes and punishes the bad, so while I can't blame him for asking, there is no way that I would lose that particular tool that I had to keep them in line. Especially not at the top of the period.

So, the class got to work, and they worked silently for the period. After the student's question, I was sure that I would have had a harder time than that. I guess they were just seeing how much they could get away with. Maybe?

Markers Redux

This morning I was at the mercy of the early morning wake up call. I lucked out and got a good assignment. Art.

It was 4th period. They were making portfolios--that is, they were decorating the folder that would contain all of their work for the school year. They started this yesterday, and they were to finish it up today. Most were less than half way finished, so they had plenty to do.

I walked the room, and then I sat. The girls in front of me discussed various topics (their piercings, dying their hair, one was allergic to chocolate, etc.). Nothing that required my attention, so I sat and watched the class.

Then I saw it.

Most of the classes used computers (digital art). So, 2/3rds of the class was filled with computer desks and Apple computers. The other 1/3rd of the class had three tables put together to make one long conference-type table. All the students in 4th period were gathered around this.

So, when the boys at the other end of the table had connected all the markers end to end so that it was long enough to reach to the front, it was a very long chain. Longer than the class that got the markers to reach from the floor to the ceiling. Impressive, sure. But unlike that earlier class, this group had work to do.

I went to find the builders. I looked at their portfolios. They weren't getting that much done, and it was nearly the end of the period.

I told the teacher about this in the note. So, when he asks them tomorrow about why they didn't finish their portfolios, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

Comedy of Errors

Friday I got home from work to find the electricians working in the kitchen. Lots of progress was made. But of course they had to come back for something. The pendant lights we had bought (even though they were the same pendant lights) had a slight difference, so they had to be replaced. (Oh, and they had the wrong light bulbs for the overhead lights again.)

Then the painters came. We are deciding on a paint color. From the paint chips, we narrowed it down to four possibilities. The painters came by to put up squares so that we could see them on the wall.

The colors are in the purple family, but very pale. So, when the painter put up something that looked sea green/blue, I was puzzled. We did not pick that color. We wanted colors 6259, 6266, 6546, and 6553. Two of the colors were correct; two were not.

So, the painters got out their notes. Sure enough, the numbers were written down correctly, but the twos looked like sevens (really, I saw it myself). So, instead of 6259, they got 6759. Big difference.

They put up the two correct colors and then they left. I spent the next half hour laughing. It was pretty funny.

They're coming back tomorrow with the right colors (fingers crossed).

You'd think that Mercury was already retrograde with these kinds of mistakes.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Test

Today I covered special ed. Fourth period was the "monitoring" class, which meant that any students who needed to take a test in a resource room did it with me watching. I figured that since it's Friday, there would be a lot of students taking tests. Nope. Just one.

"Which amendment has to do with being able to try a civil case in front of a jury?"

Yeah, nice try. I told the student that he'd have to figure it out on his own. It was a test, after all. So, then he asked me what grade he would get if he got 7 wrong out of 25 total. He figured that was an acceptable grade, so then he went about guessing on those seven that he did not know.

How do you guess when you have four choices? First he asked for a coin. When I told him that I did not have one, he came up with another way to guess: rock-paper-scissors.

I'm not sure how he reasoned it. Something about I was a/b and he was c/d. So, we played. I threw scissors; he threw paper. So, then I was a and he was b and we played again. Sorry, I forget who "won". He did this for three different questions.

Should I have helped him guess? I've been thinking about this. He would have made random guesses with or without my help, and it's not like I was steering him in any particular direction (I didn't even look at the test). I was kind of like a Magic 8 Ball here or a random number generator.

It didn't matter for long. He figured out a way to eliminate answers (which is much better than random guessing). He got some scratch paper, and he managed to finish the rest of the test on his own.

I wonder what grade he'll get.

Making Progress

I have been promising and promising to post new pics of the kitchen, so it's about time I do it (if you don't remember where this started, look here).

Here's the same kitchen as before, only now the plastic has been removed from the cabinets...

Then the granite counter tops went in...

And then the back splash tile went up (along with the microwave)...

The only difference now is the under cabinet lighting which doesn't look all that great when photographed.