Happy Halloween

(Besides the mask, I haven't done any Halloween projects this year. Ah well. Maybe next year.)

In Tears

I made a 7th grade girl cry. I'm not proud of this. But it kinda couldn't be helped.

I had been warned that 4th period could be "immature". I had also been warned that the teacher had a strict no cell phone policy. I had already dealt with a boy eating in class (after he had been told not to) and another boy who seemed to think he could choose any seat in the room he liked.

And I won't even go into the girl who bellowed "whale" while I was trying to give instructions. When I questioned her on this utterance, she informed me that she hadn't been talking to me. Well, clearly, but that doesn't negate my question.

Ahem.

The class was working quietly (as they had been instructed to do). I happened to look over towards the corner, and I caught another girl with her phone out apparently taking a picture of someone across the room.

Um, no.

They had been warned about cell phones, so I went to confiscate. And surprisingly, I got no protest from the girl. She handed the device over, and she went back to work.

Later in the period, the girl raised her hand. She had a question about the assignment. And she was crying.

She asked her question. I asked her about her tears. She told me that she was going to get into so much trouble. I answered her question about the assignment and moved on.

At the end of the period, I returned her phone to her. I probably would have even without the tears. It's so rare that a confiscation goes without even a bit of protest or a period of hearing about how unfair I was. Besides, I did write her name down. She's probably going to get a detention. Which, considering the infraction, seems like a fair punishment to me.

Sisters

"Is Ms. S your sister?"

I get this sort of question about the teacher I'm covering that day more often than you might think. I usually just give a "no". Sometimes, I add in, "I don't have a sister". And that's usually that.

But this particular day, Elias wasn't going to let it go. He insisted that we looked so similar. (I've met the teacher. Perhaps there's a slight resemblance, but not much of one.) So, Elias took it upon himself to tell each student as they entered the room that I was, in fact, Ms. S's sister.

I shook my head. Silliness.

Elias told his lie. The student looked at me. I shook my head.

This didn't last, of course. I'll only spend so much time bothering with trying to disabuse them of some notion about me they get in their heads. Then, I figure if they choose to believe something that's not true about me, it's not really my problem.

By the end of the period, I had kicked Elias out of class. The reason was completely unrelated. It's too bad he isn't using his strange imagination for good.

Goodbye, Asia

It's funny how sometimes I do get the ending to the story.

Remember Asia? A couple weeks ago, I covered for a special ed teacher. By a strange sort of luck, I happened to be talking to another special ed teacher, and the topic of Asia came up. That other teacher had Asia on her case load. (She was the special ed teacher keeping track of Asia.)

The reason that Asia came up at all? They had just had a meeting about her (and with her), and they had come up with an alternative placement for her. As of that day, she was gone.

I got a chance to verify this the following week when I again covered for the science teacher. (Here's a link to that post.) The only class I was dreading was 6th period. But, I discovered on the teacher's rosters that Asia was no longer in her class. (A withdrawn note was put next to her name.) Hooray!

Only...

6th period was finishing up the movie Super Size Me. (The health classes do a unit on nutrition, and they hit fast food pretty hard. It's a great series of lessons.) I got the class started, and then the door opened.

Asia. (Several students had lamented that "their friend" wasn't in class. I think they were baiting me. I ignored the statement.) She needed to "pick up something". She proceeded to hug half the students in class all the while talking about how she just needed one thing.

I gave her a couple minutes, but then it was time to shoo her out of class.

"Bye, Asia," I said.

"Well, you don't have to say it like that!" she responded.

Deep sigh. At least now she's gone. (And hopefully her new placement will be a much better fit for her.)

It was amazing how much easier that class was to handle with her gone. Still some issues, but not nearly as pronounced.

False Praise

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements ;)

What if someone started a rumor about you that was in no way true? What if because of this false rumor, you got a benefit that you did not earn? (I'll not specify a meaning for "benefit". I'll leave that up to your imagination.)

Some Clown Made Me Sick

You've heard about the clowns, right? The idiots who are dressing up as clowns to terrorize people. Because some people think this sort of thing is funny.

It was Friday at the middle school. They were at lunch.

It hadn't been a hard day. I had been warned by neighboring teachers that the last sub had had issues with Ms. K's classes. Ms. K isn't one to tolerate that sort of behavior, so they were under dire consequences for misbehavior. And things were going well.

It was a normal type of assignment. We were to read a section of the book together, and then they had questions to answer. But Ms. K had left us a "nuclear option". If the students were too disruptive so that we couldn't get through the reading, they were to write out the section instead. Word for word.

The morning classes went smoothly. We got through the reading easily. Then they worked silently on the questions.

As I was coming back from my bathroom run at lunch, a couple teachers warned me of the lunchtime excitement. Apparently, some clown had "invaded" the school and ran around chasing the middle schoolers at lunch.

No. Oh no.

Middle schoolers are impressionable. They believe in the Illuminati and whatever other conspiracy theory you want to dream up. They scare easily. We, with years of experience with these things, know not to take a lot of it too seriously. We know this is all a hoax. But not the middle schoolers. For them it's all very real. And it's coming to get them.

Just what I need with groups of students who were already wound up...

The class arrived. And were the sort of loud I'd expect after lunch and after being chased by a clown. Except, they claimed it was three clowns. And everyone had stories...

So, I attempted to rein them in. Their warm up was a freewrite, so they could write about anything they wanted. I told them to write about the clown. Only that didn't have the desired effect. They wanted to talk about it, not write about it.

We went into the reading. One student refused to read. Then the phone rang. I was to send a student to the office as she was going home. (By the end of the day, 20% of my class was gone. Presumably because their parents picked them up because the school was "unsafe".) Then another student "had to" answer her cell phone because her mother was "blowing it up".

Then the principal came on the loudspeaker. The clown was a student. He had been caught. The principal had the clown costume. And the student had been "dealt with".

But there were three clowns, they protested.

I tried to get them to read. I really did. But they weren't having it.

Okay, fine. They get to copy the section, then.

Ugh. Shortly thereafter, my throat got sore. Which is my usual first stage of a cold. And I hadn't even been yelling.

I'll be so glad when this clown hysteria dies down.

Rats

I didn't really get into the four days I spent in the forensics/biology class (three periods of forensic science, two periods of biology). I kind of ran out of time and space. But then the following week...

I had a 7th grade class work silently for the whole period. And I did not even ask them to do that. I had a class that by all rights should have been a disaster go smoothly. And I had a day where the classes were instructed to work silently, and they did. I do have weeks that go like that. Good thing the previous week still had stories left over.

Anyway, I was in this class for four days due to a sudden emergency illness (hospitalization was involved), which meant the week was fairly chaotic.

Day one, the students all descended on the rats...

I tend to fret over pets in the classroom. Are they being fed? Do they have everything they need?

But they absolutely, positively must remain in their cages. Because they're not my pets. I don't know what's allowed. And if anything goes wrong, I'm ultimately responsible.

The first thing the students did? They took them out.

I put my foot down. "Put them back. Leave them alone."

Them: "Are you afraid of the rats?"

Deep sigh. "No."

But they weren't hearing "no". In their minds, the only reason I wasn't allowing them to handle the rats was because I had to be frightened of them. (Apparently, handling the rats is permitted by the teacher. Cool. So long as the teacher is there to supervise.)

Fine. Whatever. I've given up denying stuff. The kiddos can believe what they want. They're going to anyway. And spending time denying it isn't worth the effort.

So, I sort of won that battle. The rats were put away. And stayed put away.

As did the snake. (Apparently it was hiding well as no one even attempted to handle it.)