A relaxing-ish week

Ooo the joys of ISS and OSS (in-school and out-of-school suspension). I hate to admit it, but I am dramatically more relaxed if I know that certain students will not be joining the group on a given day.

Last week was actually pretty decent! Smaller classes allowed students both more one-on-one time with me and fewer peers by whom to be distracted. The week ended on a somewhat acerbic note with 4th block, however, whose attention I rarely command in its entirety. Today I literally gave students their independent practice and wrote the steps to solve the equations on the board afterwards - (normally you would do some introduction of new material as a class, proceed to guided practice and then send them off to practice in pairs or on their own) this actually worked fairly well though, as it allowed those students who understood to work ahead and those who did not to pay attention to me.

Last Friday morning brought a strange challenge. Brittney walked across the room to return her calculator, only to return to an empty desk - completed test gone without a trace. Approaching the alarmed looking teen, I asked where her test was. She reported that she had no idea - "it was just gone!" Surveying the scene of those still working on their tests, I spotted Tre in the corner, concentrating a little too hard. In order to protect Brittney's reputation - so that it wouldn't look like she had informed me specifically that Tre had taken it (it is still unclear whether it was really magically gone or she was coerced into sharing it with him), I approached Tre in the corner. Seeing that he had a sheet of paper looking conspicuously like Brittney's test underneath his own, I whispered "Tre, lift up your hand, I am not going to say anything in front of the class, but I need to take this." Tre had the decency to return it to Brittney, however also the gall to pass it to another student on the way so that he too could copy. Seriously Tre...?? I should have written him up, but instead I left a message with his mother - in case you wonder about the 0 in Tre's records - oh yeah, that was him cheating.

Awesome.