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Grandma’s Hose

Posted on March 17, 2010
Filed Under grades, parents | 1 Comment

Just a little circle-time sharing…

One of my classes just loves to share. I keep telling them I don’t care, but…they keep sharing anyway… I’ve had to institute the “WTP?” rule. What’s the point?

“Last night, I ate Chinese food.”

“Thanks for sharing. And the point is…?”

“Ummm. I thought the Kung Pao chicken was tasty. But it was realllly hot.”

“Still waiting…”

“Ummm. The point is…if you eat Chinese food, you should probably order Kung Pao chicken, but make sure it’s not too hot.”

sigh.

But every now and then, they share too much, even for them.  One period a day has an extra 10 minutes for school bidness and handing out paperwork and etc. Any extra time, they want to spend sharing. A while back, during “circle time,” we were talking about nicknames.

“I have a nickname for pretty much every one of you.”

“What’s mine?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I hate nicknames. In elementary school they called me Pi_ er Diaper.”

(I swear, I still can’t even type it without cracking up. That just rolls off the tongue.)

After everyone in the room had expired from laughing continuously for five minutes, I managed to say,

“You understand what you’ve just done?’

“What?”

“Why would you tell us that? You have to realize how difficult it would be NOT to say it now and then? Now that YOU’VE told us about it?”

It’s probably on someone’s Facebook page by now.

I instantly forbade ANYONE from uttering the sacred phrase, under penalty of a week’s LUNCH detention.

“Only I get to do that.”

Actually, when she gets a bit too jabbery now, all I have to say is,

“Don’t make me bust out the nickname.”

…

I’m plowing through essays the other day, and I come across another spell-check disaster. It’s a how-to essay about baking chocolate chip cookies. I always tell them to open essays like that with the finished product. Show us what we’ll be learning how to do, and why we should want to do it. Show how fun or exciting or tasty our lives would be if we followed your instructions. So she was trying to show us how tasty and tempting these brownies would be if we made them. Best “fixed” line:

“…you know when when you catch the lustrous  aroma of brownies permuting  Grandma’s hose…”

At least it wasn’t Grampa’s hose…

I think she meant luscious. And permeate was a vocab word recently, so I think she was trying that on for size, but instead got permuting out of the spell-check bot.

Grandma’s Hose. Sounds like a band name.

…

The comments section had a question (thanks Meg) about dealing with grade grubbers and parents who enable grade grubbers.  I have a few ways of dealing.

One: I cap any extra credit at 10% of the total possible for that assignment. I tell them from the git go that I don’t want extra credit skewing the grades, and that I will change the policy to avoid that. I don’t give diligence A’s. Diligence B’s maybe, but not A’s.

Two: Most gradebook software will let you assign weights to various categories of grades. Just make extra credit a separate category, and weight it at .5 instead of 1. That way, each point is only really worth 1/2 in the total grade. (And nobody will notice.)

Three: Make sure you get it back somewhere else. Hard tests, lots of quizzes, surprise notebook audits, etc. This is my favorite. This way only the truly diligent and/or smart will get that 100%+.

Four: Regarding parents. The first time I had a problem with a parent looking for a higher grade was almost 17 years ago, my first year at this school. I had already come home from the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, when I got a phone call…AT HOME AFTER THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, asking why “Sid” was getting a C- (which I thought was a gift).

“He feels really bad about it. What can he make up? Could he do extra credit?”

I was young and dumb. But not that dumb. Plus I was already home after THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

“It’s just too late.”

I hung up on the cursing.

Luckily (or I like to think because my system has evolved to keep pace), I have  had only one similar incident since. This one was a parent demanding a grade change on an essay. After an extended “meeting” (read: browbeating), I finally said,

“What grade would you like it to be?”

“Well, an A of course.”

“You got it. All A’s from here on. One fewer paper for me to read each time. ”

“But, but…”

“No, no. it’s ok. I don’t mind.”

I think you guys know how this one ends…

Finally it came out that the parent had largely written the paper, and was mad that I gave her a B. So instead the kid gets an F for cheating.

D’oh.

Permanent Record

Posted on March 16, 2010
Filed Under Seventh Grade Behavior, Stories of Seventh Grade | 1 Comment

I don’t what your thoughts are on grade-grubbers, but I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I guess it’s good that they care about the grade so much, and are willing to work hard to get what they want, but more often than not… well you know what I’m talking about.

“Is there extra credit on this assignment?”

“What if I write more than a thousand words for 600 words? How much extra credit will I get?”

“If SSI people have to do definitions for vocabulary, is it extra credit if you don’t have SSI and do them anyway?”

“What if I write two pages for KBAR? (the requirement is one) DO I get extra credit? What about three?”

“Can I rewrite the essay and get 75/75 instead of 73?”

It can kind of wear you down after awhile.

This year I have another true-blue grade-grubber. I have a couple wannabes too, but only “A-Rod” makes it his mission to be #1. To keep his overall percentage over 100. To finish first on every test and quiz. To take advantage of every opportunity and loophole in the system.

Last year, I had to change some extra credit and exemption policies because I had a grade-grubber who also had, as Napoleon Dynamite would say, mad skills. I had to institute a few “David” rules last year, and put caps on some extra credit opportunities, because I had never had anyone diligent and smart enough (together) to work it. The incentive system is solid now.

A-Rod’s technique is different. He not only takes full advantage of all the bonus opportunities I offer (vocabulary sentences, extra words for 600 words, etc.), he is also the consummate answer-mooch.

I’m sure you’ve had more than a few of these. I have a whole herd of them this year. But he’s the best in a while. When they get to a question/problem they aren’t sure of, they hit you with a barrage of questions, with various answers “cleverly” embedded to test your reaction.

“Now, on #6, do you mean that…?”

“Read the question.”

“I did, but I think there are two that would work… choice A looks like it could be right, but…On D, do you mean…?”

“Stop mooching answers.”

“Now…on a true/false, the whole statement has to be true or…”

“Would you stop?”

“Like… #7 looks like it could be two answers. Do you use any words more than once on the vocab?”

“Let’s see. Ten words. Twelve blanks. Hmmm. You tell me.”

“I was just making sure.”

“Uh huh.”

You see what I mean. It just wears you out.

Finally I just couldn’t cope any more the other day. He had interrupted me to ask about some +1/2 I was awarding for some sort of trivia knowledge.

“Join me at break. You can sit with the crims for awhile. See how the other half lives. Some of them would kill for that +1/2 you ain’t gettin’ no mo’.”

“D’oh”

He received another day of detention ten minutes later for doing it again. It’s in the DNA.

He shows up the next day and sits it out. (I’ll devote a whole post one of these days to my zoo at break detention.)

After I “release the hounds” at the end of break, he hangs back to ask me another “very important” question.

“Does detention go on your record?”

I shake my head sadly, and resist the urge to say,

“Forever.”

Soundz!

Posted on March 12, 2010
Filed Under Supplementary Materials, Technology | Leave a Comment

In the previous post, I touted the beauty of The Timer and havoc one might wreak with it upon the psyches of sensitive seventh graders. This is just a quick update to that.

The link at the end of this post will take you to a directory with my stash of timer sounds. You can go find your own on the net — look for .wav files — but here are some to get you started.

Tips:

Change the sounds at random intervals. (Read the Read Me file for how to. It’s easy.)

Surreptitiously crank up the volume after the start sound, so that the alarm sound has maximum impact (sometimes literally).

Try to be talking just before the time runs out, so that they are distracted when it does. Then casually finish your sentence after they scream.

Say, “I never get tired of that,” after they fall out of their desks.

(at the start) Say, “The clock’s running; your mouth shouldn’t be.”

Say, “Excuse me, must be that breakfast burrito,” after the raspberry sound.

After time expires, but before you reset, if you click go you get the start and alarm sounds back-to-back. Kinda fun if you choose your sounds right. Like the raspberry and the scream.

Here’s the sounds stash. Right click on each sound to save as.

keep looking »
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