Saturday, January 30, 2010

3 days down... 8 weeks to go.

My long term sub assignment has been umm... interesting. Yup, that's a good word.
I had one math class full of kids who couldn't be bothered to do the homework. They will receive a big fat zero unless they turn it in on Monday for half credit. I am simply blown away by the attitude.
They don't care about anything.
Where, pray tell, does the attitude come from? I know some of these kids' parents and I'm sure if they knew their kids weren't doing the homework, they'd be upset... but then again, they see the grades. They know.
I have 8 weeks left.
They will learn.
They will fight me every single step of the way, but they WILL learn.
Basically, it's sad.
It's sad that kids are throwing their lives away because they think it's cool to not learn.
It will be interesting to watch these kids as they progress to the high school next year. They need to buckle down and do the work. They aren't stupid. Every single kid I have has the potential to do great things.
They are going to wake up one day and realize that the mean nasty sub from 8th grade actually had a clue and tried to tell them... And they are going to wish they'd paid attention.

2 comments:

Ellen said...

I had one teacher who had a countdown/graph on the board. One day late = .25, etc. for how much credit you got on things. I found it much easier to get full credit for homework turned in on time rather than having to do four things to get that full credit.

Mean and nasties unite! (I am a member of the M&N Moms club.)

Renee Nefe said...

well since they don't care about the credit...then I would hit them with a Pop Quiz for each day they don't turn it in. Extra credit for a problem for the next day's homework.

To save the school the paper...write the quiz on the board.

When they whine about the quiz, tell them to get the quizes to stop, do the assignment.