Today is the second and final day of subbing in the self-contained special ed class in my new district.
I won't do "A Day in the Life" this time, since it's not too different from yesterday. The main difference in the schedule is that like most high schools in both districts, Mondays are Late Start days. For most classes, all this means is that the students log into Zoom a little later, since Mondays are all online. It's only in special ed classes like this one that has in-person students on Late Start Mondays.
One of the aides has brought her ukelele again. I forget which song she plays today -- I think she said it's a Neil Young song.
As for the song I perform today -- no, it's not "Another Ratio Song," since as I wrote in my last post, I'm still stuck on one chord. Instead, I switch to a song where chords don't matter -- "Packet Rap." This is the first time I've perform this song since the start of the pandemic -- after all, we don't really see too many packets these days for obvious reasons. Even this class doesn't actually have packets -- yes, the students do work on paper, but these papers aren't stapled into a packet. But I perform the rap anyway.
Also, I walk with a group of special ed students around the entire school. This is a different group from the one that heard "The Big March" last week -- and since I like to sing that song during long walks anyway, of course I sing it again.
Today is Friday, the first day of the week and first day of the year on the Eleven Calendar. I haven't really numbered the years on this calendar so far -- but since I left the old charter school in March, I've de facto counted the number of years since I left the old charter. It's been four years, so this would be the start of Year 5 in the calendar. It's the last time I use the phrase "four years ago" when referring to the charter -- soon I must start saying "five years ago." (Happy New Year -- also, this implies that the first full year after I created the calendar -- the same as the year I worked at the charter -- is Year 0.)
Resolution #1: We are good at math. We just need to improve at other things.
A few students do work on math today. One guy uses a calculator to count money, including $1 bills and common coins. I must tell him that he can't add 1 + 25 to add a dollar to a quarter -- instead, he must use a decimal point for the quarter. Also, I remind him to avoid the common error of forgetting the zero after the decimal point in .01 and .05 for the penny and nickel. Fortunately, he seems to learn fast.
There's also a girl who is practicing three-digit subtraction without a calculator. I use my own calculator as a random number generator. She makes the common errors that you expect in the standard algorithm.
The old fifth resolution about 1955 and avoiding the overuse of phones comes into play today. One boy is celebrating his birthday today -- technically, I should say man, since he's a senior celebrating his eighteenth birthday. As I did last Friday, I bring in some candy, including special Hershey's and Kit Kat bars just for the birthday man. He must earn the candy though by keeping his phone in his backpack -- which he has trouble doing because he received a special phone carrier for his birthday, which he feels obviates the need to keep the phone in the backpack.
I invoke the fifth resolution by reminding him that now that he's 18, he needs to think in terms of the real world -- soon he'll get a job to earn real money (and buy all the candy he wants), but if the boss tells him to put his phone anyway, he''ll have to, or else he'll lose his job and someone else will get the money instead. In other words, I threaten to give the candy to someone else unless he keeps the phone in his backpack. He does finally keep it away from lunchtime (when I buy and show him the candy) until it's time to give out the reward.
As for "homage," today is the first day of Women's History Month, so expect a lot of homage to be paid to women for the next few weeks. Today the students read an article on the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and so we definitely pay homage to her today.
Here's a link to Day 2 of the Desmos activity created by teacher Jenny White. I already linked to Day 1 of her activity on Friday.
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5c92d05c53eee550160bda71
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