Day 2
And on the second day of the school year:
MiniPlu got parked in at piano lessons this afternoon. Not badly, at least not for an experienced driver, but she couldn't judge well enough how much room she had to maneuver, and called me to come rescue her. I drove over (thankfully only 5 mins away) and talked her through it, via the open window. Keep in mind, she's only driven out to piano by herself twice (today being the second time) because it involves parallel parking, and she's still not terribly confident about it - for the first six weeks after she got her license, I still went with her, just in case she needed help. Now I'm making her do it alone. And we see how well THAT went, sigh. Plus, of course, this, like all the stuff yesterday, just stressed her out more.
Two only grudgingly let me check his math review homework (in preparation for tomorrow's summer-work test), and argued with me over EVERY. SINGLE. problem he got wrong - EVEN IF HE'D JUST REDONE IT AND GOTTEN A DIFFERENT (actually correct) ANSWER ON HIS CALCULATOR. And he got at least 7.5 out of 20 wrong. (It's been worse - I'll give him that, but 67.5% still sucks.) I threatened to start charging him $1 for every time he insisted, falsely, that he was right, but saying that if "*I* was wrong, as I am occasionally (which I admitted out loud), I'd give him back a dollar. He had to ruin the gesture by strongly implying that I screwed up in math a lot. Which, at his level of math, is SO not true. Occasionally, yes. Often? No.
And then we moved on to his essay, which - as he now knows - is due Monday. It only has to be 350-500 words, but in terms of what he'd started with, he was going to struggle to even get it to 200. He still expects me to do work for him that I used to do when he was younger, like typing to his dictation, or automatically fixing mistakes, and argued and complained every time I refused. Nope, you're in 10th grade. I will give you suggestions, but YOU will write them (or voice them in). I will point out where to look for mistakes, but YOU will fix them.
We discussed the conflict and how to word it (after he argued as to what constituted a conflict in this story), and what kind of quote to look for (because he is notoriously terrible at finding quotes that actually support the topic). He clearly does not understand the difference between just repeating yourself, and expanding on an idea, because I would give examples on expanding his idea, which he rejected as just being repetitious, and then he would write several sentences in a row that literally were just reshuffling the same words into slightly different sentences. He said he did not want to go to the Writing Clinic at school, that that's what he had ME for, but then, of course, shot down pretty much any suggestion I had, to successfully expand his ideas, without repeating himself. He did eventually get his essay up to 400-something words, and although I cut some of the repetitions out, he's still in the 400 range, so that works. I told him to show it to his teacher tomorrow for some bonus guidance (the only "assignment" visible on Google classroom is to work on revisions, not what the assignment is supposed to include, so it would be good if he checked to be sure he was on the right track, but I'm not sure he will.
Only 178 school days to go. :-P
Subbing for lunch went fine, though, of course, it's a lot more work getting kids INTO a routine, than dealing with them once they have the hang of it - especially for the much smaller kids. But, it went ok. I'm back on duty tomorrow, too. Still waiting on my free day. At least I'm being paid?
If you need a bit of a laugh, here: Parking a SmartCar in the kitchen so it won't blow away.
MiniPlu got parked in at piano lessons this afternoon. Not badly, at least not for an experienced driver, but she couldn't judge well enough how much room she had to maneuver, and called me to come rescue her. I drove over (thankfully only 5 mins away) and talked her through it, via the open window. Keep in mind, she's only driven out to piano by herself twice (today being the second time) because it involves parallel parking, and she's still not terribly confident about it - for the first six weeks after she got her license, I still went with her, just in case she needed help. Now I'm making her do it alone. And we see how well THAT went, sigh. Plus, of course, this, like all the stuff yesterday, just stressed her out more.
Two only grudgingly let me check his math review homework (in preparation for tomorrow's summer-work test), and argued with me over EVERY. SINGLE. problem he got wrong - EVEN IF HE'D JUST REDONE IT AND GOTTEN A DIFFERENT (actually correct) ANSWER ON HIS CALCULATOR. And he got at least 7.5 out of 20 wrong. (It's been worse - I'll give him that, but 67.5% still sucks.) I threatened to start charging him $1 for every time he insisted, falsely, that he was right, but saying that if "*I* was wrong, as I am occasionally (which I admitted out loud), I'd give him back a dollar. He had to ruin the gesture by strongly implying that I screwed up in math a lot. Which, at his level of math, is SO not true. Occasionally, yes. Often? No.
And then we moved on to his essay, which - as he now knows - is due Monday. It only has to be 350-500 words, but in terms of what he'd started with, he was going to struggle to even get it to 200. He still expects me to do work for him that I used to do when he was younger, like typing to his dictation, or automatically fixing mistakes, and argued and complained every time I refused. Nope, you're in 10th grade. I will give you suggestions, but YOU will write them (or voice them in). I will point out where to look for mistakes, but YOU will fix them.
We discussed the conflict and how to word it (after he argued as to what constituted a conflict in this story), and what kind of quote to look for (because he is notoriously terrible at finding quotes that actually support the topic). He clearly does not understand the difference between just repeating yourself, and expanding on an idea, because I would give examples on expanding his idea, which he rejected as just being repetitious, and then he would write several sentences in a row that literally were just reshuffling the same words into slightly different sentences. He said he did not want to go to the Writing Clinic at school, that that's what he had ME for, but then, of course, shot down pretty much any suggestion I had, to successfully expand his ideas, without repeating himself. He did eventually get his essay up to 400-something words, and although I cut some of the repetitions out, he's still in the 400 range, so that works. I told him to show it to his teacher tomorrow for some bonus guidance (the only "assignment" visible on Google classroom is to work on revisions, not what the assignment is supposed to include, so it would be good if he checked to be sure he was on the right track, but I'm not sure he will.
Only 178 school days to go. :-P
Subbing for lunch went fine, though, of course, it's a lot more work getting kids INTO a routine, than dealing with them once they have the hang of it - especially for the much smaller kids. But, it went ok. I'm back on duty tomorrow, too. Still waiting on my free day. At least I'm being paid?
If you need a bit of a laugh, here: Parking a SmartCar in the kitchen so it won't blow away.