Family traditions, for LJ Idol
It's important to stay in touch with your roots. My family has been involved in education for the past three generations, at least, so we all have stories of our close encounters of the student kind.
Here are two:
1. Starring my grandmother and my mom
Grandma was the school nurse in my school district when I Was little, and my mom, at this point in her career, taught 8th grade science.
Well, one student would suddenly come down with a headache anytime mom scheduled a quiz, and he just had to go to the nurse's office to lie down. HE would frequently have a miraculous recovery twenty minutes later.
Here's the thing, once or even twice, you can see it happening. A student might be sick or just overwhelmed, especially 13 year olds, but this was a consistent pattern over a two or three month span.
Mom and grandma talked about the situation, and came up with a solution.
The next time mom gave a quiz, and the student went to the nurse's office, after his recovery. grandma looked at him and said, "Well, since you're feeling better now, here's the quiz." And he had to take it in her office.
The student never pulled this trick again.
2. Starring mom and me
Fast forward about twelve years, mom was now teaching high school chemistry, and I had her for class.
For the lab, mom had us work in pairs, but we had to write up separate lab reports.
Two of my classmates, people who knew my mom for well over a decade at this point, decided to turn in identical lab reports.
My mom noticed, and wrote this note on them:
This is a well done report, and it would earn a 94%. However, you both wrote the same report, so I'm splitting the grade in half: 47%
That day at lunch, my classmates came up to me.
Classmate1: Look at what your mom did.
Classmate2: Yeah. She gave us bad grades.
Me: Did you honestly think you'd get away with this?
Both of them: ...
Me: No, really. Did you think she wouldn't notice? What did you expect?
They both walked away in disgust and didn't talk to me for a week, I guess to chastise me.
This was not the punishment they thought it was.
And anyone who is a regular reader of this journal knows several stories of my close encounters of the student kind
I'm proud to continue the family tradition of taking no prisoners.
Here are two:
1. Starring my grandmother and my mom
Grandma was the school nurse in my school district when I Was little, and my mom, at this point in her career, taught 8th grade science.
Well, one student would suddenly come down with a headache anytime mom scheduled a quiz, and he just had to go to the nurse's office to lie down. HE would frequently have a miraculous recovery twenty minutes later.
Here's the thing, once or even twice, you can see it happening. A student might be sick or just overwhelmed, especially 13 year olds, but this was a consistent pattern over a two or three month span.
Mom and grandma talked about the situation, and came up with a solution.
The next time mom gave a quiz, and the student went to the nurse's office, after his recovery. grandma looked at him and said, "Well, since you're feeling better now, here's the quiz." And he had to take it in her office.
The student never pulled this trick again.
2. Starring mom and me
Fast forward about twelve years, mom was now teaching high school chemistry, and I had her for class.
For the lab, mom had us work in pairs, but we had to write up separate lab reports.
Two of my classmates, people who knew my mom for well over a decade at this point, decided to turn in identical lab reports.
My mom noticed, and wrote this note on them:
This is a well done report, and it would earn a 94%. However, you both wrote the same report, so I'm splitting the grade in half: 47%
That day at lunch, my classmates came up to me.
Classmate1: Look at what your mom did.
Classmate2: Yeah. She gave us bad grades.
Me: Did you honestly think you'd get away with this?
Both of them: ...
Me: No, really. Did you think she wouldn't notice? What did you expect?
They both walked away in disgust and didn't talk to me for a week, I guess to chastise me.
This was not the punishment they thought it was.
And anyone who is a regular reader of this journal knows several stories of my close encounters of the student kind
I'm proud to continue the family tradition of taking no prisoners.