March 28, 2008

Gotta Have Thick Skin

I found out about a video that one of my students made in my class using his Mac and uploaded to YouTube. Great, huh?

This video is basically a student sitting in class recording himself doing nothing. You know, because school--and my class--is so boring. There are some other antics, like he makes weird noises and faces and tries to make it look like he's working.

From my personal perspective, I'm afraid I look like a bad teacher. Do students really have nothing to do and can just play on computers all day? Snort! As if! Sure, there's down time for a few students when their work is done, but if you didn't know any better, you might think that he had absolutely nothing to do. This particular bored student was suppose to be working on a project--a project for which he ended up earning a C.

What's that about boredom being a personal issue?

If I would have seen his behaviors from across the room, I would have thought he was mostly on task and just doing middle school boy things. Do you know any middle school boys who don't make random noises? And mostly on task...well, this kid is not your type A honor student by any stretch. He's a C student who falls into the D as often than he climbs to a B range. You know what this looks like right? A pokey student who works but doesn't make much progress...

So, if you see that thrilling video, go ahead and judge me. Seriously, where was I? Not standing over this kid's shoulder, that's for sure. The kid knew where I was while he was taping himself instead of working. It's evident by his behaviors.

Ha, ha, kid. You pulled one over on the teacher by taping yourself being off task.

Just thank goodness I wasn't the one caught on tape looking like a fool.

No comments: