1st Hour, Day Five

Schultz was home with a sick daughter today, so I'm jumping in early with Jamie. Her first hour is 10th Grade Skills English.

Teaching these kids seems to require a lot more patience and hands-on fun. There is a special ed teacher that Jamie team teaches with a special ed teacher that walks around the classroom and helps keeps things in line.

Jamie teaches off of a PowerPoint slide show and her students have note sheets that have little PowerPoint-style square frames. She tells them exactly what to write down and gives them tons of time to do that.

I asked Jamie what gets a kid into the skills class. She said it was a combination of developmental and motivational problems. I was surprised to learn that Louis, a kid a know from the playground program is in this class. Which group does he fit in to?

After the lecture the kids went to the computer lab to work on a paper. Its amazing how computers make it easier for people to screw around. Louis was listening to music through some website and there were kids messing around with the webcams and all kinds of crap.

I'm thinking that Louis is one of the motivationally challenged kids, because in spite of all of the distractions he made for himself in the computer lab, he still had two paragraphs written, putting him ahead of most of the class.

Right after first hour is something called tutorial. I guess it is a time for study halls, homework make up and clubs that seems like a big waste of time. Apparently it's kind of controversial.