Check That Tape...

E13-5

Last Tuesday’s 5th grade assignments got me a direct referral for today’s 5th grade assignment. I also met the 5th grade teacher next door at lunch and she asked me for my number for a possible future assignment. Networking works!!

Today’s last lesson for the day is science:
“Show video on electric current and have the students answer the three question worksheet. The tape is already queued up in the player”

Since I’ve been bitten by this ploy before, I ejected the tape to make sure there was actually a tape in the machine. There was.

The day is going smoothly, the last lesson for the day is about to begin. The class gets settled, worksheets out, pencils ready, lights dimmed, TV on and player started.

I went back to the teacher’s desk to make some additions to my “substitute teacher report” so I wasn’t paying attention to the video. That was until I heard some kids commenting. “ALL Riiight!”, “Yippee!”, “Were gonna get to watch this for science?”

That’s when it became apparent that something wasn’t quite right. They were WAY happier than they should be about some science video on electricity.

Sure nuff’ I looked up and saw the opening credits to the movie “School of Rock”.

While I know that a good part of the movie DOES deal with electrified musical instruments, I had a sneaky hunch that this just might not be the video the teacher intended.

After a short interruption, the unlabeled bootleg tape was replaced with “Bill Nye, the Science Guy” video to more than a few “Awwwww’s” from the class.

Lesson learned: Beware unlabeled videos in the classroom!