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Sunday, June 10, 2012

They Were Too Smart For My Own Good…


I subbed a 6th grade class the week before the last day of school. As a class they were really good natured and very smart.

They had a full day of work assignments and even a test on the anatomy of the human body. They had to identify the location and spelling of some of the 206 bones in the human skeleton.

That and the other daily assignments convinced me that there would be little if any idle time for them to get bored and restless.

As it turned out, most of the class completed all the work with oodles of time left. I broke out my standby activity for the early finishers: The Night Watchman Maze.
By the time the rest of the class completed their classroom assignments, they joined up in teams to see which team would solve the puzzle first.

Frustrated team member: What’s this thing called again?
Me: The Night Watchman Maze

I didn’t think anything more about the inquirer as he returned to his team at the back of the room until later. I saw that the “team” members were crowded around one of the classroom computers.

While my blog isn’t exactly anonymous, I know of only one teacher who has discovered its existence so far. There may be more but if so, they haven’t told me they read or even know about it.

All that changed in one afternoon. There on the computer screen is a familiar looking "book shelf"  Blogger template

Kids: Hey! Mr. Homework! You’re on the internet! We Googled “night watchman maze" and found this!

What else could I say? -- I lied:  
Me: No, that’s not me. It must be someone else…someone with the same name.
Kids: No, no…Isn’t that your picture right there!

Me: Hey, It’s time to go out for some P.E.
Who wants to play some NationBall?   

If you don’t know what NationBall is, I’m sure you can Google it and find out. It seems like ALL the answers are on the internet….

1 comment:

Katherine Kirk said...

Oh God, I can't imagine what I'd do if my students found my teaching blog. I've taken huge steps to prevent this - no picture of me or reference to my real name, no reference to real school names, and a very vague idea of what town I'm in.

But it's still a lurking fear...