Failure

We all deal with it. Some more than others. All day I tried to find ways to teach physically. We were pirates (tomorrow being International Talk Like a Pirate Day). We were long vowels standing tall and short ones crouching down. We used unifix cubes all through math.

8 kids mostly worked and learned. 9 kids worked a little and mostly were on showtime. They threw cubes at each other or played cube swords or cube legos. Roberto continued to obsess with his fingers. Evan spent much of the day with his back to me. At least Griselda didn't turn her eyelids inside out once. She did copy off of José's test several times, though, necessitating a call to her father on his cell.

Me: "Señor M?"
Señor M: "Sí. Buscamos un apartamente. Yo y mi hija--" (We're looking for an apartment. My daughter and I--"
Me: "Um. Soy la maestra de su hija..." (Um. I'm your daughter's teacher....)

Instead of offering an apartment, I had to let him know his daughter was copying repeatedly on a state test. She's only 7. I explained that there was no maliciousness in it. No clear sense of wrongdoing--at first.

Why does she cheat? Is she worried about failing? Already, at the ripe age of 7?

I don't think so.

Griselda and several others seem to think that tests are a social activity. If you don't know something, check with someone else. In fact, if you do know something, check with someone else anyway. Good advice sometimes. Many people I know, including myself, ought to take it. Listen to others. Connect. But Griselda does not do it to connect. To create social networks like apes grooming each other or friends twittering. Griselda does it to be right. Griselda likes to be right. Always. Even if she's wrong.

Me: "What's 7+4? Build it with your cubes."
Griselda: "Ms. B, I knoooooow that already."
Me: "Excellent. Can you build it with your cubes to show me?"
Griselda: "But Ms. B. I knoooooooooooow it! It's 10!"

I have no problem with social testing. Group projects are terrific and wonderful and I use them all the time. But Griselda needs to take that up with the State of California. The test she was taking is not considered by the governator and his minions to be a social activity.

And after I've told her not once, but twice (in English and in Spanish), to keep her eyes on her own paper and stop with the neighborly consultations and to stop peering around the divider that blocks her view of José's test and to leave José alone (since for godssakes he's not playing Airplane Eraser Battlefront for once in twelve days and he's actually concentrating on what he's SUPPOSED to be doing!!) because this test isn't one of those group projects but just a test between her and herself and the governator and she needs to show what she can do all by her lonesome ownsome and and and after all that--

she still consults with him--

I think her dad needs to talk with her about right and wrong a little.

I hope he did.

I'll ask her tomorrow.

(You don't know me, but I do hope you know I didn't say all those things. Really. I'm a playwright too. Artistic license and all that.)