I guess it's preferable to sleeping in class

[omorka]

Two of my students in my 4B class can't see well. Earlier in the year, the girl had lost/damaged (not sure which) her glasses and so she had in an old pair of contacts that didn't quite work right, so she had to sit up really close and kept complaining that I needed to roll things up on the overhead. Then the guy managed to break his glasses at about the same time she got an eye infection. Now she has new contacts, so she moved to the back of the room so that he could sit up really close and squint. He just got his glasses replaced, but wanted a couple of days to "re-focus" since the prescription is slightly different, so as of yesterday she was still at the back of the room.

Yesterday, I was in the middle of explaining one of the homework problems when Chatterbox turned around to say something to the girl, and instead yelled "what is THAT?" I started to make my way back there to check out the situation, and she started explaining "It's just something I'm doing to keep my hands busy so I can stay awake in class." I arrived and found her with a skein of the grossest Crayola-crayon yellow acrylic worsted yarn - coarser than Red Heart SuperSaver, if that's possible - and what looked like a stainless-steel crochet hook, size unmarked, without the flat spot in the middle to grip it. I'm guessing it was probably a size F or E, which means it was probably too small for the yarn. She had a base chain about a foot and a half long.

I picked it up, tried to hold it straight without the flat grip (which I found really difficult), looked for the size marking (to no avail), and poked at the chain. She sort of shrank in her chair and said "I'm just learning." I nodded and handed it back to her. Chatterbox announced to the class, "Ooh, I bet Ms. [Omorka] has some expertise with this!"

I walked back to my desk, picked up the beret I'd made to match the black-and-white Homespun poncho, straightened it, and plopped it on my head. It took Chatterbox a second to realize what I was demonstrating, and then half the girls in the class laughed and said, "Oh, cool!"

I told them that I'd be happy to teach them how to crochet if they came by during tutorials . . .

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In other news, Republic of Tea's "Comfort and Joy" blend (a) tastes suspiciously like their "Harvest Moon" herbal blend, but (b) totally rocks!

Comments

[krystiegoddess.livejournal.com]

As part of whatever campus improvement program we're in the middle of, during Thursday advisory period (which is about 25 minutes), we've had folks doing mini-classes - some of the teachers have done basic chess, some have done cake-decorating demos, and the like. The most heavily attended & requested to have repeated have been the knitting class and the quilting class . . .