The Joke is on Me

This morning I expected to have a coverage. Tuesday is my "easy-day" I teach very few periods. I make up for it on Wednesday and Thursday by teaching too many. But this leaves me wide open for coevrages.

So I wasn't surprised when I saw the little piece of paper on my time card. Then I opened it and saw that I was scheduled to cover for an absent teachers periods "6 + 7." And there was a little smiley face drawn in the corner.

"TWO PERIODS! NO WAY!" I exclaimed.

"Sorry, Mister. Tuesday's your easy day, so you're the guy who can do the coverages," Mr. Flores said.

"But two periods, that's unheard of! Is this even legal?"

"Uh-oh," Mr. Flores said, "Mr. --- getting upset about coaverages again!"

And then everyone in the office, who had been quietly listening to this exchange, began to laugh.

"I'm only kidding, Mr. --- you don't have a coverage today."

Someone else remarked that I was just "punk'd," whatever that means. I am glad that my crusade for coveage equity, which just yesterday inspired Mr. Flores to call me "a coverage genius" has come to this.  I guess that explains the smiley face.

***

Last week Trevon became very excited about his research paper, maybe because I promised him that if he got a 4 (the equivalent of an A or a 90-100) I would give him a passing grade for the third marking period. He even typed up his first essay on the life of Cleopatra. He came to my room, full of pride, and handed me his paper. Reading it, I was confused his subject had changed. The first line read:

"Clipart was a beautiful Eqyptian queen. Clipart married her brother, Ptolemy."

Who is Clipart?

Blame spellcheck. And blame a careless student. I told type the paper up again and correct the spelling of Cleopatra's name.

So today Trevon handed me back the latest draft. It now read, "Cliparta was a beautiful Egyptian queen. . ."

Comments

[anonymous teacher]

I hate spellchecker for that reason, and students don't always understand that sometimes it creates mistakes for them. They use it instead of good old-fashioned proofreading.
But it makes for some funny mistakes.

[NYC Educator]

Cliparta was also the consort of Julius Scissors, if memory serves. I've had my share of those papers too.

They're superior in every way to the ones printed right off the internet, though. Teachers are regarded as unable to differentiate between student work and that of professional writers. In many instances, in fact, they either can't or find it not worth the effort.