the crafty copyer

from palisadesk:

There's another category -- ones I call "in school dropouts." They are physically present, keep the chairs warm, may engage in occasional Jokery, do well enough to pass, sometimes are B students, but are gifted and bored to death. They give token compliance, largely ignore what is going on, and are likely to do their own thing (write novels, program video games, draw and invent, etc.)

These students are ones who also could and should be at the top but are completely disengaged. They don't make trouble, like Jokers, and they don't attract attention for doing what the school wants, like Nerds.

I spot them pretty often because in my early days in DC public schools I was one, too.

from Paul:

These are The Crafters, often found working on some clandestine project in their lap; could be homework, could be spitballs, or maybe they're reading a book.

I don' have too many of those because my furniture is such that they have no place to do their nefarious deeds without my eyes catching the contraband.

Funny thing is, my principal complained about my furniture in an observation. Silly me, I thought that was her domain. I mustn't have gotten the memo. :>{

and:

Come to think of it, I do have one especially crafty Crafter. Let's call him Thomas Jefferson. Thomas's craft is rubber bands. He puts every ounce of his energy into shooting kids in the back of the head with little wads of paper shot from his crafty perch inside his extra bulky hoody that we are not allowed to ban.

I've been on to 'Jeff' for some time and he knows it. That's why the extra effort is required. He has to keep one eye on me, one on his victim, another on his copying, and the last on the door, lest the VP (who is also on to him) drops in for a surprise reconnaissance. Since he has but two eyes, he is mightily challenged to keep all these balls in the air, so to speak.

We moved him to another class, away from his best friends in order to least free up one eye for school work, since he'd no longer be with the copying enablers. This was a disaster. He went from a B to an F and mom got on the phone to fix his grades. She didn't call me, surprise! She called a sympathetic administrative ear to get him back to his old classroom to 'improve' his grade. It worked!

Old Tom will be back in his original class after the break. At least I'll be able to catch him at his craft more often as he'll be back to copying again which reduces his ability to watch me. He won't be getting his B back though, as I'm planning something special for his seating arrangement.

Hopefully mom will be back on the phone 'helping' her son in 5 weeks.

This makes me want to drop everything & re-read Tom Sawyer right this minute.

Since I'm not going to do that, here's a question: what do these kids do when placed in a hands-on 21st century collaborative group?