Movie Friday

"Friday! It's movie day!"

Last block of the day. Second semester eleventh grade English.

Mr. G had been out Thursday as well. The reason was mysterious--confusing texts to the summer school principal.

Sudden absence. No plans...

Movie day? I'm down with that, provided that they're not lying. (If we watched a movie every time a kiddo claimed the teacher had promised them a movie, all I would do all day every day is watch movies. Seriously. At least one student every day claims this.)

But, even if I had wanted to, I could not do a movie. I did not have a computer to hook up to the projector.

(Once upon a time, every classroom had a TV and VCR. Then a DVD player. A couple years ago, all of them were removed. Now every classroom has a projector installed with speakers in the ceiling. One can hook up a DVD player to the projector--I've done this a couple times--but most of the time teachers just hook up a computer and stream something.)

I do not carry a computer with me to work. The student computer cart was locked. There was an old desktop computer in the room that might have worked, but only if I could hook it up to the projector.

However, we had HDMI cables (which don't fit in older computers) and they wouldn't reach anyway...

Let's just suffice it to say I know how to hook up the equipment, but it would have been more trouble than it was worth, even if I had had what I needed.

But teens...

When I said I could not hook up a computer, one boy said, "I know how. I can do it."

I probably should have let him tinker with it until he figured out I wasn't lying, but I wasn't in the mood.

Another student offered his phone. Alas, I have yet to find a cable that'll allow this to work. (One can play music over the classroom speakers via a phone, but that cable was not in the room.)

In the end, I told them to tell Mr. G he owed them a make up movie day. And then I told them to get to work. (Which they didn't do. They decided it was watch-your-own-movie day and streamed something on their phones. Which wasn't any different than what they did on Thursday...)

I wasn't too disappointed at the technology fail, though. If I could get it all to work, what movie would I show them? Deciding that would open a whole new can of worms.