I wish I could say it went downhill when my student saw the mascot from a distance and decided it had a penis on its face. Unfortunately, at least for him, the problems started early and a few students are suddenly realizing that things are getting serious.

In my high school second year class my students are working on their term projects. This is a three week/six class project that requires them to “invent” a product and write commercial for it. Starting next week we will begin filming the commercials, which will be shown in class. (Sort of. Long story.)

The students are in groups of three and are also required to develop some sort of visual aid to help them sell their “invention”. Students who don’t do the project will receive the lowest possible score for the term (a 1 out of  10). This means they will have to take the make up exam or risk failing the year.

Because of this rule, I always encourage students to choose their partners wisely. Unfortunately for one group, they chose poorly.

One student worked well the first day and then decided he was finished. He started playing something on his phone (which are allowed as dictionaries) and clearly wasn’t helping his other two partners work. At some point, he saw a mascot (a person in a cartoonish animal suit) off in the distance near the bus stop and decided the elephant trunk and small white tusks on the mascot’s face represented a penis. This led to much distraction.

Eventually, toward the end of class, I told him and his partners they’d earned a zero for the day. At this point the partners rebelled with “all of us?” and “why?” I referred them to the assignment sheet and the list of rules which explained that all partners would be punished for the actions, or non-actions, of their partners.

Next class the performances start and, potentially, people will have to redo their commercials or fail.

The record is four repeats. I suspect the group that failed today may set a new record.