Alright, so I thought about just posting this in a status update, but I kinda like how the blogs are much more free with the character limit(Well actually I don't think there is a limit on characters in a blog, so quite a bit more free ;p.) and it just looks more formal and stuff, and I had something happen today that was interesting in my opinion, and made me feel good today. And I figured it'd make a fairly decent blog entry, so I was like "Why not? I haven't done a blog on here in a while anyways."

So on with the story shall we?

So today was a Friday school day, usually pretty normal, but good as it's the end of the week.

But today I had a little bit of an interesting thing happen in English class.

So yesterday for English class we were given an assignment that we had the chance to do at home that night, or do the next day in class. I myself did the assignment the night before, simply because I wasn't sure if i'd have time or not to do the assignment as my English teacher has the tendency to turn things into stories and get off track sometimes.(I find the stories interesting in many cases, some are simply history, or background information or something, but they can drag on a while.)

Anyways, the assignment was this poem analyzing assignment, honestly I am not anything amazing with analyzing poems, but I did it regardless well enough i'd hope. We used this format called "TPCASTT" I don't know if anybody else has had teachers use it, but my English this teacher had us use it for two different poems.

So anyways, since I was finished with my assignment, my English teacher asked me to help a student with the assignment.

Now the student who I was helping is one of those students who doesn't really want to do much of any school, and usually would rather cheat or just copy answers, and he kind of expected me to let me do that considering I had finished my work, and I was told to help him.

Now, I'll admit that many times people have asked me this, and I have just kinda gave up, or not said anything, especially if it's someone i'm more well acquainted with. Plus, I'm usually pretty shy and quiet around people I do not know that well, and typically won't say anything and just let them copy.

But today I felt compelled to do something different, and guess what happened?

I said no.

*Surprise*

Lol, but really, I don't usually do that kind of thing honestly, I guess I maybe have a hard time doing so at times, especially if I know the person, but today for some reason, I was determined to say no.

Now, did that mean I simply said no and gave up on him? To have him sit there and do nothing?

Nope, didn't do that either this time. I decided to go all "professor" on him, I say professor because I kind of felt a bit teacher like the way I went about the whole thing.

So instead of "helping" him I helped him. By guiding him through what to do, the real way to help.

At first he just kinda thought it a joke, but after some rejection of him asking to just tell me the answer I kind of got him working.

Then a student sitting next to him asked me for some help, I ended up rejecting what he wanted, for me to just tell him the answer, but he seemed the most willing to accept my help. So I again said mostly what I said to the other guy I was originally assigned to help.

And then after that my teacher asks me if I could take on another person to help(Something along those lines, he is an English teacher, and thus he talks pretty formally, i'm sure you understand what I am saying. I forget his exact words.) regardless I decided to accept. This last student was a girl who again like the other two, would have rather I just tell her the answers, instead of helping her to learn how to find it out, but again, I rejected this idea, and I tried to help her as well.

She was the least willing of all of them to accept my advice and guidance, and after the first few parts of the assignment she just kinda gave up.

Another student asked me for "help" again, but I rejected her idea of help, and she rejected my guidance.

So she isn't really important to the story, the other girl stayed around for a little bit, and I feel I may have got through to her slightly, but I feel like she was much more concerned with just copying, because she would try to copy from guy who was the most willing to learn how to do it himself.

So eventually she just kinda left.

I focused on the two guys left, mainly on the 2nd one who was most willing to learn how to properly do this. I kind of felt like a teacher, because I kept encouraging him to think and explain himself, instead of telling him what to do, I think being in counseling oddly enough kind of helped with this, even if counseling had nothing to do with this really, because my counselor would often ask me to explain myself, instead of letting me be vague.

The other guy kind of thought for himself, but eventually he was mostly just copying. And then I think he started guessing.

So I focused my attention on the one guy who seemed to be atleast listening and trying to figure out the poem for himself(especially important considering how poems are alot about interpretation anyways.)

And through my teacher like attitude of helping by explaining the process and helping to encourage and guide thinking, he was actually getting through things, which I thought was pretty good considering that he probably would have rather just copy the answers. He came up with all the answers on his own, with only some input from me guiding him.

And while he wasn't able to finish the entire assignment that day, our teacher let everyone finish it for homework, and since I had guided him through most of it, I think he atleast learned somewhat how to do the poem analysis.

I don't know for sure how much of it he took to heart, and how much he thought I was just being nerdy and a jerk by not helping him, I don't know how much he laughed about the whole thing, or if he actually learned from the experience. I even mentioned while rejecting having the girl copy my answers that copying the answers would only get her so far(I know, kind of cliche, but it's true.)

And so I feel that through actually attempting to help for once, instead of letting them copy, I feel like I atleast got through to them to some degree, to maybe help them not to just copy their way through school.

Regardless, I felt quite accomplished actually, and I felt like I did a pretty good job of being a sort of teacher in a sense. It was actually quite enjoyable to see that I actually was making progress with teaching and explaining the process to him.

So yeah, today was a pretty nice day, simply because that made me feel accomplished.

Was I being to much of a nerd? Should I have just given up and let them copy? Should I have not bothered to try and help change their ways? Idk really. I don't know for sure how effective it is, infact, I doubt that any of them will never cheat or copy again just because some kid in their grade told them it wouldn't pay off, but i'd like to think that the effort maybe helped them atleast consider it, maybe I even helped to some extent, and I think that's what counts.

So yeah, sorry for being a bit rambled and long winded, I do that a lot, especially writing stuff.

Hopefully this was atleast somewhat intriguing to you all, so tell me what your thoughts are on the whole thing if you get a chance. Did I do the right thing? Or was it a simple waste of my time?

That's all for now, You can get out of my mind now ;p.