Made this for my 6th grade classroom when I found out we had a sub on the first day. It was subsequently thrown away by the new teacher who came in.

 In doing my pre-work reading for my summer training with City Year, I came across a section about attendance. There is section with questions to help you evaluate what the attendance needs are for your school, and then suggestions to help ameliorate the problem(s). It got me thinking about why students are truant. In the classroom I worked in this past year, there were no consequences for being absent. It was merely that a student missed the lesson from that day. No effort was made on the part of the teacher to make sure s/he got caught up, and even worse, it wasn't made known that the student could go ask for the assignment. Believe me, I tried, trying to get one of my students to take responsibility for missing a day of work. I told him to wait for a moment when our teacher didn't seem busy/stressed out/angry to politely raise his hand and ask for the work.

Wait...back up. Rewind. Our conversation went something like this:

 Me: Don*, why're you just sitting there? (*name has been changed)
Don: I don't have the CLP packet.
Me: How come?
Don: I dunno...I wasn't here when she gave it out.
Me: Oh you're right, that was yesterday. Well, what should you do if you don't have your work?
Don: *blank stare* *shrugs*
Me: What do you think would be a good idea?
Don: I dunno...
Me: Shouldn't you ask her for a packet?
Don: MISS!!!!!! I need --

Okay. So now we're caught up to where I left off. This is where I stopped him from calling out in the middle of class, and told him to wait for the right moment. He sighed (which in my school sounds a lot more like HUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH), and said that he would just get yelled at so what was the point. I finally convinced him that our teacher was just a stickler for rules, and as long as he followed them she would be happy and acquiesce to his request. Even at this point, 3/4 of the way into my corps year, I was naive to think our teacher wouldn't snap at him.

Don: *raises hand*
Teacher: WHAT?!
Don: *reluctantly looks at me, then back at the teacher* Um...Miss, I don't have a packet.
Teacher: Are...you...SERIOUS?
Don: *looks back at me with a look that says 'told you so', and slumps down in his chair*
Me: *sigh* Psst...Ray* can you do me a huge favor a lend me your packet? I need to make a copy for Don. Make sure you look on with your neighbor til I get back okay?
Ray: *smiles and nods, hands me packet*

 On my way down to the copy machine, I couldn't help but think that the way my teacher handled the situation was completely ineffective. Did she give Don an incentive to want to do his work? No. Did she indicate that he has missed anything and that it was important he make it up? No. No wonder these kids are falling behind, I thought. The issue is that not only is poor attendance/missed work not followed up with consequences by classroom teachers, good attendance and work completion are not rewarded. If I was a 6th grader, I wouldn't want to go to my school either, if I'm being completely honest.

And while it sounds like I'm railing on teachers, I'm not. While I'm fairly certain my teacher was an unfit educator (for many reasons), I fully understand teachers in general are spread very thin as it is, and constant budget cuts doesn't make it easier. But there is something very wrong when not ONE SINGLE STUDENT in the classroom wants to be a teacher when s/he gets older. NOT ONE. When I was in middle school, it was a common answer from about 1/4 of the class. Not that what you say in 6th grade you want to be actually comes true for most, but I found it shocking. Even when we took our middle schoolers on a college tour of UW-Milwaukee and the tour guide asked them how many of them wanted to be teachers, they all shouted "NOOOOOO" like she asked them some horrible question. And then there was a chorus of "I don't wanna deal with all those bad kids!" "I don't wanna work in a broke ass building" etc, etc, etc.

 Le sigh.