Wednesday, March 30, 2011

High School Assembly

Today I was feeling annoyed.  I think it was a combination of not sleeping well and hitting annoying traffic on my way to school.  I had already left late and by the time I got to school the kids were already shuffling into the classroom for homeroom.  Plus, they weren't sitting in their assigned seats and that really annoys me.  Do they really think the teacher didn't leave me a seating chart?  They're such dummies sometimes.  Since I was already annoyed it just added to my frustrations.

Then, during one of my better groups of kids, I overheard a boy talking about how he was going to get either a komodo dragon or a pit bull over the summer.  What is wrong with this kid's parents?  I'm hoping he was just talking out of his butt because I don't think komodo dragons can be legally kept as pets.  He was surrounded by his dopey friends and talking up his desire for a lizard on a leash.  Ridiculous.

I also noticed the large number of girls with manicured nails.  I'm not talking just nail polish - these girls had acrylics with all sorts of colors and metallic sheens.  When I was in 8th grade I didn't know anyone with fake nails.  We painted them, sure, and sometimes tried to do designs, but we didn't start getting manicures until the high school dances.  And then we only got them done for the dances!  Acrylics are expensive and they have to be filled all the time and I just don't understand how they have the money for them.  I guess their parents are willing to shell out some cash for black tipped fake nails.

Besides my classes, which were mostly fine and went smoothly, I had to take my homeroom down to the auditorium for an assembly.  Two weeks ago I had to do the same thing but I didn't realize that I would have the pleasure of listening to that very same assembly today.

The high school guidance counselor for the rising freshmen came to talk about the transition up from 8th grade: how to pick classes, joining clubs and sports teams, what discipline is like at the high school, etc.  She brought four seniors with her to talk about their experiences and how they chose classes and clubs.  It was all very interesting (although the exact same schpiel I listened to last week).  The kids asked some good questions at the end, mostly about grades and how they would affect participation in sports and clubs.  There was some snickering when one of the seniors said she was president of the Gay Straight Alliance.  Otherwise I was impressed with the 8th graders for being respectful and asking good questions.

I remember hating middle school and being ready to make new friends in high school.  It all worked out in the end but it's hard to see that when you're only 13!

March 28th

I forgot to post again (Monday) so you'll get a double dose today.

After a week off I was back in middle school.  I've been in the middle school so much lately that I'm starting to recognize kids and they are recognizing me.  I don't know if I'm a good or bad substitute in their eyes, but things seem to be going well.

I was in a 7th grade science classroom subbing for a teacher I had subbed for a long time ago (way back in November I think).  Back then I had just started doing middle school classrooms and this was one of the first days that I was really bored.

I think I just subbed for this particular group of 7th graders but for their math teacher, maybe a week ago.  At any rate, I really didn't have any discipline problems at all.  This particular group is really good.  Every time I've been in for their teachers they've done well.

The nicest thing to know is who is going to misbehave.  If I know that ahead of time I can know where to hover the most, who to be firm with, and who to sit these kids with during group work.  I can mentally prepare myself and I think it gives me the little extra confidence I need to have a smooth day.

Tuesday I was off at my other job for the day so there is nothing to report.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Cute!

Since I've been unable to post anything new this week, here are some drawings for your viewing pleasure (from various grades).





Monday, March 21, 2011

Away

Now don't be alarmed when I fail to update this blog all week. I'm out of town and will be back in action next Monday. You're all going to have to get your substitute teaching fix somewhere else for a few days!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Back to Elementary School

It's been a while since I've done any subbing at an elementary school, with my kindergarten day as the one exception.  Yesterday I was an 8th grade math teacher and the kids were pretty much fine all day.  I was busy after school and didn't get a chance to post.  It wasn't an eventful day so I don't feel it warrants a full write-up.  There are always annoying 8th graders (they're at the top of their game in school, the oldest until they get to high school) and I dealt with them.

Today I was a fifth grade teacher and I had the kids for language arts, science, and social studies (they went next door for math).  It's hard to teach the elementary ages.  They need a lot more guidance and even though these kids were really helpful I was still overwhelmed with the details of the day.  There are a lot of hour-long subjects and I have the same kids all day, which is both good and bad.  I almost learned all of their names (good) but I was just about done with J, a boy with an attitude (bad).

There is also a lot less personal time in elementary school.  I did have a free hour while they went to gym class but I didn't have my usual lunch period and second free period like in the middle schools.  The teachers go outside for recess so I lose that precious alone time to clean up the room and write up some of my notes to the teacher.  I stayed an extra 20 minutes after today, which is really unusual when I sub in the older grades.

I finally put my prize system in place today.  I used to carry around a bag full of little plastic animals and bookmarks but I never remembered to use them so I stopped bringing it to school.  I had "Star Students" today and wrote the names of kids being really great students on the board.  They got to pick from my bag of goodies at the end of the day.  In the end, I gave every kid a prize because I don't know what I'm going to do with all of the stupid things.  They were pretty psyched.

A kid told me today, "You're a really interesting teacher".  What a funny comment!  He was smiling when he said it so I think it was a compliment.  I was letting the kids choose their colonial profession (anyone want to be a miller or cooper?) and having them tally on the board who wanted to be what.  I guess that was a cool and interesting thing to do!

Monday, March 14, 2011

A Name For Myself

This post will be short since I was in the same classroom as Friday and the kids were equally good, if not better, today.  I was really bored most of the day because they were just sitting and doing their work - I barely had to do anything at all!

As it turns out the teachers seem to really like me in this particular 8th grade hallway and I guess I was requested to return to the classroom.  It's a nice compliment and I'm glad I can do a good job.  When days go well I always end up thinking I could teach full time but then I'll get a bad group of kids and be reminded why I probably won't teach.  Not to mention the fact that someone would have to hire me without any formal education courses in my background.

Even if I don't teach, I'm still getting a lot out of the job.  Ultimately I think subbing gives me a really good sense for child/adult management.  I typically work with a new group of kids each day that range in age from five to fourteen.  I also work with different groups of teachers and aides every day.  I'm getting really good at introducing myself, choosing the best strategy to work with the adults and students, and nipping problems in the bud.  I'm at ease working with brand new people and have not a care in the world about standing up in front of a group of people and talking (and being wrong too!).

Saturday, March 12, 2011

I Might Be A Good Sub!

I'm beginning to think I have control in the classroom!  Although this only applies to middle school classrooms.  That fact in and of itself is a shock since I used to really hate being in the middle schools.  I've been subbing in K-8 classrooms, plus some high school experience, since November 1st (ish) and I finally feel like I've got the older kids under control.

Yesterday I was in an 8th grade science classroom.  This is usually scary and makes me nervous.  But lately I've been getting so many middle school calls and the days have been going so well that I wasn't too nervous.

Each period the kids were quiet and were legitimately working on the assignment.  I was in shock!  The aide for one of the classes was really impressed, as were the other teachers in the lunch room.  They couldn't believe how quiet the students were for me.  I was amazed too, to be honest, but happy as well.  Apparently my system is working and I have an air of confidence and a don't-mess-with-me attitude that causes my students to behave (and I think have a tiny bit of fun).

Of course, now that I've posted these thoughts I'm sure I'll get the middle school class from hell...

Friday, March 11, 2011

March 10th

I have to keep writing multiple posts in one day because my after-school time gets so hectic!  Sorry about that.  Yesterday I went straight from school to a coffee "date" with a teacher-now-friend, from there to pick up stuff from the store, then straight home to cook dessert for a dinner with friends.  Whew!

I was given a choice in the morning: kindergarten or middle school gym.  It's too early in the morning to make smart decisions, but I thought gym with pre-teens sounded horrific so I chose kindergarten.  I assumed I'd have an aide with me all day who could help with kid management and the various lessons throughout the day.

When I arrived at school the aide wasn't there.  She didn't arrive until 20 minutes after the kids.  So I had get them in the door, jackets and backpacks put away, they had to get their breakfasts and sit at the table and eat.  Me versus 17 kindergartners.  Needless to say this was difficult.  I didn't know any names and the teacher didn't leave me much in her plans for the day.  I was relieved to see the aide walk in!

Breakfast had not gone well - a kid was throwing Trix everywhere, a girl dropped her entire cereal bowl full of milk on the floor, some boys were throwing straws at each other, and a table of girls kept tattling on each other and tugging at my sleeve to get me to pay attention.  When morning meeting started (this is when each kid has a job, like reading the date or telling us what the weather is like - it involves a lot of singing) there were several children that I could tell were going to be real problems.  A particular boy, D, ran around the room trying to avoid sitting in the circle.  He shot his fake gun at me and ran around, saying "no".  It was not fun.  Eventually he had a long piece of paper in his hand, the border from a display board I think, and he whipped a girl in the face with it.  I immediately got the principal and he was sent home.

The kids all went to music (thank goodness) and I found out that the aide is part-time and would be leaving at 12pm, leaving me alone with 17 kids for two and half hours.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I had to gather my thoughts at that point and brainstorm some ideas to keep the kids from killing me.

The rest of the day was similar to the above description.  One girl, W, didn't want to do a thing I asked her to do.  She flashed all of the kids over and over again and kept talking about her breasts.  She talked through all of the lessons and got the other kids in trouble.  Another kid, C, didn't want to do anything I asked either.  He chose to scream and cry through half the day.  He actually fell asleep during story time and when I woke him up bawled his eyes out for a good 10 minutes.

I took them out to recess after lunch and prayed they would get some of the jitters out.  It didn't really work and riled them up instead of calming them down.  By the end of the day I was ready to pull my hair out.  The room was a mess because none of them would clean anything up and I barely got them all out the door.  When I met my friend for a coffee I got a huge pastry to calm my nerves.

Every other kindergarten experience has been sort of fun and I'm really sad that I had such a difficult day yesterday.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

7:38 a.m.

I figure once it gets past 6:30 am I'm not getting called.  So this morning I hadn't been called and fell back asleep, feeling sad that I didn't get work two days in a row.  Then, as I'm drifting off into deep sleep my phone rings.  At 7:38am.  And someone has just called in to the middle school so I'm off.  I had to shower and get ready quick and try to be there as soon as possible.

This particular school is so annoying - they just say the teacher's name, not what that person teaches, and today I only got a room number.  It was a support classroom for 6th graders and the aide hadn't arrived at school yet even though it was 8:45am.  This did not start the day off well for the kids.  They definitely thought they were getting off easy - no one knew there was no teacher in the room for a while.

So the students were already revved up thinking they'd have no teacher.  Then I arrive and try to get them to do some work, even though the teacher didn't leave any plans.  This threw them off their game and I almost got them to do some work at which point the aide arrived.  This caused a ruckus as they all greeted her.  She took over the class at this point and I felt relegated to "shushing duty".

I usually like it when the aide takes control of the room because she knows the kids and knows what kind of work needs to be done.  Especially on a day like today when the teacher is unexpectedly out and leaves no plans.  But today I felt ignored and slightly disrespected.  I'm not totally sure why, but I did.

Thankfully it was a half day so I arrived at 8:45am and left at 12pm.  A very short day but thank goodness I got some work.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Autism

I don't know too much about autism.  I think most of my knowledge comes from reading The Babysitter's Club story.  I do know more than that, but still, not that much.  So when I was placed in an autism classroom today I was surprised that the sub coordinator hadn't told me on the phone.  She said I'd be in a 4th/5th classroom.  Surprise!

A lot of people were out today and that ended up meaning that I subbed for two different rooms.  In the 4/5 room there were two aides and the teacher was out sick.  The kids were fine and doing well with just the aides so they sent me down to the pre-K classroom.  In the pre-K room two of the three aides were out sick and the teacher was experiencing the final throes of a stomach bug.  It was myself, the sick but present teacher, and an aide.  Three adults, six children.  Great ratio, right?

Wrong!  Not only are these kids incredibly young (between 3 and 5), they're autistic, and it was one kid's third day in school ever.  None of them had clear speech, all had attention problems, most had control issues, and the new kid was definitely out of his comfort zone.  I spent the day simply trying to get the kids to pay attention to the task.  We went to occupational therapy and the new kid screamed the entire time because he had to sit in a chair and wait his turn.  It was pretty exhausting.  Lunch was really hard because they don't want to eat, they throw food, they try to get up and walk around, they eat too much food at once, etc.  Any problem imaginable happens at lunchtime.  One kid had control issues and would get up and run around the room, looking for doors to slam shut.  If you've never been in a special ed room it's hard to understand how much commotion is constantly occurring.  Special ed teachers deserve a huge amount of respect.  They teach these kids control, speech, respect for others, routine daily activities, and any number of things regular teachers take for granted.

It's also hard to substitute in a special ed room because I've never had any training for situations like those that occurred today.  Do I restrain the kid?  Do I help him?  Do I fix the problem myself or make the kid fix it?  Do I force the kid to eat his pretzels?  It's hard to know the answers to these questions without understanding the rules of working with special ed kids.

The teacher was really sick so it was an easy day.  We ended with a movie because she just kept getting waves of nausea.  All day I was wiping snotty noses and I'm sure I'm going to reap the rewards later with a nice, awful cold.  Just hopefully not the stomach bug!

Friday, March 4, 2011

So Many Worksheets

My life is filled with worksheets.  Some are good, some are bad.  Some are never-ending and some don't take any time at all.  Some involve coloring and diagramming while others are pure text.  Some are all fun and games, some require the use of a textbook, some are almost like a test.  No matter what, I end up handing out a worksheet almost every day.  It's no wonder we're losing so much forest to paper mills!

Today's worksheets, for 7th grade science, were the kind that require the student to find the answers in the textbook.  Which of course means that instead of reading the whole chapter through they go through and try to find the answers.  I am now convinced that this method takes a lot longer than simply reading the chapter first.  I cannot tell you how many times a kid asked about a question from the book and all I did was simply point to the paragraph.  "But where is the answer?"  "In this paragraph, read the whole thing (in my head: you dummy!)"

The students were quite pleasant today, which is shocking considering it's Friday.  The only problems I had occurred after lunch.  I had a group of kids for double block today, meaning I saw them for the second time in the afternoon right after lunch.  I basically was traffic control for a parade to the bathroom and they really didn't do much even though they were supposed to be answering questions on a worksheet.

Right after that I was asked to fill in for a computer teacher who had to go home early.  So I didn't get my two free periods that I normally have, which sort of sucked.  The kids were pretty zonked at this point and weren't very interested in acting like human beings.  Lots of odd noises were emitted and lots of moving from computer to computer.  They weren't even doing computer work - they were doing a word search.  I left the teacher a note saying how crazy they were.

I also encountered another rude teacher today.  My neighbor was pretty horrible.  Not only did she look like a mess (really overweight, ugly plaid button down, ugliest shoes ever, not-pretty gray hair that was quite disheveled) but she yelled and shouted and berated the students all day.  At the end of the day I was coming back from my stint with the computer class to take care of my homeroom and she yells at me to pass out some green papers, as if I was supposed to know about that.  I was a little offended.  I think her general tone and demeanor are just offending and she may not have meant to be rude, but she was.  Nevertheless I had a good day and I'm glad it's Friday.  Now on to a lovely weekend of hopefully 45 degree weather!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

March 3rd

And I'm finally caught up!  This will have to be short because I'm running out of time.  Today I was placed in some kind of "catch-up" classroom.  The kids weren't special ed or behavioral problems.  They just need extra help learning stuff.  I'm sure there's an official name for it but I don't know what it is.

I only had three kids most of the day and they were a breeze.  I don't think the teacher knew she was going to be out so there wasn't much for the kids to do.  On top of that she was out the day before and they did a ton of worksheets so I decided to improvise a little.

The kids are with the teacher all day and do all subjects with her so for Language Arts we read a short mystery story and answered some questions.  Then I talked to the kids about what made it a mystery and we all wrote our own mystery stories.  Then for Social Studies they colored in maps of Great Britain and for Science we watched a video about Australia's crazy animals.  They loved the video!  I got to talk to them about my knowledge of Australian wildlife and they were kind of into the biology.  For Math a fourth girl joined us and we did a couple of worksheets and played Bingo using times tables.  It was pretty easy.  I had been warned that the extra girl in Math might act up but she was fine.  I'm not sure if I'm emitting confidence lately but something's on my side!

March 2nd

I know, I was bad and didn't post.  I had a headache on Tuesday!  And then yesterday I was running around after work and didn't even turn my computer on until 10pm.  So I have some excuses.

I had middle school again yesterday, and it went really well.  I think I was some sort of reading specialist, but no one ever told me.  I did read a lot with the students and we talked about plot and setting and characters, etc.

It was a nice day.  The teacher didn't have a lot of periods and the kids were all angels, actually.  I have no complaints at all.  We would read a story aloud and then answer some questions about the reading.  We did some writing in one period.  It was all very easy.

I also had lunch duty, which worried me.  I didn't know how rambunctious the kids were going to be.  But they were fine - they just ate and then we went outside and they ran around screaming and chasing each other.

My biggest annoyance was actually the teacher next door.  This man came over after my first period, in which I only had three students, and he proclaimed "Well that's got to be the easiest class you've ever taught!  Just wait until the 8th graders tear you apart! (dramatic pause) Just squash 'em!"  Umm, ok?  How was I supposed to respond to that blustery man's statement?  Was he assuming I couldn't handle 8th graders?  How does he have any idea?  In fact, the 8th graders were perfect just like all the other grades I had.  What an ass.  He really wasn't nice to me all day.  He dismissed most of my questions and was just unpleasant.

Ah well, I suppose I'm over it.  It may just be my defensive female side coming out, but I think he was being a sexist a-hole and I bet his students hate him.  So there.

March 1st

I'm up and running again, doing on-call work.  I may be back to this grind for another month or so and then I hope to move on to bigger and (much) better things.

Seventh grade math - I was worried.  I don't like getting middle school calls because the coordinator doesn't tell you the grade.  You just go to the middle school in question and check in, at which point the secretary tells you where to go.  This builds the tension until you get the placement you don't really want (7th graders!).

It is always when I expect the classes to be really terrible that they pull themselves together and act appropriately.  I'm starting to wonder if my demeanor is somehow different when I think kids are going to act up.  At any rate, every single period went by smoothly and with nothing to report!  This would be a short post if it weren't for the last period of the day.

Granted, the kids just ate lunch and there is only one more period to get through before dismissal.  However, sometimes kids are just stupid.  A few girls came in before lunch to put their stuff down before lunch and they started to go for their assigned seats, saw me, then giggled and put their stuff in the back few desks.  Do they think I'm an idiot?  Then the kids start coming in after lunch and their seats have these girl's books on them and they look confused, glance around the room, see me, I can see them processing the thought, then they quietly choose a different desk.  Again, am I an idiot?

So I said, "I know you aren't sitting in your assigned seats so please move to the correct seats."  I said this in a polite tone, not mad yet.  No one moved.  No one said anything.

So I said, more sternly this time, "Ok.  So I'll say it again.  I know, for a fact, that you aren't in your assigned seats.  Please move now."  No one blinked an eye.

So, finally, in my teacher-stern-I-take-no-shit voice, "This is your last chance.  You are choosing a path.  You are forcing me to act the part of a mean strict substitute.  If you move to your assigned seats we can move on with class and I can remain a friendly teacher."  Again, no one moves.

So now I'm mad.  I went through the attendance sheet and made the kids move to seats in alphabetical order.  No talking was allowed.  They had to complete their work quietly and then do homework.  Unfortunately, they didn't respond well to being quiet but I was checked out by this point so I didn't bother correcting them.  I ended up getting a wicked bad headache and lying in bed for a few hours with a pounding in my brain.  Gosh darn kids.