Spanish Class

I'm not sure this particular Spanish teacher is ever actually in school.  I don't know if she thinks I do a great job with her classes or if no one else will take them, but I feel like once a month at least I'm in this teacher's classroom.  And I really don't like it.

For one, the teacher doesn't ever leave good assignments for her classes.  My recent favorites: copying vocabulary words for food items into their notebooks and drawing their "dream houses" and labeling the rooms in Spanish.  The kids never take these assignments seriously and that leaves me with a room full of kids who know I have no power over them.  I can't tell them their dream house drawing is going to be graded because obviously it's just busy work.  I wish she would realize that I need worksheets or real assignments to keep the students from taking advantage of the situation.

My best class was eighth graders taking a vocab test.  It was a hard test and they spent almost the whole period in silence, working on their tests.  Second best was the other eighth grade class working on projects that are due tomorrow.  The worst was my first period, a group of seventh graders that I already know from my various placements.  The class included some of my least favorite students from my long-term position in seventh grade and also some known problem kids from my other subbing experiences.  It was a little crazy in the room but I'm glad I knew the kids.  If I was a new substitute coming into that classroom I think I would have died!  They were so loud, didn't listen well, and didn't do any of the work.  But I now know that they won't get out of hand if I remind them to quiet down and let them get away with doing no work.

I had my first out-of-the-classroom encounter with a student this past weekend.  And of course I saw the same kid in my first period today.  He exclaimed, "I saw you this weekend!" and then proceeded to try and find out where I was going (to a birthday party) and where I live (two blocks from where I saw him, but I certainly didn't tell him that!).  It was a weird encounter and even weirder to see him in class a few days later.