Orchestra

What a fantastic day.  I am subbing in one of the high school's for a music teacher.  I tentatively took the job because I have shell shock from verging out of my comfort zone last week and getting totally screwed over by the Catholics, but I thought that nothing could be worse than that so I went ahead and took the music job. 

I was tentative for a few reasons: 

1) When I was in band in high school, whenever we had a sub we had a study hall, which was great when I was in high school, but probably not so great for the poor subs that had to babysit 60 kids in a study hall where nobody was studying. 

2) Also, when I was in high school, in one of the aforementioned band study halls, my friends and I decided to play a hilarious joke on the sub.  One of my friends was born without a right hand, (she played trumpet), and we thought it would be funny to have her stuff her stump in her mouth and tell the sub that we were having a contest to see who could stuff their fist the furthest into their mouths and she won, but now she couldn't get her fist out of her mouth!  She's choking on her own fist!  Oh my god!  What are you going to do?  The sub went into emergency mode and did everything she was supposed to do and when we saw that we laughed and laughed.  Good times. 

3) I can hardly read music anymore, much less a conductor copy of music I'm not familiar with, so I am hardly qualified to teach a music class; and why should they miss out on a day of practice because of my shortcomings? 

I am so glad I took this job.  For one thing, the kids are FANTASTIC.  I really love kids sometimes.  When they are focused and have a skill they want to show off, they are at their best.  For another thing, the teacher must be pretty good too because things are going so smoothly.  First hour was concert orchestra practice.  Most of the kids are gone on a field trip, so there were only 12 kids, but they came in, got their instruments out and then a girl and a boy led the practice.  They did great even though they were missing about 40 of their classmates. 

The last class that was in here was symphony orchestra.  They were so good.  One of the senior boys took over the rehearsal, set an electric metronome, and they played through the list of the pieces the teacher wanted them to play through.  They stopped at trouble spots, talked out the problems and tried again until they got it right.  It was so great!  I sat in the back and tried to keep from clapping like a doofus during every rest. 

Now it is lunch time and a bunch of kids are eating in the room and visiting with each other, and a few others are playing piano and timpani together and it sounds wonderful.  Again, I'm finding it hard to keep my cool and not running out there to clap every time they finish a song.  This totally makes up for last Friday.  I would have done today's job for free. 

Student Teachers

I've been subbing all week for a bunch of teachers who have student teachers.  Tuesday I was in a science class and the student teacher was fabulous.  It seemed like he had been teaching for years.  He was teaching about genomes and alleles and genetics, and kept using "Let's say your parents mate and blahblahblah" as an example for how the offspring would turn out with blue eyes or red hair or whatever.  I LOVED how every single kid flinched every time the guy said the words "your parents mate."  I mentioned that after the first class and he was totally aware of it and was doing it on purpose.  Brilliant.  Despite their squeamishness, the kids loved him.  All I had to do all day was sit in the room and play Angry Birds.

Monday was a tough day because I was in one of my favorite third grade rooms and their student teacher was horrendous.  One example:   She said she wanted to teach math because it is her specialty. (At this point she should be teaching everything all day, but her cooperating teacher won't let her.) It was a lesson on multiplying and dividing 5s.

The first thing they were supposed to do was copy down these words: division, divider, divisor and quotient.  This was written up on the smart board and she told them to copy it.  She didn't tell them where to copy it (on a blank sheet of paper? in their math journals?) but to give her the benefit of the doubt, I'm guessing they copy vocab on a regular basis and knew where to put it.  But they didn't do it.  Nobody copied it because she barreled ahead with the lesson.  They didn't even have time to get out paper to write the stuff down.

She rushed through a few boring word problems, never once using the words division, divisor, divider or quotient; only stopping long enough to occasionally bitch at someone for not paying attention.  She wouldn't listen to them if they had questions, and she said things like, "Don't come ask me how to do this later because I won't tell you."  You won't?!  Nice TEACHER.

The kids were DONE with math after that lesson.  The scheduled time for math was up and it was clearly time to move on.  She tried to forge ahead with another lesson but the kids simply couldn't do it.  The first lesson was too torturous to even think of starting a new one.  The teacher sat up at the front of the class and pouted and said, "Oh great, now I'M going to get yelled at because we didn't do this lesson.  Thanks a lot, guys."

Who does that?!

The highlight of the day was when the kids were doing a phonics worksheet on homophones.  They were supposed to choose the right word to put in the blank in a sentence.  One girl called me over because she was having trouble with one of the problems.  The homophones were "hare/hair" and the sentence was "Gladys washes her __________ every day."  The little girl said, "I don't know what to put." and I thought she wasn't sure what a hare was so I told her it was a wild bunny.  She said, "I know what a hare is, I don't know which one to put in the space because they both make sense."  I almost collapsed from the cuteness.  I can't express how much I love the image of a little girl bathing a jackrabbit every single day.  I said, "Well, I suppose you could wash a hare every day but I bet you'd have a lot of scratches!"

("What? I always walk like this.")

Math Class

I subbed in a math class this morning.  There was a student teacher in there and he was wonderful.  He was patient, kind, and knew his material backward and forward.  (I think I may have learned the distributive property!)  Of course even the best student teachers don't feel the confidence that they need to completely master a class, and you can't blame them.  It's not their class to master, the teacher is usually sitting right there watching (which is ominous and intimidating even if you have the best cooperating teacher), they are not that much older than their students, and the students can sense all this and take advantage of it.  Every teacher knows that on days when you are not feeling your best, students sense it; much like sharks smelling blood in the water, and go in for the proverbial kill.

When I find I'll be working with a student teacher I ask them how much they want me involved and I offer myself up for anything they need.  Most of the time the student teacher is happy to have an opportunity to be the lead teacher in the class.  That's how I felt when I was a student teacher.  I was so relieved when my cooperating teachers were gone and there was a sub.  Now I'm the sub and I tell them they are the ones who know what is going on, so I am there as their assistant, willing to help in any way I can.  Need me to play bad cop to your good cop in classroom discipline? No problem.  Want me to correct papers?  Give them to me.  Need a break and want me to teach?  Sure thing.  Usually they say they want to do it all.  That's my favorite because then I can sit back and read a book.

Like I said, the teacher I was with this morning was very good but the kids could have been nicer.  They did some of my absolute worst pet peeves and because this man hasn't seen it ten thousand times already, he dealt with it with too much patience and kindness.

Pet peeve number 1:  A student wanders in to class just as the bell rings.  He has NOTHING in his hands.  He sits down at his desk.  The teacher gets started with the lesson saying something along the lines of, "Today we are going to correct your study guide and then have the chapter test.  You may use your notes on the test." The teacher tells everyone to get their study guide out and get ready to correct, and waits a minute or two so everyone can get ready.

As the teacher is reading out the first answer, the boy who walked in with nothing meanders up to the front.  He interrupts the correcting by asking the teacher, "Can I go to my locker and get my study guide?"  The patient young teacher says yes.  The kid leaves, the teacher continues with correcting the test.  They finish correcting.  The kid who left meanders back in with a blank study guide.  The rest of the class is getting ready for the test.  The kid with the blank study guide, who missed all the answers because he took ten minutes going to a locker a few yards down the hallway, wants the teacher to now take time out of class to give him the answers on a study guide he didn't even attempt to do.  The nice teacher says they really don't have time to go over the whole thing again, sorry, they have to get started on the test.  The kid acts put out and slumps back into his desk.

The test is passed out and the kids are told to begin.  The same kid wanders up to the teacher again and says, "I don't have a pencil."  That scenario drives me crazy.  Why would anyone come to math class without his work and  a pencil?  It would be the same as a house-builder going to work without his ladder and his toolbox.

Now I stand at the door between bells and tell anyone coming in to make sure they have their materials and something to write with.  I still get kids who come up to me after class starts asking to go to their lockers for materials, but I usually say no.

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Pet Peeve Number 2:  The patient young teacher gives the kids ten minutes at the end of class to get started on their homework assignment.  He wants them to use this time to look over the assignment and get started so they can see if they have questions about anything.  The kids work on it (or at least pretend to work on it) for five minutes and then pack everything up and stand by the door.  Why are they standing by the door?  What's the rush to get into the hallway???

The patient teacher asks them to sit back down and they accommodate him by walking a lap around the room, pushing their friends around as they go and then beeline it right back up to the door as soon as the teacher is preoccupied with someone who is actually doing their assignment.

They won't be satisfied to simply stand by the door either.  They get tired of standing by the door after about 30 seconds so they say, "Can we go?"  No. Wait for the bell.  They wait another 15 seconds and say again, "Can we go?  NO.  They wait another 45 seconds and say, "There's people in the hall.  Can we go?"  No, I said wait for the bell!  They watch the clock like it is a starter's pistol and then ten seconds before the bell rings they run out into the hall.

If you let them do that, then they will pack up a few minutes earlier (and run out into the hall earlier) every day. My method for dealing with that now is that I address these things at the beginning of each and every class.  I tell them that if they crowd around the door before the bell rings, they will be sitting at a desk and have to wait until the very last person leaves before they are excused.  I still get kids who try it anyway and they get so mad when they have to sit and wait until after every slowpoke has left the class.

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Today while the teacher was going over their warm up problems that are on the board when they come in every day, one kid was totally ignoring what was happening in class and was talking and laughing loudly with his friend.  The teacher tried to wrangle the kid back into the fold by asking him a question about the problem they were working on.  The kid said, "I don't know, you're the teacher, you tell me," which got a big laugh from his buddies.  Do you know how hard it was for me to bite my tongue, stay seated and not jump up, disrupt the class, (effectively undermining the teacher) and yell, "ZACK!  Apologize to Mr. D. and if you don't get your assignment out and follow along RIGHT NOW you and I will go to the referral room and CALL YOUR MOTHER!"  It was really really hard.  But I held my tongue and Mr. D., although briefly flustered by the unnecessary rudeness, handled it well.

What do you do when you sub in a class with student teachers?

My blog is my sty

I'm having a great morning.  I got a job teaching for half a day for a health teacher who I get called for every spring when she is teaching something totally awkward and embarrassing.  I don't think she is embarrassed by it at all, in fact, I think she's totally immune, but I have to wonder at her needing a sub in the spring and never any other time.  Hmmm...  Anyway, today the kids have guest speakers talking about date rape.  They are doing a unit called "One by One: Teens explore Date Rape"  Just the title alone is enough to cause a 15 year old to claw hopelessly at the ground hoping to dig him/herself a giant hole to climb in.   I LOVE that ninth graders, who can be pretty obnoxious at times, are reduced to looking busy and interested in the most insignificant scribble on their desks when someone asks, "What are three ways a girl might say "no" in a date rape situation."  Is there any good answer a 15 year old boy can give to that awkward, potentially incriminating question? -- "Well, when I dabbled in date-raping, I found girls usually just said, 'WHAT do you think you're doing?'"  -- No, there really isn't a good way a kid can answer that question,  so they stay silent and still, knowing that the guest speaker can only see movement, and if you stay still, avert your eyes, and blend in, they won't even know you are there.  

I needed a good job today.  Yesterday I taught kindergarten again.  I only sub for one kindergarten teacher and only because I like her, but I might have to break the news to her that I HATE kindergarten and can't do it any more.  She's kind of a big shot and is gone to meetings a lot, and that means a lot of work for me, but I don't know if it's worth it.  Yesterday three kids peed their pants.  My mom, who was a kindergarten teacher for many many years said that she thinks it is because they are afraid of me, but I know that isn't it.  Two of them are best friends and both peed their pants during a bathroom break after lunch.  They peed their pants together in the bathroom.  Like it's what all the cool kids do.  Another one came out of the bathroom that is located in the classroomwith pee all over her pants.  Excuse me, aren't you six years old?  WTF is with all the peeing?  

One girl came in to class first thing in the morning and told me that she needed a student to assist her for the day because she went blind. Here's our conversation:

Girl: Can Ava sit by me and help me today?  I need help because I went blind.
Me:  You're blind?
Girl: Yes.
Me: When did you go blind?
Girl: Yesterday after I went bowling.
Me: Do you mean you can't see anything, or you can't see well?
Girl: Yesterday I couldn't see anything.  Today I can't see well.
Me:  Did you go to the doctor?
Girl:  No.
Me: Did you tell your parents?
Girl: Yes. 
Me:  Do you have a headache?
Girl: No, I'm just blind.
Me:  -----
Girl: So can Ava help me today?
Me:  ...........  Yeah, sure.   

I agreed to teach that class again tomorrow.  New class rule -- NO DRINKING LIQUIDS ALL DAY LONG.

I have to say that after my last post, exposing to the world my true nerdiness (and my sister's true nerdiness) that I am loving the comments!  My aunt emailed me and called me a big nerd, and then went on to give me her opinion on which Hogwarts houses she thinks the Founding Fathers would be placed in. (NERD.)  Diary of a Mad Bathroom made me crack up this morning when I read her comment that kindly suggests I find like-minded nerds to talk to, like if I don't find an outlet for my nerdiness I might do something dramatic and irrational.  Of course, this is all happening on my blog, which in itself is an indication of my immense nerdiness.  I embrace my nerdiness and roll around in it like a pig in a sty.  My blog is my sty. 

Hellfire as an Educational Tool

I've been subbing in high schools yesterday and today.  For all you bloggers out there who have had comments from me two seconds after you posted, don't be creeped out, I'm bored and I'm just staring at Google reader waiting for something new to happen.

High school subbing is like war, or policework.  It's incredibly boring with brief moments of terror, then it's boring again.  Most of the teachers tell me to take attendance, then give them a worksheet and let them work.  Zzzzzzz.....  Excuse me, I AM a teacher you know, fully licensed and everything, I COULD teach them something.  Wait, what?  Math class?  Oh forget what I said, give me the worksheet.

Yesterday I taught at the good high school with the nice kids in the "bad" part of town and it was great, and today I'm at the shitty high school on the hill. It's amazing how schools with basically the same kids can be so different.  Third period seemed to last 47 hours because the kids were so OBNOXIOUS.  Not only that, but there was a newly-graduated-from-college-with-a-degree-in-teaching, middle-aged woman who was subbing for the aide.  She had all kinds of ideas for me for getting them to behave like human beings.  "Maybe if you tried [this]... maybe if you tried [that].  How about this: they know what they are supposed to do, I spelled it out in excruciating detail and if they choose to act like animals I will just write their names down and let their teacher deal with it tomorrow.

When I was a full-time teacher I threatened the kids with torture and grim death if they were mean to the sub. If I got a bad report, for the forseeable future the offending students were MISERABLE because their teacher (me) was an unbearable HARPY-DEMON FROM HELL.

You called Mrs. Larsen a What?

I would make them write letters of apology to the sub, then they would write humiliatingly detailed letters to their parents telling of their behavior for the sub (lots of good writing and rewriting practice), there would be a review of their contract for going to the school (alternative high school), there would be CONSTANT, IRRITATING reminders of how they acted last time there was a sub.  Sometimes after this happened I would come to school and tell them that I was terribly sick, but I didn't want to subject another sub to them (you know, because of what happened last time...) so I was just going tough it out (cough cough).  Too bad, because I really should be home in bed (cough cough).  I hope I don't get pneumonia, (cough cough).  And then I'd turn into the devil and give them a day so painful that they would have gladly pooled their money and paid any moron off the street to be their sub and treat them like royalty.

Don't you wish you had a sub instead?

It didn't take them long to learn that if a sub gave me a good report they were lavished with rewards and if not; utter, unending hellfire.  Usually just once.  Then I'd get glowing, wonderful notes about how great my classes were with every sentence ending with an exclamation point.  What wonderful students! How helpful!  How kind!  What a pleasant surprise!  Call me anytime!

I have two more classes today and I'm counting the minutes until the last bell rings.  Tomorrow 3rd Graders!  Yay!

MILF

I subbed in a high school today. It was a pretty good day except that I have a giant scab that grows razor sharp, crystalline, bloody booger castles in my right nostril. Do you realize how much you touch your nose in a day? It's a lot. Every time I would inadvertently rub my nose my knees would almost buckle from the sudden excruciating razor pains. Then when I had a break I would go to the bathroom and bite the bullet and clear things out, but the booger castles would grow back within 20 minutes and then the whole cycle would start over again. I swear, those boogs were sharper than razors and harder than diamonds. There must be some industrial use for something like that.

All the pain caused flop sweat which made me realize that I forgot to put deodorant on this morning. How did I realize that, you ask? Because I was bending over to pick something up and all of a sudden I got a whiff something and I thought to myself, "Mmmm meatballs" and then I realized that nobody was cooking delicious meatballs in the middle of the afternoon in a social studies class, so on my next foray into the bathroom I discovered that my right pit had a smell that would be delicious in an Italian restaurant, but in my shirt, not so great. The right side of my body is disgusting.

Just try to keep your hands off this sweet package, Mitch.

It's official, I'm a mean and spiteful jackass

I subbed today at a high school (turns out I'm not sick, just a dramatic hypochondriac so disregard yesterday's post). I was working for an English teacher (hey, I'M an English teacher!) so I was thinking it would be a pretty good day. I walked in this morning and I saw that this teacher has a student teacher and I was thinking, woo hoo! I can read my book all day! Then I recognized the student teacher. He was in my linguistics class last year. I LOVED linguistics class partly because I was totally awesome at it, and partly because I really liked the odd little professor who was Korean -as in recently moved here from Korea. (He had a thick accent and one day he said the word "squished" but he pronounced it "squish ed," like two syllables and I right then I wanted to pick him up and hold him like a baby and now my favorite word in any language is "squish ed.")

So anyway, this now-student teacher was in that class and he was an ASS HOLE. There were only about 25 people in the class and it was in a tiny room. This guy would talk and talk and talk with his friend constantly, mostly about how bad he thought the teacher was and how unfair the class was blah blah blah, whine whine whine. It was a constant distracting drone to the point where other people in the class were telling him to shhhhhhh, to which he took offense and shhhhed them back. The poor professor didn't know how to handle it because apparently in Korea if you disrespect the professor you get caned or something horrible like that. (I'm not even kidding, I think there is hitting in college in Korea. Or else my professor was a liar, and I don't think he was.) I think the professor wanted to cane this guy, but alas, caning is illegal in the U.S.A. (It is, isn't it?)

So I put up with this guy the whole semester (and also destroyed the curve. ha ha) and then I thought I was free of him.

Until today. This morning, when I remembered who he was, I was interested to see what kind of a teacher he is, since he certainly had very vocal ideas about what a good teacher was last year. First hour was a prep hour so he sat down with me and told me about his lesson for the first class. And then he told me again in a different way. (I still didn't care.) Then he worded it a different way talked about it some more. I figured this was just his way of getting prepared so I let him drone on while I went to the bathroom. I came back and he still wanted to talk about it. I asked him if he wanted me to do anything because sometimes student teachers want help with classroom management (re: assholes), but he said he could handle it. He's been doing the whole schedule for two weeks, he told me, because he is so "capable." .... Okay. (who SAYS that?)

Then the kids came in for the first class and let me just sum it up by saying it was the longest 45 minutes of all of our lives. It was a teaching nightmare. I sat back and watched it happen because he didn't want help because he's so capable. I watched as he totally threw his carefully talked-about lesson out the window because a kid said, "I don't want to do that." I was secretly loving every second of it, hence the title of this post.

After that hour he asked what I thought. I said, "There are some tricks to classroom management that maybe you should look into." He said he didn't believe in "tricks" when it comes to teaching. I said, "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA..... I'm sorry, wait a minute...... just a minute...... HA HA HA HA HA HA H HA HA!" Just kidding. I only laughed on the inside and actually said, "Well, not 'tricks' exactly, more like 'methods' that might help you out. Like saying the name of the kid whose attention you are trying to get." He said, "That doesn't really work."

The rest of the day was just as bad, with some brief moments of not being terrible, but one class actually disintegrated into a game of "telephone" which of course turned pornographic within the first five turns. In terms of bad teaching decisions, this rivals the time when I ran an alternative high school and one of the teachers asked me if he could take his class out to look for his dog that ran away that morning. Um.... no.

After school I got a mini-lecture on how it is important for the kids to trust you and respect you in order for them to learn anything from you. I was creeped out by the bizarro-world feel of the whole day so I left.

The part that makes me mean and spiteful, and generally an all-around jerk, is that I am still so very gleeful thinking of how horrible this guy is compared to how great he thinks he is, all because he annoyed me so much in linguistics class. And also I used the words "alas" and "hence" in this post and anyone who does that is a jackass.

Locked in the bathroom

I got called to sub for a P.E. teacher today and it reminded me of the last time I subbed for a P.E. teacher. It was last year and the teacher had an office in the girls locker room behind the gym, way away from the rest of the school. She also had a private bathroom that was in the office. Are you getting this? Bathroom in an office, office in a locker room, locker room behind the gym, way away from rest of the classrooms in the school. ISOLATED.

So, I was in there during prep hour at the end of the day, looking at my email and I had to go to the bathroom. No problem! Super private bathroom! So I went in, and as a reflex I locked the door. I did my thing, and then tried to open the door. It wouldn't unlock. I kind of chuckled, imagining how embarrassing it would be to get locked in a bathroom. Ha ha. Then I really tried to open it. It. Would. Not. Open. CRAP!

Then I remembered that I had no more classes, this was my last hour of the day, so nobody at school would miss me. "Okay, pull it together," I told myself, it would be totally embarrassing, but somebody would come by. Right? I wouldn't die if I had to spend a night in a bathroom. Lots of people do it. That's basically what a jail cell is, a bathroom with a couple cots and a roommate. I didn't have a cot, but I also didn't have a roommate so I figured I was getting the better deal. Then I remembered that it was Friday so if I didn't get found after school, I would be stuck there for the weekend.

Then I remembered that Mitch was out of town for the weekend, and if I didn't get out, my kids would be home alone without me. What would they do?

Then I remembered that there was no school on Monday so I would be stuck in that bathroom for three days. And then when I was finally found, probably by the teacher the following Tuesday (that would be an awkward encounter); nobody would feel sorry for me, they would just think it was hilarious and nobody would appreciate how horrible and embarrassing it was to be stuck in a bathroom in a school for three days. I was desperate so I jammed my thumb into the lock and twisted with all my might. Nothing.

So I sat down and looked around for a tool. I needed something to twist the locking mechanism. There was nothing to use. I mean nothing. Just extra rolls of toilet paper. Not helping! I kept trying to open it with my thumb and finally, finally, after being stuck for a half hour, I got it. My thumb was super sore after that, but it was worth it. I was free!

Then I thought how easy it would have been for the teacher to write a short note, a post-it even, saying "DON'T LOCK THE BATHROOM DOOR! THE LOCK STICKS." That would have been nice to know.

I got home and told my kids what happened and asked them what they would have done if I didn't come home when I was supposed to. Sam said he'd wait a half hour, and then call 911 and give the authorities all the information that he knew. Kira said she would NOT call the police, she would eat ice cream and play in my jewelry box.