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?

Sixth Graders

I taught a wonderful group of sixth graders recently.  The middle school is enormous and there are almost a thousand kids who go there, which in my opinion is way too many, but I have to give them credit for how the powers that be have handled the sixth grade.  The kids are mainly in their own wing and there are three teams.  Each team has four teachers and about a hundred kids.  The kids on the team have one of the four teachers as their homeroom teacher.  The kids in the same homeroom stay with each other for their core classes so they get to know each other pretty well.  The four teachers on the team keep each other abreast of any problems or issues going on with kids on the team.  There is a clipboard that goes with each of the four groups of kids to every class.  On that, teachers can make notes for other team teachers concerning the kids.  They also make notes for students who are absent.  It's a pretty good system.

Anyway, I was teaching for the math teacher on one of the three teams.  I had the homeroom group for reading, language and math, and then the other three groups on the team for math class as well.  Reading class starts with a read aloud book.  I was about to start when someone said, "Are we supposed to sit in our assigned seats?"  I said, "Are you usually supposed to sit in your assigned seats for read aloud?"  They said yes so I said, "Then you need to sit in your assigned seats."  Someone else asked, "Can we draw while you read?"  I said, "Can you usually draw while the teacher reads?"  No, not usually.  So no, they couldn't draw today either.  Then I was about to get started.  I half-sat on a table at the front of the room and just as I opened my mouth to start, the sweet-looking boy sitting at that table said quietly, "She doesn't usually sit on my table when she reads."  I gave him my best pseudo-scathing look and dramatically slid my rear off the table.  The kids laughed.  I laughed.  They were fun.

Cats

Yesterday I took a kindergarten job.  I don't know why I do it.  I guess it's like a challenge, and also the teacher likes me and asked me specifically to do it, so I took the job.  I'm a sucker.  Those kids are SO CUTE, but teaching kindergarten is like simultaneously managing a room full of cats and putting out fires - all day long.  Occasionally I have to take the cats out of the room to the library, or the lunchroom and that is a total fiasco.  Getting the cats to put on all their winter clothes to go home is another fiasco.  Cats don't care if the bus is going to be there in 5 minutes.  Cats don't care about anything but what they want to care about, and you can be sure it's nothing you want them to care about.

My class

We got through most of the day with no major problems.  We had reading centers and did a pretty intense math activity.  That took the whole morning with me running around helping, solving problems, picking stuff up off the floor, resolving conflicts, tying shoes, buttoning pants, listening to tattles, etc. etc.  I was, for every second, either being talked to or talking.  I didn't have one minute to sit, go to the bathroom, or take a drink of water.  I don't know how kindergarten teachers do it day in and day out.  It is exhausting. 

Finally it was lunch time.  I gave them 15 minutes to get ready with all their winter clothes for recess afterward.  Some kids were ready in one minute, some kids still hadn't even put their snowpants on when it was time to leave.  So I brought the first wave down and then came back to get the second wave.  When I finally got back to the room to eat my own lunch, a parent came in with a kid that wasn't there in the morning.  I told him the kids were down at the cafeteria for lunch, thinking he could bring his kid down there himself.  He stared at me.  The kid stared at me.  I said, "Joseph, put your stuff on for recess and go to lunch."  The dad said, "He has to wear all his stuff just to go to lunch?"  Yes, Mr. Underminer, because if he doesn't put his boots and snowpants on now, he will totally miss recess because of how long it takes a five year old to put their boots and snowpants on, not to mention the fact that if he isn't wearing everything he needs, he will lose half of it on the short walk to the cafeteria.  I didn't say all that.  I just said, "Yes."  Then he stood there while his kid sloooooowwwwwly put on his stuff and griped about why the kids have to go to lunch wearing all their stuff.  He finally left and I had about ten minutes to myself where someone wasn't poking me or crying about something.

Then I went to get them.  There must have been a bee on the playground because every single kid told me there was a bee on the playground.  Then one kid said he got stung by the bee.  I asked where and he didn't have an answer.  Another kid heard the first kid say he got stung so he said he also got stung.  Then everyone was saying they got stung. They lie.

The afternoon was much less intense than the morning; they had library, which left me with a merciful 25 minutes to pick up the room and get ready for them to come back, and then when they came back it was story time (my favorite), and then free play time.  During free play time a group of them wanted me to read stories to them.  They LIKE me!  They made me sit on the carpet and then they piled around me like a bunch of puppies and listened to me read.  It was pretty sweet, but while I was doing that, there was another group of kids who silently FILLED the water table to the tippy top. They did it by filling and re-filling a four-cup measuring cup.  I bet there was fifty gallons of water in that table, and the kids were soaked and the floor all around was soaked.  I made the water-table people help me clean up the mess they made, which had the exact results as it would if you told a bunch of cats to help you clean up a mess.  It was more work getting them to grab paper towels and soak up the water on the floor than it would have been to just do it myself, but we finally did it.

Then the sub notes said to gather on the carpet and talk about our day.  "Hey cats, I want all of you to sit in the same general area at a specific point in time!"  It eventually happened, but I had to chase and cajole and plead with five or six of them to go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, can't you see everyone else on the rug?  go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug.  Let's go to the rug!  Wouldn't going to the rug be fun?  go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, you don't need to check your backpack for your toy shark right now, go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, you can get your water bottle after you go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, don't worry that your shoe is untied for the 800th time right now, just go to the rug, go to the rug, yes, it's very intersting that you have scabs on your leg that vaguely form the letter Y but right now go to the rug, go to the rug, no, I didn't know your teacher usually says "carpet," does it matter? oh, it does? okay, go to the carpet.


go to the rug

Finally, time to go home.  This brilliant teacher has set things up so a bunch of fifth graders come and are assigned to certain kindergarteners, and they help them get ready, gather their things, and then walk them to their bus.  I was so grateful to see those fifth graders that I could have cried.

Today I'm subbing for a woman who teaches AP social studies.  I have not had to tie any shoes or button any pants (so far).  Nobody has tattled and I don't expect to hear any tattles.  If they miss the bus, I won't even know about it, much less be responsible for it.  Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Two Conversations

Conversation I had yesterday with a group of third graders during their snack time:

Nick: I lost a tooth last night and I got a two-dollar bill from the tooth fairy!

Me:  Lucky!

Winnie: I tricked the tooth fairy once.  I gave her my dog's tooth.

Me: (gasp) DON'T DO THAT!  The toothfairy HATES being tricked!

Winnie:  She gave me a dollar.

Me:  Well, maybe she accepts puppy teeth as well children's teeth, but you guys better be careful.

Matt: Why?  What's the big deal?

Me:  One time my daughter found a tiny white rock that was sort of tooth-shaped and she tried to trick the tooth fairy by hiding it under her pillow.  You know what the toothfairy did when she found it?

Matt, Winnie, Nick:  What?

Me:  She PUNCHED Kira in the stomach!

Winnie:  No she didn't!

Me:  Yes, she did.  Kira learned her lesson.

Nick:  I put a rock under my pillow once and I didn't get punched.  I don't believe you.

Me:  Well, maybe she didn't punch you.  Maybe she pooped in your corner instead.

Winnie:  Oh gross!

Nick: She didn't.

Me:  Are you sure?  She's very small.

Nick:  I'm sure.  I would have noticed because my dog pooped on the floor once and I found it right away.

Me:  Look, all I'm saying is that it's not smart to mess with a magical being that collects discarded body parts.  Be careful.  

The story spread like wildfire.  I honestly didn't think it was that big a deal when the words were coming out of my mouth, but when I heard the story being whispered over and over, "The toothfairy punches you if you trick her!"  "The toothfairy POOPS in your house if she's mad!  Mrs. L. said so!", I thought maybe that wasn't the best story to tell the kids.  Oh well.  They'll forget about it.  No biggy.  Later I learned that parent/teacher conferences were that night.  Crap.  

Conversation I expect to have later today:

Mrs. G.: (the third-grade teacher I was subbing for yesterday) We had parent conferences last night.

Me:  Oh yeah,  how did they go?
  
Mrs. G.:  Nick's mom asked me about the substitute who told Nick that the toothfairy poops in their rooms.

Me:  ............ oh, heavens to Betsy!

Mrs. G.:  I didn't really know how to respond.

Me.:  Oh....wow....  I wonder where Nick would ever come up with something like that?

Mrs. G.:  He told her it was "Mrs. L."  

Me:  Oh.  Come to think of it, we did talk abou the toothfairy and how vengeful she can be.  I might have mentioned that pooping in corners was in her wheelhouse.  

Mrs. G:  Next time you talk about the toothfairy's mean streak, maybe leave out the pooping. 

Me:  Noted.  

I should run the world

When Sam was in eighth grade, I got an email from a teacher saying that she had been having some problems with him blurting out what he thought were funny jibes in the middle of class.  He was trying his hand at being a class clown.  I told him that if I ever heard anything like that from a teacher again, I would go with him to every class, every day and monitor his behavior until I was sure he had adjusted his attitude about school, teachers and what he was there to do.  I told him it would probably take a couple weeks.  He was terrified I would do it, and I would have.  (I was actually kind of looking forward to it. I love school.)  I didn't have to yell, or punish.  I just had to let him know in a way that he understood that I valued his education and it was my job as his parent to make sure he took full advantage of his opportunities.  We've never had another problem.  He takes school seriously now and is a successful student.  I'm not delusional enough to think I enlightened him to the importance of soaking up as much education as he could, I know it was because he was worried about his social status with his friends.  That's why he was acting out in the first place, to be "cool."  He apparently doesn't think that having his mom come to school with him and nag him all day every day is very cool so he adjusted his behavior. As a result of his mortal fear of humiliation, he has come to realize that he learns more with his mouth shut than with it open. Mission accomplished!

Of course, I am totally influenced to be a hard ass on this subject because I'm a substitute.  I see especially obnoxious behavior from students every day, and I have a special apprecation for parents who nip obnoxiousness in the bud.  But parents can't do anything about it if they don't know what's going on.  I regularly call parents when I have an especially difficult behavior problem with a student.  When kids have a sub they sometimes have the attitude that they will never have to see this lady again in their lives so anything goes.  They are usually pretty surprised when I produce a class list with parent names and phone numbers and ask the sixth grader to take five minutes out of their lunch break to call mom and explain why they thought it was so funny to yell out, "Never mind what my name is, you're not the boss of me!" while I was taking attendance.  Usually when I call parents I get a very positive response and when I go back to that classroom, I have very few problems.  But sometimes I reach a parents that is at their wit's end.  They don't know what to do.  They say, "You should see how she acts at home!"  What is a teacher supposed to do with that?

This is what I think they should do.  I think that if your child's behavior is something a teacher finds she is spending too much time dealing with, they should be removed from the class.  Why should a teacher have to deal with your obnoxious kid?  A teacher's job is to teach a large number of students at one time.  It's efficient and cost effective and if there weren't any behavior problems, it would work wonderfully.  Unfortunately I find I am spending more and more time dealing with the rotten behavior of a small percent, while the majority of students sit there and wait.  Why should teachers have to spend so much time on kids who don't want to be at school anyway?  Sure, they NEED to be at school, they NEED an education, but they don't know that.  They're too young.  They don't have the perspective to see what a wonderful opportunity they have.  All they know is that they are being "forced" to do something they think they are supposed to hate, against their will, and they will fight it any way they can.  It's the only way to express any power over their situation.   Schools are perpetuating that view by tolerating more and more outrageous behavior.

My solution?  KICK 'EM OUT!  Sure it's the law that students stay in school until they are sixteen but do you now how many problems a fifteen-year-old that doesn't have any rules at home and thinks he's being oppressed can cause?  Do you know how much damage just one kid can do?  It's a lot.  Why do we put up with it?  If they did that at a job they'd be fired.  If they acted that way while patronizing a business they would escorted out.  When I ask the kids who cause me problems what would happen if they talked that way to their mom, many of them get a glazed look on their face and say something along the lines of, "I don't talk that way to my mom.  She'd kill me."  When I ask the kids causing problems why they bothered to come to school that day they look at me like I'm stupid.  "We HAVE to come to school!"  When I tell the high school  kid walking around disrupting the class after I have repeatedly asked him to sit down and do his work, that if he doesn't participate and do what he is supposed to do, I will mark him absent (my most effective behavior modification tool for the older grades) they freak out.  They tell me that I can't do that because if they are physically present, they are working toward a passing grade and then they spend their time berating me for making such an empty threat.  They are counting the days until graduation and assume that if they show up and do a bare minimum amount of academic work, no matter how many problems they cause, no matter how much stress they put on other students and their teachers, not to mention the physical damage many of them do to the school; they will graduate and get their diploma.  Why do they think that?  Because they see people do it every year.  They brag about how little effort they put into their classes.  I had one freshman proudly show me his report card last report-card day.  I was baffled when I saw that he was getting a .85 grade point average.  Why would he show that to me?  Why wasn't he embarrassed?  Why did he think it was so funny?

Of course, if we expelled kids for behavior problems, we'd have a lot of obnoxious minors running around during school/work hours causing problems AND they wouldn't even have a chance to get some education by osmosis.  Okay, how about this?  If your child gets removed from class for a behavior issue, he will not be allowed back in until he has a meeting with his parents, teachers and school administrator, and arrangements are made for that student to have a behavior aide with him at all times until it is agreed upon between the student, parents and teachers that a behavior aide is no longer needed.  The parents would be responsible for paying the aide's salary.  If they can't afford it, they or the kid could work off the cost by volunteering at the school.  Sure, being a freshman at a new school and having a babysitter with you at all times would be embarrassing, but so what?  The aides would be invaluable to the staff and other students, and I would guess that general behavior problems would virtually stop after two or three kids were seen sulking through the halls with their aides.

I'm losing it

I have a two day job teaching the worst second graders on the planet. I know what you're thinking, "How can seven-year-olds be horrible? They are just adorable children!" To that I say, "Where do you think grown up assholes come from? They come from adorable asshole children."

As I was trying to coax one little boy out of his locker this afternoon, I was fondly remembering how nice it was to work at the jail with rapists and murderers. Sure they had their annoying moments, but at least I got a good recipe for toilet wine out of that deal. I also learned what an eight-ball is (it has nothing to do with billiards)and where I can score one. Useful information! Tit for tat! What are these second graders giving me? A big fat load of bullshit, that's what.

2nd Grade

I've been subbing this week for a second grade teacher.  I love second grade.  I love kids.  I love teaching.  I love school.  The kids are so fantastically weird, and if I let them, they would talk to me all day and tell me crazy stories.  ALL DAY.  I am already too indulgent with them because I crave their crazy stories, so I'm afraid that there is a good chunk of our day spent with me sitting at the teacher's desk and the kids lined up under the pretense of getting individual help with their math or reading, but we actually all know that they are only lined up to tell me something strange that they dreamed about, or that they saw on TV or that their parent's did.

Yesterday I got a scene by scene retelling of a movie about a girl who got her arm bit off by a shark while surfing.  Surely the synopsis was a million times better than the actual movie because the girl that told it to me was so intensely involved in the telling, dramatic gestures and all.  This morning a boy told me all about the show Terra Nova.  Dinosaurs! Blood sucking worms! The jungle! Violence! Terror! (I can't believe what parents let their kids watch.)

This afternoon one boy was tired and had a bit of a meltdown that landed him in the hall.  I got so much secretive, unsolicited advice about how to handle it.  One girl told me she didn't want to see me get my feelings hurt so I should call the principal and let her handle things.  Another kid told me to make him sit in a time-out during afternoon recess by the bee hive.

The only thing I don't like about teaching is the hard schedule.  And the only reason I mind that is because (and forgive my bluntness) when a girl has to poop a girl has to poop.  And a girl can't say to 25 seven-year-olds, "Talk amongst yourselves for ten minutes or so while I drop the kids off at the pool," because it only takes about 90 seconds for them to devolve into a Lord of the Flies type scenario (re: time-outs by the bee hive).  So teaching makes me constipated.

I saw something incredibly strange today.  There is a student teacher working with another teacher and she is young and thin and beautiful, but today she was wearing the strangest thing.  She had on a normal, properly sized, oxford, button down shirt.  No pleats, no puffiness, nothing special.  What was weird was that she was wearing a thin leather braided belt around her rib cage.  Right under her boobs.  It looked so uncomfortable, and so weird!  Is this a new thing?  I've never seen anything like it so I was staring at her under-boobs all day wondering what-the-hell and I'm sure she just thinks I was staring at her boobs, which I kind of was.  So who's the strange one?