This is going to be short (sandman is calling) but I just wanted to say something about talk in the lounge.  Teachers talk about many things of course, like family, current events, the weather, etc.  A favorite topic, also of course, is students.  How did such and such student behave today?  What students are failing miserably?  Oh, let me tell you of the cavity searches I had to do today.  Wait- what?!?  Cavity searches??  One of the gym teachers came down to lunch and started talking about this.  I have no idea what was being searched for, and didn’t get any other details in fact.  Fortunately.  This was just so off the wall I had to mention it even without complete information.  There was also mention of a student who ran out the front door and a teacher who almost ran after her.  The secretary told her to let it go and she would call the police.  From what I understand she didn’t get very far hobbling along in an ankle brace…

Ahh, middle school.  And I have another day of it tomorrow, different school fortunately, and it’s getting late so goodnight.

Middle school is an interesting age.  Not quite child anymore, but not completely adolescent either.  It is a transition state.  Many teachers stay away from this age, but I don’t mind it so much, depending on the class.  They can range of course from not-a-problem to watch-your-back depending usually on the area.  It is my belief that the family income has a lot to do with it, though really only because it leads to parental involvement.  With low income families, kids are often left to their own devices much of the time when not in school, and I think we can all, by experience 😀 , attest to the fact that young pre/adolescents don’t always make the best choices in life, especially when they are starting to listen to their peers more and the parents become even less active in their kids’ lives, meaning if they were already less active then that almost leaves it at, “Hello son/daughter” and little else.  I am not saying this to blame these parents, as they are often just trying to make ends meet with sometimes two or three jobs and are often the sole parental figure doing it.  I am merely trying to explain why sometimes students are very hard to handle.

Another group of kids that tend to be a problem are ELL kids. Often, but not always, low income is an issue here as well, but another factor causes these students to be a problem.  That factor being that the school system they come from is far more disciplined and strict than our own.  When they come here then, they see school as something to blow off.  Detention has no effect as they just see it as a break instead of a punishment.  Some see getting in trouble as an opportunity to see the teacher get steamed because our options are limited compared to back where they came from.  They learn, in other words, to play our system knowing serious consequences (as they would see it) can’t happen because then the teacher would be in trouble for improperly discipline.  Typically I just warn these students, maybe move them, but other than that just leave a note to let the regular teacher deal with the problem.  There is actually a school where I no longer accept ELL jobs.

Anyway, I just bring this up because for the last two days I was at middle schools.  Thursday was my unexciting science day I already wrote about, and yesterday I did language arts/life skills at another school.  Apparently they were short a sub at that school because they gave me an extra class one period and I know they were doing that throughout the day for that one teacher- every class period had a different sub.  I actually worked with all three grades as a result.  This teacher’s (the main one I subbed for) normal schedule had language arts with 7th grade and life skills (cooking, sewing, ironing, washing clothes…) was with 6th grade.  My added class was with 8th grade.  It was certainly more interesting than the day before.

Well this post is getting really long so I think I will just wrap it up now.  I will probably post tomorrow about drama this week at church and how my teaching goes in the morning- I will be teaching about Saul.  The king, not the pharisee turned Apostle.

I was a substitute today, but hardly a teacher.  As middle school science goes, all the classes were the same unlike a subject such as math where there are usually different levels taught or a foreign language where different grades are taught.  I pretty much just announced a pending notebook check and then let them continue on their projects which they started yesterday.  That is to say, they already knew what they were doing so I didn’t even get to go over that.  Ah, well.  Mostly I just sat and watched them work, periodically cycling around the room to remind them of my presence and to help out if needed.  Fortunately so I didn’t expire from boredom, some did need my help from time to time.

This went on for six. long. periods.  But it could have been worse.  At least I was in a district where most of the kids had a work ethic.  Some schools I have been in have had a large number of kids with a goof-off-while-the-teacher-is-away ethic instead.

Well, language arts tomorrow at another middle school.  Until then.

This was a favorite line of one of my past coworkers. Speaking of coworkers, this isn’t a story about students not getting along- it’s about two middle school teachers! Someone tell these two that they’re supposed to be role models! Click link for story.

Teachers Who Got in Fist-Fight Arrested

And just so I don’t have to write another post, there’s a link on that page about a school staff member dying his hair green for St. Pat’s day. The principal apparently wasn’t a fan of the day…

Udpate: News item scrolled off the links. Here it is:

Educator Sent Home for Dyeing Hair Green

A date with the familiar happens all the time, déjà vu and all that.  I think we can all think of more than a few times that has happened.  Today I was in 6th grade science, a field which has sort of been a goal of mine for teaching.  As part of the lesson plan, another teacher would come in for two of the classes and pretty much take over.  This being a good thing of course as I don’t have much experience with the applications they were using on a computer project (iMovie, iPhoto, Photo Booth), nor did I even know anything about the project.  Anyway, I looked at her name and thought to myself, “isn’t she…?”  When it came time for the first of the two periods we got to talking and sure enough, she was the sub-caller for another district I once worked in.  Apparently she got downsized last year when the district went to a computer system (hmm. looks like I can sign up in that district again if I have to keep working as a sub…) and so she got a job in the district I was in today.

But this wouldn’t make for a good blog entry if she was the only one.  During one of the classes I was handing out new textbooks and I came across a familiar last name, so I asked the student if his dad worked at another school I sub in.  Yep.  I told him I subbed for his dad a couple of times.  Well, then a third coincidence happened.  Well, possible coincidence.  I was afraid to ask this time and push the odds.  She had the last name of someone I went to school with when I was in 6th grade.  Now this has happened to me before, one at a time anyway, in other schools- which is only natural given the fact that I grew up in this same area.  I have met my share students whose moms or dads I went to school with or whose parent I’ve seen elsewhere, like a professor at a local college.

Slightly related to this I just remembered I had one student with the last name of Fogerty one time.  I joked about her being related to John Fogerty, of Creedence Clearwater Revival fame if you don’t know him, and she said he was her uncle.  She was serious too; either that or a good actress.  Anyway, I wonder who I will meet tomorrow?

These are the bane of my substitute existence, next to holidays.  No, I don’t mean the days students get off early but rather days where the teacher take off only half a day.  It seems I may have three of these this week unless I can find a full day to take their place (I can cancel jobs in two districts via the web) or find a half day job for the other half of the day.  The latter almost never happens.  As for the first, it can happen but on this side of spring break with the testing going on it is very uncertain.  Yet I keep trying.

One of the half days was today, for the afternoon.  At least I got to sleep in, but I depend on this income so I really need to work as much as I can.  It was for industrial tech, what used to be called “industrial arts” when I was a kid, and “shop” even earlier than that.  Naturally with a sub the kids can’t do shop, but many times they are allowed to use computers.  See, that is the “tech” part, technology.  They could be running some sort of modeling or simulation program, or programming a robotic arm.  Today one class was working on ifilm projects.  All stuff that didn’t exist back in the eighties.  We had metals, plastics, and wood.  That’s it.  Now these teachers need to be trained on so much more to do this job.  As for the other class (only two today! :)) they clearly were working on a project, probably woodwork, so they got to do some paperwork today.  Oh well.

Subbing has traditionally been a waiting game, waiting for that call to come inviting you to take over someone’s classroom for a day or sometimes more. There is one district that for some reason last fall seems to have just stopped calling me altogether. Actually, that is not strictly true- the sub for the sub caller (yes, even they have ’em!) actually called me a couple of weeks ago, but the regular caller hasn’t called for over two months now. Well, at least I am blessed to work in an age where I can grab jobs off the internet (by the way, I refuse to capitalize this as if “internet” is the name of a town or country). Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work so I am left waiting until the morning of for some district to call (yes even the computer systems call) or for a last-minute bout before the day starts to at least find a half-day position on the online systems.

Well, this morning I indeed received a call from one of the districts. Enter password, this middle-school resource teacher needs a sub, yada-yada. However, when it got to the end and I selected “yes” for the job, the system said, “sorry, we are unable to assign to job- goodbye.” Nice- why did you call me then? Another district’s system locks the job when calling someone so someone can’t select the job on the online system when it is offering it to someone by phone; I guess this one doesn’t. Either that or the teacher canceled while I was listening to the instructions. Since I was then awake, I sat down at the computer and looked for a job. Fortunately I found one right away- and one I wouldn’t need to be at until after 8:30, so back to bed I went for another hour. As usual, I slept for only half that- I don’t know what it it, but I can’t get good sleep lately. I constantly wake up and fall back asleep throughout the night, sometimes laying awake or half-awake for a while before going to sleep. It seems I have picked up this problem from one of my parents…

When one thinks of 8th grade, it is often associated with hormonally-challenged, impossible to control young adolescents, and indeed I have found this to be the case in several classrooms.  Add learning, or especially behavioral disabilities to the mix and… well, I’ll leave it to the imagination.  There is one school where I just refused to take any more positions last year for the older kids (7th and 8th in fact, this year just 8th so far at that school).  The school district I was in today I consider to be the best of the local districts I work in.  Besides the money spent on education from a funds-not-so-challenged village, the kids tend to be far better behaved than in other districts.  I would place the reasons at better family life.  In many areas there are low-income families which causes family struggles due to not enough money and parents who are always working and have no time for their kids and so pretty much leave the raising of the kids to the schools.  This town really doesn’t have any low-income families (it costs too much to live here!).  Of course there are other factors influencing family life and behavior, but this I think is number one.  In any event, these 8th graders were not so bad to deal with at all.  Well, the fact that I always had an assistant helped more than a little as well.  As with other special ed teacher situations in a middle school, I had many of the same students all day.  I taught two language arts classes (4-6 students in each!) and watched over two tutorial (study hall) periods.  Additionally I had two science “co-teaching” classes.  Like one time last week, one of these “co-teach” classes had two subs!  Fortunately the main teacher left the other sub clear plans.

Interestingly enough, the regular teachers for myself and the other teacher I mentioned were actually in the building, just in meetings all day.  Something that it somewhat common with special education actually.  The teachers have many meetings throughout the year, so it is only logical that some of those meetings would be in the school rather than an administration building.

One of the neat things to see was one of the science classes created electric quiz machines- the type where you use a wire to complete a circuit with a correct answer (multiple choice or true/false) and light up a bulb.  The quality and size of these quiz games greatly varied, and some were even quite creative.  One student took a shortcut and used an Operation game as a starting point, but most did theirs from scratch.  Some used one wire (true/false and multiple guess) and some used two (matching).  One boy used a motor instead of a light bulb that would shoot up a spinning helicopter-disc.  They were very interesting to try out.  Actually, the class didn’t get to try them out as other classes apparently did due to poor treatment of a substitute teacher yesterday.  Yes, I got to watch the aftermath of a bad substitute report.  Apparently they lost out on playing a review game yesterday as well as not getting to try each other’s quiz games.  Hey, just because it’s a good town doesn’t mean the kids are always good.  I guess maybe I just lucked out today, but what I said about this district generally holds true.

One of the most common roles I fill in for is special education.  Sometimes it’s quite challenging, sometimes quite easy.  Well, it is only truly easy when there are teaching assistants who pretty much take over while I take the role of assistant.  This is commonly the case in mentally impaired classrooms (autism, Down syndrome, etc.).  Yesterday was mostly on the easy side.  I was subbing for a junior high teacher who actually only had one class of her own- the rest were “team teaching,” which generally means the sub plays the part of assistant while the other teacher teaches.   But what does one do when both teachers are out and both left plans saying the other teacher will take over?  That appeared to be the case when I walked into second period and compared notes with the other sub.  Fortunately, this turned out to be a non-crisis as the teacher he was subbing for left plans on the board in addition to saying that my teacher would take over.  I can only guess his teacher found out about my teacher’s absence only after writing the plans.  Whew.  The rest of the day was quite uneventful, just following the same group of students around through social studies, math, science and language arts.  I also had to help look over a group of homework lunchers (detention really).  It’s just as it sounds- students who didn’t turn in homework in one or more classes worked on it during lunch.  I was told when they first started this program there were over 60 kids in the room at one time!  Now that has to be against fire codes.  I was quite happy there were only about 15.  In any event this was definitely a position I would do again.

There’s not really much for me to say today. I was with 3rd grade, which is about the bottom of my comfort zone. I have done lower grades, even preschool, but 3rd-7th is what I prefer. The day actually started out not looking so good with a lot of chit-chat while the kids did their morning work. Fortunately they improved throughout the day. Right after morning work was silent reading time and I have to admit they did very well. When we got to math I had the pleasure of teaching a lesson I had a chance to teach twice before, believe it or not, in the previous weeks so in a way it was like teaching the second or third class in a middle school after getting the “practice” time with the first class. Not much to say about reading and writing. Another teacher came in to do a couple of writing assessments, which wasn’t planned, so I only taught part of the original lesson. Reading was one of the “just give them this independent work” times where no lesson was involved.

Specials, read “break time for subs” are sort of a hit or miss thing with elementary school- some days you may have two, other days none. Today there was one at the end of the day, giving a little time for me to write some notes so I wouldn’t have to stay a half-hour after the kids leave as I occasionally have to do. Rather than the kids going out as to music or gym, a social worker came in with a lesson. This unfortunately meant that I still couldn’t leave the room, but at least it gave me that note-writing time. All-in-all the day wasn’t too bad.

Interesting coincidence- the team name of the school I was at was the wildcats. The middle school, actually junior high as that district still uses that term though they run the schools like middle schools (there is a difference), where I will be tomorrow has the same team name. Nothing big, just interesting.