A Special Kind of Day

Yes, I had my first day of special education substituting today. Truthfully it was a good day, even though there were lots of reasons why it shouldn't have been.

I arrived in the classroom and the lesson plans that were left for me were minimal at best, and I could tell right away that the there had been a substitute in the class for several days for me. Its always a very scary thing when you realize that there has been a substitute in the class the day (or several days before you)---you instantly ask the question, what happened to the other substitute? Did something so horrible happen that they refused to return. There is also the fact that kids don't like change, and a substitute is definitely a major change for students. So you start wondering how the kids are going to act out in reaction to having yet another substitute.

Like I said, it could have been a bad day, but it wasn't. I looked at my schedule, and I had over an hour of prep time at the beginning of the day. Plus (and a big plus at that!), since I didn't have a homeroom class I didn't have to take attendance or lunch count. The worst part of the day never even had a chance to happen. Continuing to look at the schedule, I noticed that in addition to an hour for lunch, I had another hour break later in the afternoon.

As I am reading through this, the regular teacher came in and began to thank me profusely for taking his class. He apoligized over and over for having such sloppy lesson plans (and gave me a decent enough excuse for not completing them). He also informed me that he would be in the building all day in meetings, but that if any of the students gave me trouble I was to get him. Nothing like being able to give students the warning that if you screw up your teacher is here to take care of things---straightens kids out pretty fast. The regular teacher also told me sincerely not to worry too much about the lessons, because if anyone complained they were his fault and not mine. Always good to know the burden is off of your shoulders.

After I spent an hour looking over materials and other dawdling, the students began to arrive. The first part of the day is reading and language arts instruction. In the district I am in, the have structured language arts instruction so tightly that all the teacher really does is read from a script.

"The letter a makes an ay sound, like in the word hay. Everyone say hay."

And the script continues like this for basically two hours of time. Boring, but hard to screw up. It makes me wonder how much longer until teachers are replaced by robots. You think I'm joking, but I'm not.

After language arts most of the kids leave, for the rest of the day I am just working with special education students (2nd and 3rd grade). I am supposed to be working with 2 different groups at the same time. 2nd graders are trying to learn the difference between odds and evens, and the 3rd graders are writing the 1st draft of a new story. There are only eight boys in the room at this point (yes every single special education student that I am working with is a boy).

The kids who are writing seem to have a good grasp of what they are working on, so I spend most of the time with the math group. I am using blocks to try and demonstrate the difference between odd and even numbers. For the number seven, I show them a 3 groups of 2 blocks and 1 leftover block---"no friend" or the "odd" numbers. I show them the number six, and I show them 3 groups of 2 blocks--every block has a friend this time. This makes sense to each of the boys. Now we try to show odds and evens on a worksheet, and everything we have spent the last twenty minutes doing has vanished.

The afternoon comes and I continue working with small groups--only 4 or 5 at a time in the afternoon. I am starting to see some of the learning difficulties at this point. Students unable to write, some with some major speech problems, and most who seem distracted by the slightest little thing.

The regular teacher comes in at several points during the day to see if I am ok. Of course I am---this day has been a piece of cake compared to most that I have had lately. No real behavior problems. Sure I'm frustrated teaching wise---because these kids are performing at such a low level---but there isn't anything I can do about that in a single day.

No Show!

I called in and cancelled my assignment at about 3:30 AM this morning. This isn't the first time that this has happened this year, but I have this feeling of dread and worry that come over me. I had said that I was a little bit worried because I was going to be at a new school, but starting at about 11:00-Midnight I started having this feeling of something bad happening. The feeling was completely non-specific.

I'm not even sure if this feeling had anything to do with teaching or not. Its weird you want to feel like you can trust your own gut, but part of me wonders if I really should be trusting it.

Instead I laid in bed till 12:45, went for a walk, and basically accomplished nothing for the day. So this cycle will repeat itself. I have another substitute assignment scheduled for tomorrow, and now I will feel like I will have to go since I haven't made enough money this week. And I can already feel the dread coming on about tomorrow, I actually have a special education substitute teaching assignment tomorrow. I still don't know why I accepted it---maybe because nothing else was being offered a few weeks ago.

Time for me to chill!

Tiny Chairs

I had another one of those substitute assignments where I signed up for one thing, and ended up with something else. I signed up to teach in a 2nd grade classroom today, but instead I was placed in a first grade classroom. I'm sure you are thinking, no big whoop! From my perspective, I think the change from 1st grade to 2nd grade is one of the biggest changes during elementary school.

1st graders tend to be pretty helpless--you still have kids in the class who can't read or write. Most 2nd graders are at least a little more self-sufficient. With 1st graders it seems like every time you ask a child to do something, you have to repeat yourself at least 7 or 8 times, with 2nd graders you are only repeating yourself 3 or 4 times.

Other than that, it was actually a pretty good day. 1st graders tend to love any and all adults. Even if you bust a kid for some sort of trouble they don't seem to ever hold it personally against you. It was quite a change from the other week when several students told me that they didn't want me as a substitute again, today I was hearing that I was the best substitute ever (and it was sincere, not in the kiss up ways that you might hear from older kids).

Oh and the other fantastic thing today, the classroom I was in had a parent helper. And get this parent helper's job was to take attendance and lunch count. Talk about perfection---I got to avoid least favorite activity for the second time in one month. Parent helpers, that is the sign that you are in a good school. You don't need fancy test scores to evaluate schools, just determine how many parent helpers there are, and are they helping with things that make a difference----and yes, attendance and lunch count does make a difference!

So tiny chairs! I walk into this classroom and honestly there was only a single chair in the entire room that had a seat higher than my knee. There wasn't a single table that was higher than my table---I was permanently crouched the whole day. No wonder my back was killing me when I got home. But it did make me feel like a giant, because I towered over everything and everyone in this classroom.

Off to get some sleep, because I am back at it again tomorrow. I will be visiting a school that is new to me, and I'm a little bit fearful of it. The school is near the last school that I had trouble with a few weeks ago. I know I shouldn't judging schools based on their location, but I have been very skittish about new schools lately.

Stupidity

Probably not the right word to use when I am talking about a 7-year old girl, but its the one that comes to mind. I had a fairly decent day of substituting, lots of talkative kids, but no real trouble.

It was 2:15, only an hour left in the day, and the kids were going to spending the rest of the day in art and at an assembly. So for all practical purposes my work is done for the day. I had the students waiting on the carpet, and then we were going to line up and go to art. As I'm watching all the kids get settled on the carpet, I notice out of the corner of my eye that a girl has a scissors in her hand. We haven't used scissors at all today, and they don't take anything with them to art.

I look at the Samantha closer, and she is using her scissors to cut the jacket of the girl sitting in front of her. Cathy is oblivious to what is happening to her. I walk the students to art and I take Samantha right to the office. Why am I taking Samantha to the office? You would not believe how pissed parents get when their child's clothes are ruined at school. Especially since I could tell Cathy's jacket was close to brand new.

As I walked Samantha to the office, I asked her why she cut Cathy's jacket. "Well she cut my clothes yesterday."

Huh? "Did you tell a teacher?"

"Yes."

"Did Cathy get in trouble?"

"Yes, she got sent to the office."

That wasn't enough for Samantha, she had to wreck her clothes also. That is one of the things I don't like about being a substitute, I'm not going to see how this drama unfolds--or maybe that is a good thing.

As soon as I enter the office, the secretary is shocked that I have Samantha with me. The principal is even more shocked. And all I can think is how stupid this whole thing is.

I actually growled today!

It was one of those days today. Nothing seemed to go right, and I ended up having a splitting headache before 11 a.m. I'm still not exactly sure what happened, but I definitely wasn't "on" today.

There are some jobs that you can coast through when you know you are having an off day. When your job involves "performing" for a group of 20-30 ten-year olds they pounce the second they realize you are having an off day. And pounce they did! There was talking. There was bickering. There were refusals to sit. There were refusals to work. There was pouting. There was shouting. And yes there was growling! All of these things ended up being true for the class, as well as true for me.

When a class won't quiet down and do there work, it forces a teacher to think on their feet. Sometimes creative thoughts occur, other times they don't. One girl got upset with me because I asked her to do her assignment, she got a little pissy and gave me this stern look with a little rumbly growl to go along with it. So the mature adult that I am, I turned and stared at her and gave her an even bigger growl. The rest of the class found it hilarious. Pissy girl immediately started saying that she never growled at me---so I turned to the rest of the class who were now on my side---did anyone hear Pissy growl? Almost immediately every hand in the class was raised high.

And no, I didn't really call the girl Pissy (I told you I would be making up names for the students----I didn't say they would always be positive names....did I?)

Did the growling help the class settle down? Hell no! Did it make me feel better---yeah for a minute or two.

Funny incident number 2 for the day. Another male student, Billy, was talking constantly today---so I moved him to another table away from his buddies and next to two girls. Billy kept trying to move back to his buddies, so I kept sending him back to the table with the girls. About the 3rd time that I moved him, he said to me in front of the whole class, "I'm going to tell my Mom what you did. She'll make it so you aren't our substitute again!"

Oh no, not your Mommy!!!! Do I honestly care if I sub for this class again? NO!!!!!!! Do these silly kids actually think it is a privilege to be their substitute----get real? Does a ten-year old actually think he can honestly threaten a substitute teacher with the threat of his mommy?

Don't get me wrong, I have some regular classes and schools that I love going back to----but I have absolutely no problem refusing to ever go back to a school if I don't like it. I might go back to this school---I don't think I would go back to that particular class again.

No lunch or attendance counts!!!

It was a good day of subbing today. Someone must have heard me complaining about lunch and attendance counts because I was placed in a semi-team teaching room today, and luckily those responsibilities belonged to the other teacher.

I spent the first half of my morning working with small groups (1-5) first graders who were struggling to read and write. A much more enjoyable setting than a class of 30 students. Later in the morning I switched with the other teacher and had a larger group of students for reading and then again in the afternoon for math.

Also the school had a fire drill, which seemed sort of strange and pointless because most of classes were outside at recess when the alarm went off. I suppose that is one way to have good evacuation times.

There is more to say about this day...but I am leaving town in just a few minutes....so I will revise this when I return.

Surprise!

Today was a FUBAR sort of day. I had accepted the job about a week ago to substitute in a 4th grade classroom. One of the nice things about accepting a job a week or more beforehand, is that the regular teacher has plenty of time to prepare plans and materials for the substitute.

I arrived at the school this morning, and the school secretary informed me that the teacher I was to sub for was reassigned from 4th to 2nd grade yesterday. I arrive in the classroom and it is a disaster---her desk might even have been messier than my desk. I find her lesson plans, and for practically each subject I either have to make copies or transparencies to teach the lessons. One especially aggravating thing, was for one lesson she wanted to me to make copies of something that she didn't even have.

I always arrive at the school about 40-50 minutes before class begins, so that I can familiarize myself with the lesson and review students names. So now instead of me preparing myself to teach, I am going to be working as her secretary. This pisses me off to no end. I can understand with teachers who call in sick that morning, maybe something wasn't ready ahead of time. But this teacher new she was having a substitute for over a week.

Because of this the lessons did not go smoothly at all, I was constantly going back to the plan book to see what I am supposed to do next. And since all the students were completely new to this teacher, there were no procedures in place for bathroom breaks, pencil sharpening, or the other usual silliness. So here it is I look like the clod not knowing what to do next, when actually it was the regular teacher who didn't have her act together.

Other than that it was a fun bunch of kids that I worked with today. No real problems and everyone made it through the day, including the teacher without crying.