Spring Break

Spring Break feels like unemployment.

Sing it by ear

I swear I'm not allowed to have a normal day.  It was only supposed to be elementary music.  It was the last day before Spring Break.   The lesson plans were even easy.  For elementary music show parts of "Fantasia" to the older kids and play name that tune using a pre-made CD with the younger kids.  The first three classes were perfect.  I showed them the video, I even talked a little about how Disney was trying to show different ways to visualize music.  I made it all the way to first recess when CRACK!  The computer screen I was using went blank, the overhead projector started whirring down, and the CD player stopped working.  All the lights were on, the computer was getting power, but none of the electronics were working.  Listening in the hallway confirmed that this problem was not localized in my room.

Five minutes before the first grade class.  Five minutes to make a new plan.  Five minutes.  I look at the cheat sheet of tracks I had made myself for the game and decided it was all up to me and my singing for the next half hour.  I ushered the kids into their seats and waisted as much time as I could getting them into to teams, having them pick a team name and explaining the rules.  Then I proceded to hum, sing, and whistle parts of the songs for them to guess the titles.  It wasn't pretty, but it helped me make it to lunch!

At lunch I found out that some classrooms had computers, but no lights.  Other classes had lights but no computers like me.  The phones didn't work, the microwaves didn't work, the vending machine didn't work, though periodically it made a loud VVVVV noise in an attempt to try and disperse its contents.  The official word from the district electrician was that the school was running on half power, but the problem was not something within the school building.  The electric company could not find a problem on their computers but would be sending someone to investigate, eventually.

Thankfully I had some younger classes coming in the afternnon and thankfully I had subbed recently for a music teacher that used a lot of song games in his classroom. I taught the older kids musical murder (it's like the winking dectective murder game only you sing when you die) and the younger kids I taught them a song game that the kids use vocal dynamics to find a hidden object.  The power returned somewhere in my second to last class (still without the projector display) but by then I was on a role with my first grade teaching.  I'm seriously excited next week is Spring Break.  I don't think the school district could handle me going to any more schools and messing things up right now.

On the Fly

I should have known something was amiss when the gym contained an orchestra at my arrival at 7:10.  For some reason I thought maybe they were practicing or warming up before going somewhere.  But soon the gym filled with several other orchestras.  I also had no idea what the plans were for the day.  My folder contained a short paragraph without a date that could have been written anytime throughout the year considering that there were four other lesson plans in the folder from past absences from this teacher.  Unfortunately, football players streamed in and out of the men's locker room all morning which was, of course, the home of my teacher's desk.  I convinced a responsible looking orchestra member to run into the locker room and check the teacher's desk, hoping he wouldn't do something stupid with the large lanyard of keys I handed him.  A short while later the teen returned without any further supplement to the paragraph my folder already contained.  I knew the current lesson plan was written without knowing a band festival  was taking place in the gym all day.  There was no way I could have thirty teenagers running around and playing volleyball while performers tried to play Bach and Chopin.

By this time, school was about to start so I opted to wait until the first few students entered the gym.  These students seemed as confused as I was by the bleachers full of instrument toting students and a few parents.  I passed the class roster and the absent form to one of the students and asked them to please take attendance while I ran to the office to try and find a suitable place for the class.  The office was perplexed at the lack of preparation from my teacher.  They sent another teacher with me back to the gym to redirect the increasingly restless students upstairs to the mat room (basically a wrestling room).  By this time I could see that half the students didn't dress down because of all the confusion.  I knew volleyball would never work in this facility an had no other equipment at hand to keep the students busy.  So, I gave them a free period to talk, do homework, or whatever else they wanted while I tried to formulate a plan for the rest of the day.  The mat room had an adjacent weight room (I didn't dare let these students use the weights since they hadn't been trained how to use them and I didn't want to be responsible for an injury).  Unfortunately this was a ninety minute period so I had to try and keep this fist period class contained while I made my plan.

The first class finally ended and the next began.  I sent students to each locker room to spread the news about the change in venue for today's PE class.  In the mat room, the students began to trickle in and multiply.  I soon found out that two other classes would be joining my students in the mat room.  There goes my new plan.  Also, one of the other teacher's would also be a sub.  Luckily the lone permanent teacher had her own plan.  She led all 80 students in a 50 minute ab workout while the other teacher and I tried to keep the students working.  For the remainder of class we let the students use the workout machines  and use the weight room.  Next was lunch and planning, but I was flying solo for the last class.

I succeeded in getting all the students to the correct place and began my last-minute PE plan.  I had students get into groups of three and relay one at a time to one end of the room and back.  I then led the class in some stretches then continued the relay-style laps up and down the room doing different calisthenic moves.  Then I formed the class into three different teams of nine and made three lines down the longer length of the room.  I gave the first person in each line a medicine ball and they did different types of passes back and forth also relay style.  I ended the class with as best an imitation at the ab workout as I could.  I almost filled the entire class period.  I ended up with only three minutes left over before the students needed to go change.  Not too shabby for an English teacher!

The Bubble

I heard a lot during my student teaching and final education classes that teaching is a hard profession because so much of it is practiced alone.  For most possitions you create lesson plans alone, you develop your curriculum alone, you teach your students alone.  There is very little feedback from other professionals.  In fact, most of your feedback comes from complaining students and irate parents.  Then there's the occasional principal twenty minute observation every few years.

Subbing is worse.  Most weeks I'm in five different classrooms.  So far I've visited nearly twenty schools and been in so many classrooms I can't even count them anymore.  Every day I arrive, teach, and leave.  No feedback, no pats on the back, no getting used to the kids and learning their behavior.  When I teach special education classes and have the kid with the attitude, I have to remind myself that I'm not a bad teacher, the student is just testing me.  It gets difficult being tested everyday. 

The instibility is wearing sometimes.  But some days are good.  Some days I get a class that I connect with right away.  Some days I find a group of kids I can joke with, laugh with, and enjoy the day with.  Some days I get compiments and encouragement from surrounding teachers or para educators that happen to see something they like.  These compliments shine like gold.  They give me the ability to get through the tough days and look forward to the good days, whenever they might arrive.

Special Ed

I never know what to expect when I see that as the class title on the internet sub system.  I could be a teacher that works with high funtioning special needs children in a classroom with fewer students than a regular classroom.  I could be teaching more academic support which gives students extra time and help for homework and tests.  I could be in the transition room which usually hosts the more severe special ed students and tries to teach basic reading, writing, and life skills.

The class I was in on frieday was more the academic support type class.  Three teachers worked in the room supporting about twelve students throughout the day.  The other two teachers would follow the other students to their classrooms while I provided the support for two to three students at a time for their other classes.  The day was also confusing because the school was on an assembly schedule and the teacher I was there for neglected to give me the revised schedule for the day.  Instead I had to guess when class was over based on when students from other classrooms were in the hall.

The first two periods flew by with students needing little help and having little to do.  The third period was a bit harder.  The student I worked with came to class obviously upset at his previous teacher.  He argued with me about what he should be doing and thought that everything was absolutely stupid.  I tried several different things to get him to work on his paper.  After arguing with him for fifteen minutes, the other teacher sent him to the office.  This is the first time one of my students was sent to the office (thought I didn't really do the sending). 

This assignment was an interesting experience.  In one sense, it was easy.  I was pretty much watching over one student at a time.  I had three class periods with essencially no students or students with nothing to work on.  In another sense, it was terrifying.  I had no idea what I was doing all day.  My "lesson plans" were almost non-existent and I couldn't even tell the students when their class was over.  I am happy this assignment is over and hope future special ed classes go much smoother.

Complete 180

I always told people when they asked about the difficulty of subbing that I hadn't had a bad class yet.  That was true until yesterday.  I still don't know if this is how the kids regularly behave, they were too hyped-up after the weekend, or the weather was throwing them off, but there was definitely something not right with yesterday.

I started my day like every other sub day.  I checked into the office and attempted to get directions to my classrooms from one of the office ladies.  This is where I found out that not only were all the office workers out that day, all the office workers for the school district were "sick" that day.  Without getting into the politics of the matter, I was directed to the teacher I was subbing for and taken to my classroom. 

The teacher warned me that it was a difficult class.  He had 20 boys and I think 7 girls in the sixth grade class.  I read through the sub plans several times and braced for incoming students.  The morning started out easily enough with the students heading to Library for the first half hour.  They returned to work on some math.  I somehow got the chatty class through until math without any major incident.  Sometime after recess though I had to give my first "you ned to be more respectful and quiet lectures."  It seemed to work.  Until it started snowing.  That's right, snow in MARCH!  Tiny flakes floated down outside the classroom not 10 minutes after my lecture.  They had been working almost silently for ten minutes, so I opened the blinds if they promised to continue working and continue their quiet working.  They got about fifteen minutes of snow viewing before the class stopped working to watch floaty flakes.  Blinds closed, minds refocused.  I got the students through till lunch mostly focused and at least finished the tasks planned.

I had one particular boy that argued with me all day.  He switched seats, distracted others, and lied to me about his homework completion.  I would have sent him to the office if they weren't so short staffed yesterday.  They didn't need any more problems.  I somehow shepherded them through their reading lesson and was moving on to correcting their grammar lesson.  As I was going through the questions, I had the attention of about three students.  Half the class was talking, the other half moving about the classroom, reading, or staring off into space.  A few attempts to redirect students failed, so I did the only thing I could think of.  I made the students take out a blank sheet of paper, lectured them on their poor choices that day, and made them write their teacher a letter explaining why we did not complete grading their grammar lesson.  The next ten minutes clicked by in utter silence.  The students letters were mostly sincere appologies to their teacher, pleading for his forgiveness and mercy.  I gave several students the cold stare to reinforce the punishment.

I finished the last lesson, packed off the kids and sent them home.  I had to attack the urge to spring to my car at the end of the day.

Today is a much needed reprieve.  I had one class working quietly on a state pre-test before working quietly the rest of the class period (hurray for high school!).  Two class periods are away on a field trip and I end the day with two more pre-test classes.  I need days like today to recover from the almost career changing days like yesterday.  At the end of the day, I'm still alive, and more importantly, so are the kids.

Music

Today I got to be a music teacher at an elementary school.  Throughout the day I had eight half hour classes with different grades from 2nd-6th graders.  It was definitely a very different day.  First up, a half hour of planning.  During this time I read over the lesson plans thoroughly and tried to get ready for my first batch of classes.

Enter 4th graders.  The class came in and retrieved their recorders and found their seats.  I located the class helper who found the Activboard flip chart (think of it as a fancy Power Point) and attempted to start the first song.  Then, disaster struck.  The music icon on the flipchart didn't work.  Suddenly I have twenty 4th graders all telling me and their poor peer how to make it work.  "Try right clicking it," "You have to double click it, "Only click it once" were their knowing commands.  All failed.  After the first few tries I knew that somehow the board got into design mode where it only recognized the icon as an item, not as something that you click to make sounds.  After waisting a third of the class trying to make it work, we decide to try the songs without the music.  Horrible mistake.  They made it halfway through the first song before dissolving into senseless noise.  Next we attempted playing the acappella song.to much more success.  I insisted they practice this song two more times.  By this time the group was very frustrated and I submitted to their pleas to play a game for the last 10 minutes of class.

Luckily the first class was the worst.  For the next three classes the kids read an article about Motown music out loud and I asked them a few questions to get them thinking about the music style.  After lunch I taught the third graders a new song with much success.  The final two classes were second graders.  For these classes the students looked through their music text book and picked songs that they wanted to hear and/or sing along to.  I mostly played the part of facilitator and got the songs ready to go and asked them a few questions after each song.

Not a difficult day, but a strange day.  I am very glad that I have some basic music knowledge, otherwise the third grade singing class would have been forever long.  They were only working on one short song.  Without the knowledge of what to tell them to work on for each time practicing the song would have been extremely tedious.

Unknown

I was recently asked to give an example of my adaptability.  Well, I can't think of a job that requires adaptability as much as a substitute teacher.  Each day I go to a new school with new students and new curriculum.  I come into work with no idea what the day will be like.  I get to my desk where hopefully there is a sheet of paper with written instructions.  If I'm lucky, I get a few minutes to review the instructions and material before students come in and it's show time.  Other days I'm arriving as the students come in the classroom and have to teach as I read.   Even when I'm in a familiar classroom with familiar students, I still have no idea what the day will bring.  A lot can happen in a classroom between visits.

Today, my online assignment was to cover "elementary teacher" with no specific grade level.  Interesting.  This could mean anything.  I signed-in at the office and found out I would be covering classrooms while the teachers were released for peer observations.  I started in a fifth grade classroom where thankfully the teacher promised to take attendance before she left the classroom (see former blog!).  I showed the students this video to introduce the students to Read Across America Day and read Dr. Seuss books out loud.  Super fun.  Super easy.  Then I trekked to the fourth grade portable where I watched the students finish their writing prompts and supervised transition time to other classrooms.  During my break in covering teacher's classrooms, I wound up in the kindergarten classroom listening to individual students read to me from their little books.  Super cute! Finally, I ended the day back in the fifth grade classroom where I started.

Although every day begins with the unknown, I have loved everyday I have worked.  Each day brings a new adventure.  I really haven't had a bad day yet.  Most classes are really helpful to subs and I love meeting all the new students and seeing the different schools.  Whether I'm covering a vacation, a meeting, an appointment, or a sick day, I have learned to go with the flow and embrace the unknown.