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!
Good job!! :)
ReplyDelete