DAY 132

I have subbed 132 days this school year, in perhaps 40 or 50 schools, in every grade and many subjects. Today, the 6th grade class I had in Livonia behaved absolutely perfectly during their math test. When they brought their papers to the front and returned their calculators and got a book to read, NOBODY said a word. It was awesome! I left a note for their teacher.

Then I gave the same test to another class and though it took them a little longer to settle down, they too behaved perfectly. Usually I do not allow students to walk around – I go and get the papers because I’ve found that they can’t manage a trip around the room without chatting with classmates. Bravo, Livonia 6th graders!

Something I’ve learned: I can’t let kids this age (or pretty much any age, especially boys) have the freedom to talk and walk around the room during “free time.” It always degrades into wrestling, running, or other problems. So, after the math test I let them talk but told them they had to find a seat and stay there. 🙂 Live and learn!

That was the second half of the day. In the first half, I was the Phys. Ed. teacher at a high school in Livonia. Well – got there about 8 – the teacher’s plans were on his desk in the boys’ locker room. Someone retrieved them for me. No first class, 2nd class was a prep  hour. More time for me to read my History of Graphic Arts book. 3rd hour was a health class where they were to work together, without cell phones on, on the review for their final exam. 4th hour there was nothing, so basically I should be getting paid for a half day but I really only worked an hour.

While the health class was studying, I read through a “Livonia Public Schools Sexual Education” book on the desk.
I was very happy to see that it promoted abstinence very strongly, although it did go on to say that “in the future” when a person was ready for a sexual relationship, here was all the birth control and STD info. There was also a section where a girl would fill in how she spent her weekend – and then fill it in on the opposite side telling how she would have spent her weekend if she had a baby. Hmmmmm. Overall, it had much to commend it – better than I would have expected. Ha- I haven’t had to teach that class yet – although the health review for the final did include a lot of that information. The booklet talked about abuse, force, coercion and gave a number of examples of scenarios where the guy and girl understood the situation differently – good stuff, overall.

Talking with a substitute secretary who worked full time for the district – I found out that generally when a teacher’s students are supposed to go to a “special” (gym, music, art, whatever) and they don’t because the other teacher is gone – that the teacher gets paid extra for having the kids that extra hour. I’m wondering, Noelle – is that true where you teach? She said they also got paid extra if they had to do extra bus duty, etc. I suspect this might vary from district to district depending on what their unions won for them.