DAY 137

3rd grade in the morning in a rough school in Inkster, followed by Kindergarten in Livonia.

In both situations, with 20-20 hindsight, I wish that I would have acted like it was the penultimate day of school, ignored all the worksheets that the teachers left for the kids, and just realized that their hearts were not into studying and hung out and had a semi-educational good time with them.

Instead, I pushed for order and work to be finished. Yes, they should have exercised more self control and not acted like they could get away with stuff because a guest teacher was there. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. What did they do wrong? Ignore directions. Talk too much. Was it worth it for them to get in trouble with the principal for that? Seemed like it at the time. Were the worksheets really important to their education? Probably not – they either whipped through them, or had no clue what to do and there’s no time to amend that.

It wasn’t my finest hour or theirs. But I do hope that the encouragement I gave to work on their multiplication tables over the summer will sink in. I tell them that they will be able to do their math homework in less than half the time if they memorize them – it’s true!

I briefly got work for tomorrow and half of Friday today but it was canceled 5 minutes later. I doubt there will be more subbing work – but I’ll check in the morning.