Winding down, summing up

I had two great days with 5th graders in Livonia after that awful day with the 2nd grade in Redford. Sigh. My own township.

As I sat comparing notes with 3 other subs (two black ladies, one white lady) on Friday at the Montessori school, we discovered that all of us had subbed at the Int’l Prep Academy in Detroit – and ALL of us had vowed that we would never sub there again. It’s really too bad. They have an awesome old building and I’m sure that the staff is trying  – it’s a charter school. But – it’s just not worth it for us to put ourselves thru a whole day of dealing with rebellious kids (even the younger ones!) who won’t listen, won’t obey, and just constantly disrupt. Sometimes I wonder if there just needs to be a military school for all the kids who won’t cooperate. But then I remember that there are many teachers who lovingly know how to deal with these rambunctious rebels – but I find, at least right now, that I’m not one of us – at least not as a sub.

Overheard in the teachers’ lounge at an elementary in Livonia: there was a big to-do involving a number of 6th grade students. Apparently it involved a certain hand signal that some girls were giving to each other – seemed to be a dare – and one of the girls grabbed and squeezed the private parts of one of the boys! The boy was pretty upset.
A couple of teachers/counselors were involved in dealing with them. One teacher’s remark was, “this is why we put Human Growth class at the end of the year.It’s a sort of sexual education class, taught separately to the boys and the girls, which gives them the basics about their body parts and menstruation (apparently that was more recently added to the boys’ curriculum, but it has always been part of the girls’) and what the parts do – but they do NOT get into how to have sex, exactly.

I think everybody is ready for summer vacation. Except me, because I haven’t found another job yet.