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Annoyance: I overlooked two boys talking during silent reading time. I finally took their names down and when they said they weren’t talking, I remarked that I had seen them talking 5 or 6 times, and finally had to mark them down. One boy responded, “Maybe 3 or 4 times, but not 5 or 6.”  I said, “Really? Don’t ARgue with me.”

Four classrooms in one day. I covered a Kindergarten class while the teacher went to a 90 minute meeting, and then covered a 2nd grade, a 3rd grade, and a 4th grade. Overall, the day went well. The good thing about this kind of set up is that one only deals with certain students for a very short time. The bad thing is that there is no time to even learn to recognize which kids I am in charge of, so outdoor recess is pretty – generic. I was glad to be out in the beautiful weather, though. Mostly I sit on a bench and keep an eye out for trouble. There’s also no “down time” when one is a floater, so there was no point in bringing in my textbook.

One teacher has her classroom set up so that there are two long rows of desks. Each row has 6 sets of two desks together facing each other – so that’s 12 desks per row, and then a spare one on the end – 26 kids. The great thing about this setup is that it leaves a LOT more space to actually be able to move around the room – I like it!

Got to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy – always fun, and I even learned what a hedometer is, AND how it was decided how large a liter would be.

Today was the best kind of substitute teaching day. I got to actually teach language arts and social studies to well-behaved kids in two Northville schools: 3rd grade in the morning, 5th grade in the afternoon. They even laughed at my jokes. 🙂 It was the kind of day that makes me want to keep this job.

I stepped into the 3rd grade classroom before school started, and there was no one there. A minute later a small boy came in and said, “Hi, my name is Drew. Welcome to Winchester School. Do you need anything, or are there any questions I can answer for you?”  I was totally floored! I decided to ask for directions to the gym, although I knew where it was. He stepped into the hall and expertly directed me and offered to walk me down there if I wanted him to. 🙂 Apparently he is part of the Student Ambassadors. It’s another “Leader in Me” school and they take that seriously.

This school is built in the shape of a C with a large round library in the center of it and 6 halls leading that direction. On the hall floor, this year they added a blue “dotted line” down the center to encourage the kids to stay to one side or the other when they are passing – it works great! Another great idea – one of the Kindergarten teachers put the kids’ pictures on their bins where they will keep their gloves/hats etc. above their coats and backpacks.

Also – Mrs. D, the teacher I worked with, is exceptional. The kids worked quietly and diligently. She has a microphone around her neck that ties in to a speaker in the wall, so she does not need to raise her voice at all to be heard. She is great with the kids. When she was discussing  the story of Chrysanthmum with them (a great book for kids, by the way), the kids were all sitting on the carpet eating their snacks. A boy stood up and started to leave. She stopped, looked at him, and gently said in a quizzical voice, “I don’t know why you are getting up and leaving.” When he responded that he wanted to throw away his trash, she shook her head and said, “No, we do not get up and leave during a lesson.” That was it! No “Sit DOWN!” No, “What do you think you’re doing?” Time after time throughout the day she came across to them in a very patient, non-angry way, even when there were those who were not paying attention. She went up to a boy and turned off her mic and quietly whispered something to him, rather than calling him out in the middle of the classroom or using sarcasm.

My job on Day 4 as parapro was to shadow a boy named Mark, encouraging him to stay on track and do his work, and help oversee lunch and recess. I’m glad I had the opportunity to watch an expert in her craft. Still, I would rather sub as a teacher because the pay is a lot higher and frankly, there were times when I felt bored out of skull today. Day 5 was in the same assignment and was pretty similar.

Backing up to Day 3 – I had a half day as the ESL teacher in a Plymouth middle school. It was delightful getting to actually teach two classes – AND delightful to only have 4 or 8 students in those classes. 🙂 I really enjoyed doing this. The four kids came from Mexico, India and Germany. They enjoyed the weird faces I make when I demonstrate the meanings of various new words.

I think that I might not journal every day that I sub, this time around, but just mention cool ideas, thoughts, highlights, and low points that I experience along the way.

During the first week of school, there were options for subbing, but only for parapro in the severely disabled special ed classrooms, and I don’t feel qualified to work in those.

Day 1 But on Friday, September 11, there was a  half day option in a high school in Westland to be a school secretary, so I figured that was much better than not working (it, like Parapro and lunch monitor, pays far less than substitute teaching), so I took it. It was a pleasant day except for having to arrive at 6:30 a.m.! I worked in the counselors’ office, and basically guided students to go to their counselor’s office, or go back to class until they would be contacted. I transferred phone calls, and told people to come back later if they needed info that I didn’t have access to.  One of the staff members told me, “You’re really good.” Well, I’m used to organizing, helping people, and telling them what to do 🙂 . I also drew a still life picture of the items on an adjoining desk, in between dealing with people. I encouraged a young man who is going into the trades with stories of my son the electrician and the great need there is in some locales for bricklayers. I connected visiting parents with the counselors they sought.

There are 2000 students in this high school, and among them, the 6 or 8 counselors have at least 200 requests for schedule changes that they must process asap. Some got a class they had already taken. Some got a teacher they couldn’t stand. Everybody had a reason for a change, and it was the 4th day of classes. A few new students had just enrolled there the day before or that morning.  I suspect that the teachers have a real challenge with not knowing exactly who is going to be in each class during the first week or so.

Day 2 Tuesday September 15. I spent the morning in the Montessori school I worked at last year, which has now changed their setup so that there are Kindergarten classes and First-Second grade mixed classes. The morning went pretty well – the teacher left pretty easy stuff for us to accomplish, and recess outside was a pleasant change.

The afternoon was at the Japanese Immersion school in Livonia. For the first 90 minutes, I just sat in the back of a third grade classrrom, drawing and keeping an eye on the kids while the Japanese teacher taught them Japanese, Math and Science – entirely in Japanese. It was – strange! It is so odd to hear the kids – Asian, White, Black – talking in Japanese. Previously when I have worked there, it was in the morning and I taught Language Arts and Social Studies – in English, obviously. But they had to have an “official” teacher there, even though I didn’t do much. During the last hour, I supervised as they took a Math test (in English) and worked on a craft (decorating construction paper scales for a large dragon for a parade they are participating in on Friday).

Okay, here’s the cool thing that I encountered, and I will try to upload a picture I drew of it. They have “whisper phones” for the kids. Some children need to verbalize when they read, so to keep it from getting  loud, they made these “whisper phones” out of PVC pipe – two corner pieces with a connector in-between. The child whispers into the “mouthpiece” and hears it through the “earpiece” loud and clear. The kids love them, and they are very inexpensive and probably easy to make. One might make a bunch of them for a classroom or to sell!

I read a facebook entry where someone was comparing what they said back in 2003 and onward about computer and phone usage, and I thought, “Ha! I can do better than that! Here’s my story of “Sharon the typist.”

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.

This just in: I still know how to pitch, throw and catch a softball.
If I could run, I would look for a team to join. 🙂

Today was fun. Just – FUN! I put on my Detroit t-shirt and my daughter’s discarded knee-length PMCA gym shorts, and arrived at a Livonia elementary school to be the Phys. Ed. teacher. (Well, first of all I went to the wrong school, and secondly, the “right” school said they already had someone, but then the other Phys. Ed. teacher wasn’t feeling well so they decided she would go home and I would handle her 5 classes of 5th and 6th graders.)

I pitched for five 45 minute periods, to both teams. The teacher’s request was that I do the pitching, with the intention of ensuring success for each batter. I threw, caught, coached, umpired, encouraged, settled disputes, kept kids from climbing fences, and put more than one of them in their place, so to speak. It was a gorgeous, breezy day – absolutely perfect, and I enjoyed every minute of it – and got paid. 🙂

Highlights:

Every play at first was called safe by the batting team, no matter what happened. Sometimes they argued with me when it was ridiculously inaccurate, so it didn’t bother me a bit when the play was a close one and they questioned my judgement.

I yelled to a boy to get down off of the high fence. He jokingly said, “Yes, Mom.” I replied, “Hey, I have four sons, so I have no problem with that.”

A smart aleck threw a handful of gravel at his classmate just as we were leaving the field. I said, “Sit down!” and pointed to the ground. The rest of us walked to the building and just before I rounded the corner out of site I motioned for him to come in. This kid is fast (and a pretty good baseball player too – what an arm!) and he got to the door before we did, grinning all the while.

After the first period, wherein the boys from two classes vied against one another (girls on another diamond with the other sub), I decided thereafter to give each kid a number. This provided their batting order, and gave me an easier way to assign them fielding positions. 1-first, 2-second, 3-short stop, 4-third, 5-catcher – everybody else out in the field. Next inning: 6-first, 7-second, etc. There was less griping because they knew that they would get a chance to play a good position, and it worked for me because I didn’t know ANY of their names. “Hey – you – in the Captain America shirt – yeah, YOU – get off the base.” It kept all the cool jocks from bullying their way into the prime locations too. Usually the other kids are happy to get the opportunity, but if they wanted to switch, they had the option to give up their turn. Maybe one or two out of many innings and three classes.

Special ed. classes: A boy, runner on second base, saw the next hit coming his way – stopped to pick it up and hand it to the 2nd baseman and then ran to third. 🙂 The parapros and I had to be careful giving directions, because the fielders would all start running the bases too. It was all rather amusing. Every kid – some with assistance – got a hit of some sort (if the bat touched the ball at all, we counted it no matter where it landed.) 5 on a team – we switched after everyone had a turn at bat. One girl doesn’t have the use of one of her hands – the parapro helped her hit the ball and she giggled all the way to first base. I fielded the ball and threw it there very slowly.

A girl said, “You’re a really good gym teacher!”

I really enjoyed this day. 🙂

This school year is about to end! I am looking forward to reading this entire blog and reviewing the whole experience.

Today I did half a day in Kindergarten at a Detroit charter school. I had a parapro with me the entire time, and only 14 of the 32 kids came to school today (their graduation is tomorrow). They had gym and lunch. I read them a story, helped clean up the breakfast mess, helped them with a Language Arts page, taught them how to draw a sea turtle and then got free pizza as part of their end of the year party at 11:30. Not a difficult day, by any means, but I gave them all the encouragement I could to keep reading all summer and writing clearly. I tell them that if they don’t make their numbers correctly, the bank teller will give them the wrong amount of money. 🙂 I tell them that there are important thoughts inside their heads and if they don’t write clearly, people will not understand what they want to say.

And I tell some of them that they write better than a lot of adults, because it’s true.

I also monitored restroom time. They have a hallway between their room and the first grade – and off of that hallway is a restroom with 4 tiny stalls with tiny but strong wooden doors on them. Because of students causing problems, they do not keep toilet tissue in the restroom. Rather, kids have to get some from the roll in the classroom and take it in with them. The “bathroom helper” stands nearby giving out squirts of soap and pieces of paper towel when needed.

1st grade at a Detroit Charter school. For the most part it went well, but by the end of the day, two of the girls were getting on my last nerve. Just bouncy, silly, bugging people, not staying in their seats, that sort of thing. I shouldn’t have let it get to me, but, maybe because I was tired, I did. Sigh. Too much arguing and drama and tattling, and blurting out whenever anybody thought anybody was doing something wrong.

We did accomplish a lot of the work and I did the Hokey Pokey and Pizza Hut Songs with them. I enjoyed talking with most of them. Some of them did not catch on to the difference between common and proper nouns, and it took a lot of patience to deal with them over and over about it.

There was a very nice assembly in the morning to honor all the kids from grades 1-4 who met their Accelerated Reader goals. There were performances by some of the older (5th and 6th grade, but they look like about 10th grade!) students that were quite good.  So – have to say this – I was with the kids for about an hour or so and then in the auditorium for awhile before the thought suddenly hit me – that I was the ONLY white person in the entire auditorium. Later a couple of other staff members entered, but the interesting thing was that I wasn’t noticing this at all – they are just students and co-workers. Haha – actually, when I saw the other teachers, I thought they looked really pale, but didn’t think about how I must have looked the same.

A little girl told me she liked my hair. I asked her what she liked about it and she said “it’s curly.” 🙂 I told her that I liked her pretty beads and she told me more about them. It really is interesting to just listen to the kids tell about their lives.

My best friend got a new grandson this week, who is named Sebastien Flynn Hanko. I thought it was a pretty unusual name, but when I mentioned the name to some girls in the class, one said, “I have a cousin named Sebastian” and the other said that her friend had a brother with that name. So – I didn’t realize this name made a comeback.

I love being in that old building – it’s the one that looks almost exactly like Dixon Elementary School where I attended 2nd-6th grade. The first graders’ bathroom has little stalls with little wooden doors on them – can a bathroom be labeled cute? I was grateful for a giant fan, though, because otherwise we would have been very hot in the 79 degree weather.

Only a few more days of the school year – so far I have scheduled half a day for Monday and a whole day for Tuesday – not sure if I’ll find any work for the last two days of school. Hope I do – even if it’s just parapro or secretary (important jobs but they pay way less.)

He’s about to graduate from 8th grade. He’s been suspended more times than anyone can count during the past two years. His mother is certifiably crazy and his father has had several strokes. Sometimes he has to help his father get dressed. Sometimes his mother wakes him in the middle of the night because she just made dinner.

But all I saw was a kid who kept disrupting the class when they were all supposed to be taking some online math test. He wasn’t awful – just talkative. He wasn’t even as loud as some loudmouths have been. I got on his case several times because I wanted the other kids to have a quiet room in which to be able to think through their math problems. After he finished, I encouraged him to go outside. He was in, out, in, out, chatting. He didn’t see the problem. He didn’t consider his wisecracks to be an interruption to their test-taking, and perhaps they didn’t either. Finally I called him over and tried to explain and he said, “I don’t want to listen to you.” I gave him a choice of going to the office or going back outside. He started to leave and then reconsidered and went outside until after everyone finished their tests. There were other guys out there to throw a football with. He was upset with me. The parapro told me more about him when she stopped by to look for some paperwork. Would I have treated him differently? Probably, but I also would have told him to take his test out in the hall or somewhere so as not to distract the rest of the class. It’s always a fine line between considering a kid’s situation and considering the rest of the class too. I could have been kinder.

A girl in the first class was ready to explode – the parapro told me to just leave her be – don’t make her take her test. She wanted to go to see the counselor and I offered to walk her down so the parapro could get everyone else set up since she knew the drill. I didn’t say anything to the girl on the way – she doesn’t know me. When I left her there, I said, “I wish you well” and smiled a little and she said “Thanks.”  A little while later I decided to go to my car and get a can of cold Pepsi and I took it to her and just said, “This is for you” and touched her shoulder gently when I gave it to her. It just seemed like maybe a small act of kindness might help get her through her day. Her dad left the family and she’s been angry for months and months. Kind of hard to care about the area of a triangle, I think.

This was the “Success Strategies” class in a Livonia middle school, which helps 7th and 8th graders with their homework, schedules, and coping with school life. These are not the kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD or whatever – those go to the Resource Room (where I helped out last week) for extra help. These are the in-betweeners – not actually on a “Plan” but not able to manage and needing a boost. I applaud Mrs. A, and Mrs. R, the parapros who very obviously love and are loved by these kids. These teachers and counselors do amazing work helping the kids in every way that they can. Not spiritually, in the sense of being able to tell them about Christ and what He could do to change their lives. But within their context – I applaud their dedication and concern and just plain hard work.