sharoncopydotcom

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.

I was in a 5th grade classroom in Plymouth in the morning and a 3rd grade classroom in Northville in the afternoon.

Overall, it was a typical day – the kids were pretty well behaved once I called for it, although I did have to call for it more than once.

I had a couple of National Geographic kids’ books with me. A 3rd grader, G. finished his books during the hour-long independent reading time, so I loaned him mine and he really enjoyed them. He came over and told me all about how funny some of the pictures of animals sleeping in trees were (after showing it to a few other kids). I think I will make sure I carry these to other schools. I enjoyed listening to his enthusiastic sharing.

After recess, a bunch of the kids just headed indoors – didn’t line up or wait for me. I had decided to stay outside a little longer. One of the challenges with doing two half-days is that I end up having to corral a bunch of kids whom I just met half an hour earlier and I have NO idea which of the kids in the playground are “mine.” Some came over to tell me that it was time to go in, and I said we were staying out a little longer (a few kids had won a raffle and their prize was to put a whipped cream pie into their teacher’s face, and I thought it would be fun to watch). (The teacher wore safety goggles.)

Talked about Habits 4 and 6 of the “Leader in Me” Steven Covey program – Think Win-Win and Synergize. I think this is only the second time I’ve gotten to talk about the habits with kids, although they are the prevailing value system in many of the schools. It makes for interesting discussion. Personally, I think the kids’ workbook could have better examples and ideas in it.

Today I helped in a middle school resource room, taught two 7th grade math classes, and then left that Livonia school to go to another one. The directions were too vague and I couldn’t find the school – good think I found my phone and could call the first school to find out where the second one was!

2nd grade for the afternoon went well – a good group of kids. It was really nice outside so I was happy to be on recess duty.
The kids were lined up to go to computer lab when I got there so I grabbed the lesson plans off the desk and down the hall we went. Well, computer lab wasn’t listed in the teacher’s lesson plans. The kids were positive that she wouldn’t mind and explained why they thought she neglected to put it in there. All but one voted that their teacher wouldn’t be upset. We stayed a half an hour and deleted independent reading time from the schedule.

These kids were really sharp with their math skills – SO refreshing to see students who could reason out how to find an answer and then find it! Unfortunately, I’ve seen 4th, 5th, and 6th graders who didn’t do as well. 😦

I heard about a parent who went to her school board meeting. She asked the board members to do a couple of simple math problems. Then she showed them how her child was being required to do those problems following the Common Core curriculum and requested them to do the problems that way. She made her point.

Today I was in the Resource Room at a Livonia middle school and I helped a couple of kids with their homework and helped keep everyone on task. For a lot of the day, there was very little to do so I worked on my art project. I helped C., a 7th grader, with his math. He had to determine the perimeter of a shape – the measurements were provided. At first he was writing down the list of numbers (numbers given are random, not exact):

2+4=6+3=9+8=17+2=19+1=20+5=25

Sometimes he guessed and got the wrong answer. Always, he counted on his fingers (and still sometimes got it wrong, although he seemed to know what to do). I chided him for guessing (there’s no guessing in math – they haven’t gotten to estimating) and also showed him that he could just write the list of numbers in a column and then add them as he goes and not have to write each step out. Later, after he successfully did about 12 problems, I showed him that he could just look at the diagram and point to the numbers and add them together as he went around the shape – saving even more time. He seemed happy that he could do everything faster. Of course, he might have just been messing with me in the first place – I could tell that while he wasn’t quick, he did understand the concepts. I encouraged him to learn his multiplication tables this summer, also.

Honestly, I think I should start a Multiplication Tables Camp for a week at a time and get flash cards, games, and so forth and just drill on them for a couple hours a day. Hmmmmmmm. I would accept any age kid that wanted to learn them. 🙂 The 13 year olds could get inspired by the 7 year olds. 😦

Forgot to mention that on “Reading Rainbow” day, at least one child asked why the fiddle maker from Tennessee talked the way he did. 🙂 I imitated the accent (I probably sounded more Kentucky) and they were amused. I think those 1st graders were not aware of regional accents.

“Is college boring?” This was the interesting question of the day from a third grader. I answered that some classes are, and some are very interesting but basically it’s like life – some parts are boring, others are exciting, and some things we have to do are just hard. Talked about how we build strength every time we make ourselves work longer than we really want to and how that strength helps the next time we have to work hard.

Today was a fairly easy day with this third grade class in Livonia. I monitored them doing their multiplication pages and helped quite a few of them with their problems – even did a couple up on the board since so many were “lost.” I gave an impassioned speech about learning their multiplication tables during this summer – getting flash cards, making a game out of it, whatever. Asked them if they prefer to spend 2 hours or 1 hour doing homework. Ha! Easy answer. Explained that knowing their M. tables will make it faster to do their homework and help them all their lives. Hoping it sank in for some of them. Honestly, I can’t imagine not knowing them! What a personally-invited-handicap!

The rest of the day included walking them here and there (having a couple of hours to work on my art class assignment), taking them out for a couple of recesses, and watching “Wall-e” at the end of the day (about 2/3 of it, anyway.) One boy had not seen it and had a few questions as to what was going on. “Why is the earth covered with garbage? Why are all the people so fat?” I asked him if he knew what exaggeration was. I told him this story was written to exaggerate and show what the world would be like if we kept filling it up with garbage and never exercised and only communicated with other people through electronic devices. He seemed satisfied with that. I hope he gets to see the end of the movie.

Several boys got into arguments today. W and A were going at it and I said, “we can either take the last ten minutes of recess to straighten this out, or you can both apologize and go back to playing.” W apologized. A. told him it was not the right tone of voice. W. apologized again. A. told him that he didn’t sound sincere. W. apologized again. A still said he didn’t accept it. At this point it was getting ridiculous – I sent W on his way and made A sit down for awhile until he cooled off. I suspect that this reflects the way apologies go at his house with at least one of his parents. 😦

For the next argument, I told the boys to get a pen and paper and write down what happened and I would give it to their teacher to deal with it. Both of them plus another boy who claimed to be a witness each wrote about three-four sentences and gave it to me. I didn’t read them – just left them stapled together with a note for the teacher. 🙂 It let them vent without me and the rest of the class having to hear it, anyway.

I met a teacher who keeps meticulous notes. She has a 6-page booklet for each student, in which she records every week how each of them did in every subject, regarding following directions, cooperating, understanding, etc. She writes notes for each one of them EVERY week and sends these forms home to the parents. She says there are NO surprises at report card time in her class. I was impressed – I have never seen anyone do this (or maybe I just didn’t know) other than some special ed. teachers. She’s been doing it for about 20 years, I think she said. Hand-written – imagine that!

Last of all – a shout out to Mr. T, the other 3rd grade sub today, just in case you decided to read my blog. 😉

Day 127 “Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high….”

I spent the day with Levar Burton. I led 10 (count them – TEN!) half-hour music classes with K and 1st graders, and showed each class the same episode of Reading Rainbow. 🙂 I sang the theme song (sometimes they sang) 10 times, and since it was about a barn dance, we spent the last 5-8 minutes dancing – making circles and, well, circling, clapping and stomping, yelling “Yee-Haw!”  Yessiree, ten times. And do you know what? I didn’t mind. I’m so glad it was Reading Rainbow and it was music. I studied the illustrations in the books they showed (since I’m an art student now), and enjoyed all of it. Best.Kids’.Show.Ever.

One Arabic boy saw the animals coming out of the barn at the beginning and said, “Is animals real?” I replied that those were real animals. “How come we no see them?” I responded that it was because they were on television. Seemed to suffice. Interesting.

Livonia Middle School – Home Economics class – only it’s called Food and Family, or something like that.

Today I played DVD’s of “Chopped” and “Next Great Baker” (?) for 5 classes, which means I saw one of them 3 times, and the other one twice. The kids didn’t have to fill out report forms IF they cooperated and were quiet. A few kids got forms, and one got so angry she left (I called the office). Overall – a pretty good day. I’m glad to see that some schools still teach cooking and sewing. There were a lot of guys in some of the classes, too!

I’ve never seen these Food Network shows, and they make me feel stressed with all the drama and competition and rushing around. But I did find the weird combinations that they created a bit interesting. They had to make an entree that included (but was not limited to) bluefish, papaya, flatbread, and beef jerky. Weird. The contestants are all accomplished chefs.

It made me very hungry and also made me feel like going home and throwing some odd things together to see what I can create. My culinary creativity has generally been limited to an ever-changing dish known as Leftover Surprise. This included any number of veggies, meats, and starches (I’ve been known to combine potatoes, rice and pasta), carefully crafted, fried or baked, and generally topped with butter and either spaghetti sauce or cheese sauce. It was nearly always very well received. 🙂

Day 124 in Plymouth, elementary school. Mostly, it was walking day! I monitored the “morning stuff” and a writing assignment. I had fun reading some of their creative stories out loud with great expression and it seemed to encourage more kids to want theirs read. Then at 10:30 the VP walked them to their M-STEP test and I read a novel until noon when they returned. 12:05 I walked them to recess and went to lunch. 1 pm I got back just in time (actually a minute or two late due to my car’s clock being wrong) and walked them down the hall from the lunchroom to the gym (about 60 feet – really? – these are sixth graders!) Went back to the class and read my novel and started a sketch of one corner of the classroom. At 1:55 I went and walked them to the other side of the building for art class – but, wait – I had to take afternoon attendance first so I lined them up in the hall to do that – since it was non-routine, it took way longer than it should have. At 2:55 or so I went and walked them back to the classroom, where some of them read, others drew pictures quietly, and about half left to go finish their M-STEP test. End of the day – some sub days are like this, but this is the MOST free time I’ve had – even so, they were glad to have me walk the kids around rather than having to get someone else to keep track of it and do it.

Day 125  Band Leader!

Plymouth Middle School – I subbed for the band leader – a Prime section (that’s Homeroom) followed by 5 classes of 8th, 7th and 6th grade bands. The teacher had chosen students to lead each song – but I quickly found that they needed some assistance, and also realized that I was more qualified to lead the pieces than most of them. One 7th grade girl was quite a good leader and several others did the task well. Some were shy and soft spoken and didn’t really do much to lead.
I encouraged them to tap the baton on the music stand to keep rhythm so that the 40+ people would have SOME standard to follow – most did it – in some cases I did it instead. I made some of the younger kids re-do some of their warmup scales because they were so awful. They tried to tell me that they were supposed to sound like that. Okay – maybe I haven’t been a band leader, but decades of choral work qualify me to tell when a unison do-re-mi line is NOT being played in unison. 🙂

It gave me confidence to know that I can handle subbing for band – after all, I don’t have to teach them HOW to play the instruments – just encourage them to try to hit the right notes, and count time.

One of the songs is “All About the Bass” and after I had admonished one boy for talking too much, I said I didn’t want any   trouble, to which another boy quipped, in melody, “No treble.”   I thought it was pretty clever. I left notes for the teacher regarding how well each class cooperated. The eighth graders will not be happy.

Even though they are young musicians, I really enjoyed getting to listen to music all day – Star Wars, Dueling Dragons, Imagine, John Williams medley, etc. Though it was sometimes a challenge to get them to quiet down, it was a very pleasant day.

This 5th grade class in Plymouth/Canton has a morning routine where the kids check whether homework was finished, as well as take attendance and get the lunch count ready. They have a list of their names and whenever they leave the room they move their clothespin onto their name and then back into the bin when they return – great way to make them responsible and let the teacher know when people come and go. This was a good group, although a bit loud until brought back down to reality.

Today was a very light load.

For about an hour and a half, we joined another class and watched the movie “The City of Ember” (because the kids are reading the book). As a futuristic-earth-is-messed-up story, it was pretty good. It reminded me some of “Snowpiercer” (which is intriguing, but too gory) and “Divergent” and starred Bill Murray as the evil mayor and Martin Landau as an old pipeworks worker (and comic relief).

Then, after lunch and reading time, I walked them from station to station at their Field Day. It is a glorious Spring day, hot, but breezy, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds and it was a joy to be outside for nearly 2 hours! Since I’m still not feeling fully well, I carried a stool along with me because I knew I couldn’t stand up for the entire time. Since I had been informed about the Field Day,  I was dressed in capris, T-shirt, sandals and sunglasses, with my ice water at my side.

Nostalgia: Field Day is all for fun, and so the parents running it don’t enforce the rules too much. I noticed one particular girl cheated on every game. Most of the kids followed the rules. It reminded me of community 4th of July picnics where there WAS a prize at stake and the judges rarely disqualified kids who jumped out ahead before the word, “Go”, leaving other contestants (including some of my kids) angry. Don’t people think that it’s important for kids to learn from the rules? And what does it say to those who follow them if you are afraid to hurt little Susie’s feelings by telling her that she didn’t follow the rules?

I walked down the hall of the Montessori upper school with some trepidation. I didn’t feel very well, and it had been awhile since I dealt with 6th graders and the secretary said I was going to be in there by myself, with no teacher’s aide. With the Montessori system, it really helps to have an assistant because the kids work independently and someone has to go around and check everything.

Well, I saw Mr. D’s smiling face when I entered. At about 6’5″ tall, he is an imposing figure, and the big smile on his face and his loving manner has endeared him to all of the students and staff there. It turns out that Mr. D is the aide in the 6th grade class and so he ran the show and I was free to help kids with their writing and editing. It was a very good morning.

The afternoon was spent in a Livonia Kindergarten which turned out to be Spec. Ed. On the Aesop list, it just said KDG Center and they assumed that everyone would know that means it’s Spec. Ed. It turned out okay – there were only 7 kids and a full-time aide who knows them well, so I just helped as directed. Also, the directions to the school were incorrect, and my cell phone is lost, so I stopped at a credit union and boldly explained my situation and asked to use their phone since they also didn’t know where that school was (it was only a mile away, but it required an odd sort of way to get there, not unusual for Livonia). Not a bad half day, but I was very tired and weak from this allergy/cold/whatever it is, so I was eager to get home and climb into bed. Sometimes – many times – it’s the nicest place on earth.

I really had thought it was allergies to the pollen in WA, not a cold, or I wouldn’t have subjected students to it. Now I’m not so sure, though. 😦