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Hallelujah!

The new teacher starts tomorrow. It turns out that I am not scheduled to go on the field trip. Instead, I will be helping Ms. L. to reorganize the room – moving shelves, books, desks, etc., while the little darlings are gone. I’m taking our dolly and some boxes or bins along with me, and dressing lightly.

Today – so loud. So obstinate. So disrespectful. I ended up crying in the teacher’s lounge once. Mr. D – a tall, friendly older man who greets us every day and works as an aide wherever he is needed – and who seems to be beloved by the kids too – came in and gave me a big hug. 🙂  Then I settled back and quit trying to force them to be quiet and do their work – I just circulated and encouraged and helped. The one kid who got a Think Sheet – threw a tantrum and stomped out. New teacher says that should be cause for suspension – yeah!

I did learn that one boy who did no work the first 2 hours – just walked around and chatted continuously – he’s ADHD and didn’t have his medicine. I guess one has to learn how to deal with kids like that – I really am not sure how. Time to read up on it!

I took all but one book back to the library today – and the reports will be presented to Ms. L. as is so that she can get an idea of what level they are each at – then they can take them home, I suppose. I don’t think I’ll be in there after tomorrow morning. The principal has “other places” she can put me the rest of the week. Oh, boy!  I may tell her that I’d rather go back to the lower grades building. The other classes in this school don’t seem to be any better.

I can’t help but feel happy that I will not be in that classroom situation anymore. I’d be willing to try it with the new teacher at the helm – we’ll see what happens.

Herding cats.

That’s what it felt like today when I agreed to take this class of 4th graders to Phys. Ed. Whereas, other Phys. Ed. classes I have conducted have been fine – this group would not listen, continually argued, and so I finally threw my hands up in the air, got out a dozen basketballs and some jump ropes and told them to just go and play. Some pulled out mats and once I monitored their behavior, were able to do some fancy gymnastics to impress their classmates. We could have had some pretty cool games and activities – they will never know what they missed.

Anger.

A kid hits another with a ball and the one who was hit loses his temper, stomps around, breaks plastic forks, etc. I wanted to get to the bottom of it but I was busy dealing with trying to get 20 others to line up and leave the gym. Eventually we squared it all away. How does one give attention to every person when there are so many persons, and 4 or 5 consistently hog all of it?

Honestly, at the end of this day, I contemplated not extending my stay there past this Friday. I’ll have to decide soon. The morning wasn’t too bad, but I was keeping track of warnings given and my co-teacher wasn’t. At the end of the day, I wondered: how is it that we are so frayed and frustrated, yet, we never gave even one kid a Think Sheet or a trip to the office or a call to the parent? Something is wrong here. There were some disrespectful remarks here and there, too.

We have to pull it together, but I don’t think my co-teacher (an aide valiantly testing the Peter Principle) knows how. At the end of the day there were two visitors – one of them might be the new teacher. I strongly hope that it was the 6′ tall woman with the disapproving look on her face. 🙂

I decided that the writing project might be more than they could handle as far as expecting a second draft out of them. Most said, “huh?” when I tried to get them to work on it. I think the first draft will be “it” and I’m glad for all the excited work they did on it. My plan was/is to type up the stories for them, but I think it’s going to depend on how hard it is to read their handwriting…. I’d like to show them how cool their words could look in print.

The key is to try and accomplish some education with a flimsy curriculum (not the fault of Montessori – the fault of having a less-trained person at the helm), a bunch of loud-mouth ADHD kids, and a number of kids who are so woefully behind in math skills that I despair when I try to think of how to bring them up to standard (one couldn’t tell me how many 6’s go into a 7. Sigh.) Well, help is on the way!

I survived 5 days with this crowd. Sigh. There are moments when I have no clue how to deal with the ADHD kids. Do I just keep re-directing them and trying to get them to accomplish something? Do I concentrate on the kids that really want to learn so that they don’t get short-changed? They all have helpers they go to now and again. But when they are in there – what to do? I tried to talk with the other teacher today but she had to leave quickly, but we are going to try to pull it together better next week.

A very smart and usually pleasant girl – K – is also way too talkative and sociable. She mentioned yesterday that when she is upset, her mother makes her soup and lets her watch a movie. She added that whenever she gets a Think Sheet (note about bad behavior from the school), that she cries about it and “my mother always gives me soup and lets me watch a movie, too, although really she shouldn’t because I got in trouble.”  Hmmmmmm.

I told them all week that everyone who met all their goals would get ice cream on Friday. 11 out of 26 did. I called their names, told them to get their coats, and took them to the staff lounge to get their choice of ice cream bar, and we went outside to eat them. Some of the kids really focused and worked harder to receive this reward. Some were short of it and I said I hoped they would attain it next week. Some were really angry. Two were sent out by the other teacher, who apparently checked the work that had NOT been brought to me, after I left. Fine. They got ice cream. She didn’t like that more than half the class was upset. I think it will spur them on to make sure they hit their goals next week. I am pretty sure that not even 11 hit it the week before. What a sad, sorry packet of stuff they brought to me, too! I think this will likely encourage them to keep their paperwork together too. I’m hoping for 20 next week. 🙂

Relationships with some kids seem to be growing and doing better. Others are still not so great.

At the very end of the school day, the fifth grade teacher quit. No notice, no goodbye to the students, nothing. Just – quit. Kind of pooped on the principal’s weekend, with that. They are already very shorthanded. IF I wanted to “be”  a teacher for the rest of the school year, I could. But I will not, because either my studies or I would suffer. But it looks like I can be a regular sub there from now on. We’re going to take it a couple of weeks at a time.

Unless – my life situation changes, which it might, and my subbing becomes more sporadic.

Today was a mixture – some parts went well and others were behaviorally challenging. There are a handful that try to ruin it for the rest of them – and us! One boy is really big on respect and whether he is being disrespected or not. I quietly explained to him that when he speaks out of turn when the teacher is teaching, that is disrespectful to her, and it seemed that the message might have gotten thru, at least at that moment.

There was a puppet show (of sorts) for all the 3rd-6th graders from about 1-1:45 p.m. that I thought was beneath them. I’m not sure what the kids thought of it, but it seemed inane to me and in some ways made me think of Baby Einstein – which is wonderful for it’s age group. I think I would recommend it only for ages 3-6. The kids seemed pretty bored.

I spent about 30 minutes gathering up pencils and sharpening them in another room since we have no sharpener – only tiny ones. This should come in handy. I also called two parents – that was a first – about two girls hitting each other, but only did a voice mail for them. As I felt weary of the whining, disrespect, and nonsense, I thought of the teachers who taught my children and all of the things they had to deal with, and felt for them, anew.

Next week we are going on a field trip to hear a symphony in downtown Detroit – I am looking forward to it, although funneling 26 kids who generally refuse to stand in anything like a straight line through the bus doors, concert hall doors, etc. will likely be a bit taxing. These kids have uniforms but they have 4 colors they can wear – it would be nice if they could stick to one that day.

Yesterday Kyle wouldn’t write anything. He sulked and said he couldn’t do it. Today he started out that way. I did what I had done with David Bratcher when he was in 3rd grade – I took him to my desk and prodded him to dictate and I did the writing on his choice of topic (Minecraft) with purple pen. After half a page, he accepted the pen and wrote a whole paragraph himself. “I don’t know how to write,” he says.

“That’s why I’m teaching you,” I said.

All of the kids were very excited about the library books and some were surprised to learn that there were books on subjects such as The Detroit Lions. That’s a success story in itself – get them off the computer and into a library sometime. They asked to see the books during their silent reading time. Many wrote more than a page of notes. I returned to the library to get more books for kids who had returned after being absent. One wisecracker seemed surprised that I said he had to use at least one resource that he could quote in his story – couldn’t just write it all from the top of his head. He said, “Isn’t that called plagiarism?”  I explained. I was surprised that he knew the word.

Now, the challenge is going to be: how to work with 26 kids to take their information and weave it into a coherent story and then fix all the grammatical and punctuation and spelling errors. I may end up typing them all myself – I’m not certain whether they can type or if there’s a printer there – have to check on that. I’m pretty excited to be teaching them to write, also. I’ve worked with other reluctant writers. 🙂

Miss Karen talked with them at length about classroom behavior problems. I talked about the rampant breaking of pencils and crayons and started picking up every pencil on the floor, saying, “Respect the pencil!” The best aspect of the day was that Charlie and another difficult child were not there. But I think we are getting a better handle on working together to lower the number of challenges – outbursts and arguments being the worst of them.

Today I started a writing project with the class of 4th grade kids. It went fairly well – they chose a subject that they are interested in and then spent a while writing as much as they knew on the subject – this ranged from one sentence to two pages. I went in the tiny school library and found some books on their subjects and then left work early to go to the Redford Library, where I chose 27 books on the topics of football, dancing, skateboarding, hamsters, WWII, nuclear bombs, soccer, dogs, cheetahs, cats, inventions, Pokemon, and a few other subjects. I failed to find an available book on Minecraft, Skateboarding Video Game (didn’t get the exact title of it), or unicorns, so I will find something online to print off.

Acting like a real teacher, here.

These kids were pretty decent in the morning but in the afternoon, they were loud, disobedient, and difficult. It’s almost not worth trying to teach them anything after about 2 or 2:30 p.m. Hopefully as the week wears on (and today it was wearing), and I get the hang of the schedule, things will improved. I’m not happy with their (lack of) discipline structure, but I will start using what little they do have because there were times when it was totally ridiculous today, for me and the very tired teacher’s aide-gone-co-teacher.

I managed to keep my cool, and I remembered how when Cheryl Bogedain and I taught the 3 year olds we considered that teaching them to be quiet and sit still was a part of the SS lesson – so it is with public school kids who have not yet learned self-discipline. At one point, I sat next to Charlie while Karen taught the Science class and every time he spoke out of turn or used his pencil as a drumstick, I leaned over and said, “Charlie, please stop doing that.” I do think that he was getting tired of it – good! But when I was trying to teach, I couldn’t do that.  I feel very strongly that the kids who ARE paying attention deserve to get their lessons, so I am concentrating on them and if Kyle wants to go sit in the closet and not do anything for 2 hours, that’s the way it’s going to be. We will teach. Some will learn. I just wish we could send a kid to the office and they would keep him there instead of lecturing him and sending him back.

Tomorrow I will arm myself with “Think Sheets” for them to fill out, and send them to the office as frequently as necessary. Charlie won’t be there, at least.  Probably he’s ADHD or something but how am I supposed to teach a class when he constantly consistently interrupts, followed by 4-5 kids telling him to shut up and then having catcalls back and forth across the room?  If you have any wisdom, pass it my way. I told him privately that he was being selfish – not caring whether others had a chance to learn or not. I don’t know if that was right or not. I think Karen is just trying to endure for the next 8 days until the new teacher arrives.

The Science class was a pre-test – this curriculum LOVES to give pre-tests where the kids get a whole lot of stuff that they know very little about and have to fill out pages and pages – and seriously? In my opinion it was a huge waste of time. Just teach them what they need to know.  And what’s the deal with no textbooks – just using printed off sheets for everything? Honestly, give me a workbook anyday, for continuity. You can always adapt it or enhance it.

I’m going to find those printoffs now, and then read part of a book about Montessori that I borrowed from the principal. I hope they have a good chapter about discipline.

I am going to be working in the same Montessori classroom for at least two weeks, as a co-teacher. The teacher left 5 weeks ago, and a teacher’s aide from a second grade room has been filling in for this fourth grade class. She is very worn out and discouraged. I can see why! Some of the kids are woefully behind in their math skills (a boy couldn’t tell me what 7-6 was today). Others are doing well. There are several kids who want to disrupt the class constantly. This is going to be a big challenge. I’m glad that there are two of us, but I have to get used to the Montessori mindset (quickly!) and figure out how to teach them. We need some kind of reward system to motivate them, but we are very curtailed in what we can do as far as discipline goes. I stopped several times today and just prayed for patience and wisdom. I think I will be doing that a lot. The new teacher (trained in Montessori) will be coming in two weeks – I may be staying on to help or to sub in other rooms at that point – I’m not sure. This school has had huge staff turnover this year, and there are going to be 4 regular subs working in the building. The school is only 1.5 miles from home (here in Redford), across from where I used to live. Hopefully “Miss Karen” and I can institute a plan that works. First up: need to think of a good reward to use for those who meet their weekly goals – has to be something where we can exclude those who don’t make it.

So, I was scheduled for the whole day at the Upper Montessori school 1.5 miles from here – across the street from where we used to live with my sister in law Danielle. Seemed especially convenient since we plan to get Fish Fry from there this evening and I could have gone from one to the other. But I arrived to find out that they were having a half day. I let them know that I had specifically been hired for a full day. I asked the principal to go in and change it to a half day and to please let me use the computer to find an afternoon assignment. She did, and there were quite a few opportunities available! Although my favorite would have been an elementary school Phys. Ed. class, I chose to do 2nd grade at Beech Elementary in Redford because it is across the street from OUR house. 🙂

I was assigned to assist in the 4th grade room where I subbed last Fall and the kids remembered me. I helped as much as possible. I spent some time helping a distraught boy with his long division and a girl with a crossword puzzle she was doing. I also helped a girl with division, and I asked her if she likes spending a long time doing math homework or a shorter time doing it. Of course, she said shorter. I did my best to persuade her to learn her times tables, and I  made a couple of small ones and demonstrated how to practice them three times and then she would know it – then review later. I told her that she would know them all within a couple of weeks and ALL her math would be so much easier to do and take a lot less time thereafter. She seemed convinced.   Honestly, how do you do division if you don’t know multiplication tables?

The afternoon was noisy, but okay. We got through as much work as possible and I didn’t worry about the rest. I enjoyed talking with a lot of the kids. There’s a new boy in the class who slept all day except for one hour, during which I tutored him in math while the other kids went to gym. The school is  not sure what to do with him – this was his first week. The mother had sent a note requesting an IEP and testing immediately because she has apparently been given a run-around about it. I hope the best for him.

Sometimes my heart breaks for the kids who have bigger problems to worry about and the ones who just don’t try – they guess, write down any old thing, or don’t even bother. I am not sure how to motivate these kids – if I was there regularly I would have to find a way.

I finally got to go back to Taylor Prep Charter High School. The principal there has asked me several times but I have always had another commitment. However – I found out that I was mistaken about an important rule. I thought that ANY cancellation would render me unable to sign up for any other work that day. The truth is: cancellations that are made too close to the actual date of work cannot be replaced, but if cancellations are made in plenty of time, there is no problem. So – I cancelled my subbing plans at another school and the principal at Taylor Prep requested me.

The day went well. I was “Special Ed”, which for this school is like the Resource Room – I had only 5-7 students each of the first three periods – SO much easier to deal with. Even so, there was one belligerent person in the first and third periods, anyway. Honestly, the second class students just came in, did their work, and that was it! Imagine! During the final period I was in an Economics class where the students at least appeared to be working when I made rounds, but they were socializing a lot as well. I did help some of them on their project to research the cost of having their dream car versus a used car, insurance for both, etc. Sounds like a good assignment.

Many of the kids remembered me from Fall. I smiled at them and greeted them nicely anyway (some had ended up in In-School Suspension on those occasions).

“Out of the frying pan….into the fire.” At least it was only a half day.

Hilbert Middle School in Redford, where my husband and his sisters attended.

“Oh, look, it’s sub!”

I had to choose between trying to be diligent and keep the class quiet (or reasonably quiet) so they could do their assignments, and just sitting back relaxing, making sure they pretty much stayed in their seats and didn’t attack each other. The first class (6th grade) – I called the office and a man came and warned them and the rest of the hour went pretty well, although I sent a few kids to the In-School-Suspension.

The 2nd class – 7th grade – all they were doing was one math sheet (some asked for calculators for such difficult problems as 12×15). The third class I called down for assistance and received none and sent one student to ISS, only to have him returned to the class. Okay! If that’s how they want it. I relaxed and just wished the class would end.

32 kids crammed into a classroom with very little space that is not taken up with tables and chairs. 32 12-year-olds who likely have more on their minds than igneous and metamorphic rocks. There are times when I wonder about what kids are expected to learn and why, and the “how” isn’t much up to me since I walk in, unknown, off the street, and am just supposed to monitor them doing some work (and not enough Science books for everyone, either.) Sometimes the work is ridiculously lame, and the smart kids know it, and other times it’s challenging.

Then again, some days military-style academy seems like it would have its benefits.