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We were in the hallway at 3:30 and the 6th graders were supposed to be lining up for dismissal. I was talking with one of the girls when someone yelled, “They’re fighting!” I looked, and about 8 feet away from me B – about 5′ tall and husky – and C, a much smaller boy, were punching each other. I stepped over there, grabbed B by the shoulders and pulled him away (as some students were pulling C away) and held him against the lockers, telling him to Stop it! and telling the class in general to “Go get the office!” B kept telling me to let him go but C was still nearby so I held on. He was stronger than me and pulled away so I grabbed his T-shirt and held onto it so he couldn’t get to C. I kept telling him to stop and calm down and he kept telling me to let go of him. During this moment, basically almost all of the class disappeared. I told B I would let go if he would sit down on the floor. After more protest, he sat down and I stood guard over him until 3 staff members all showed up kind of at the same time.

Since I laid hands on a student, I went to the office and explained what had happened and wrote it all down for their report. Apparently there are cameras in the hallways (!) so it was all on tape. I got a voice message from the principal later thanking me, saying I didn’t do anything wrong, but they need me to fill out a security report for them.

I did feel a little shook up afterwards, even though it wasn’t dangerous – I guess I started thinking, “What if he HAD started hitting me?” I’m glad it didn’t happen. I would have had to back off. I had been warned about B in the sub notes but we hadn’t really had much difficulty (other than me sending him into the hall to take his math quiz because he would not be quiet). I’m glad he wasn’t angry at me.

I heard a few remarks from the staff about the kids being pretty wound up at this time of year.

5th grade boy: “When you’re done subbing, you’ll make a great regular teacher.”
🙂 We did have a good time this morning. This boy was happy because I gave them a five minute break after each subject so they could stretch and talk before being expected to be quiet and still once again. Of course this meant that I had to watch the silly boys who tried to play tag or crawl under desks. Giving 10 year olds free time can be dicey.

The afternoon was spent in a first grade class and I’m sorry to say that their poor behavior rather stressed me out. It was difficult to get any work started because as a group they seemed more interested in their own conversations than in what I needed to tell them. A few references to the principal’s office and to losing a few minutes of recess went a long way towards peace. Except with W and J.

W and J were both the type of boy who want – no- demand – attention every two minutes. I wonder if they are only children because they expect – no – demand – to be the child called on to answer a question, and therefore they blurt out the answer before anyone can beat them to it. I should have called the office for help before my nerves frayed. Finally near the end of the day I sent W to the office. But that wasn’t easy either because I had forgotten to ask the office for the number to call them and it wasn’t posted. I couldn’t find any blank paper to write a note on. Someone found me a wrinkled sheet of looseleaf and I scribbled a note which I entrusted one of the girls to take to the office in order to take W off of my hands. As for J – he missed some recess and I think it made an impression. Unfortunately W was also supposed to miss some recess, but I didn’t write his name down on my list and therefore forgot to keep him inside the classroom.

During recess I did not have duty, so I settled at the teacher’s desk to read a book (I always keep a novel with me for such possible time slots). Several kids decided to keep banging on the windows and ducking down – no doubt the funniest fun they’d had all day. Eventually I got tired of ignoring it (after several minutes at least) and I walked to the door – whereupon they all scattered. However, I was able to retrieve 2 of them and had an accurate description of a third. They were in another class – which also had a sub – and the girl especially denied and denied that she had done anything. But I saw her. I ended up leaving a note for her teacher in the office.

I left a pretty long note to the teacher I subbed for.

The other kids told me that W and J “always act like that.” Whoopee! I don’t know what’s going on at their homes. But it’s hard to be concerned when a kid consistently interrupts and makes rude and disrespectful remarks when I’m trying to teach a lesson. It’s hard to do anything.

Aha! I liked the seating arrangement in the 5th grade class where I worked this morning. With nearly 30 students, classrooms are crowded. I have seen many desk arrangements – some better than others, and some that are just claustrophobic. THIS teacher put all of the desks around the perimeter of the room facing the walls (or cupboards in some areas) and almost all of the seats were giant blue or green balls (her desk seat was a ball on a platform with coasters – quite comfortable as long as I was careful how I sat down). Then, in the center of the room she had a rug, and a variety of “temporary” seating possibilities that the kids could choose, such as: a table with about 8 giant balls around it, a pile of beach-type lounge chairs, a couple of pedaling thingies, a few red wooden chairs, and some stacking cubes.   During work time, the kids are free to sit wherever and however they want as long as they are being productive.

The genius here is that they keep their stuff in their desks but they aren’t tied to them the whole day. Some kids like being at their desks facing the bulletin board – it’s more private. Others like the community of the table or just sitting on the floor with a clipboard. It was ROOMY and I’m certain that if she needs anything out of the cabinets that were blocked, it wouldn’t be difficult to slide a couple desks out of the way and get what she needed.

Due to re-structuring, she has to move to another room for next year. Likely she’ll set it up the same way, but too bad for her to have to re-do everything.

Tonight I attended a 2 hour concert at the senior residence where my Mom lives. The artist – a man named Barry – was an extremely good guitarist and a very good singer with a wide range of memorized music and a Bose speaker. Most of his playlist tonight was from the 60s and 70s: Johnny Cash, Louis Armstrong, Elvis. I don’t think he sang anything I was unfamiliar with – although Mom wasn’t familiar with most of it. Seemed to me he was about a decade off, although many residents are a lot more familiar with music than Mom is. I really enjoyed the concert.

Two really cool things happened. A husband and wife who live there love to dance. After he danced with her, he went around and danced with just about every female resident there – some just in their chairs, but most stood and did what they could handle. He danced with Mom. 🙂 She stood and moved back and forth during most of a song and he even slowly twirled her around once. She really enjoyed those few minutes and wished that I had brought a camera!

Then a resident with Alzheimer’s – I’m guessing she could have been 90 – with a very vacant look in her eyes toddled across the room to stand right in front of Barry. I could see her face, and her eyes just shone as she listened and she began to dance. She must be a person who has loved dancing because she swung and shook her hips as much as she was able and even twirled herself around once or twice. Her family members seemed quite surprised and happy. I think her name was Donna and she would not be beckoned away for quite a few songs. She watched and danced, and smiled. She moved quite close to the microphone. She seemed to want to say something to him, but I’m not sure he deciphered it. Finally, he closed the small gap between them and leaned over and hugged her tightly and she planted a kiss on his cheek.   Eventually her family got her to go back to her table (perhaps 20 minutes or so later?) But when they wanted her to leave the room, she balked and she pointed to Barry. She wasn’t done. She wanted to stay for the rest of the concert. I felt sad when they escorted her out, but I suppose they had to get home to get up and go to work in the morning or something.

The music was like magic, and her enjoyment of it was one of the best parts of the show.

I learned a new game from some second graders that may be useful for filling up short amounts of time with little ones and letting them get some movement. I said, “Touch something blue” and each student found something blue to touch. Etc. Some of them didn’t know what beige was, but their desks are basically that color. A couple of boys abused the game by wildly running around the room, but that was pretty easily curtailed.

And when I said Yellow, one boy pointed to a portion of my multi-colored shirt near my belly. Then I said Black and he pointed to a portion of my shirt on my breast (even though there was black throughout the shirt). He was only 7, but it was awkward, so I just said, “Not on me” and he found another place to touch.

Today I was supposed to start in Kindergarten Room 8, but that was changed to Kindergarten Room 7, and then 10 minutes later changed to Kindergarten Room 9 because another sub didn’t show up. Then I was supposed to go to 4th grade Room 27, but the teacher told me to meet her at 1st grade Room 18 instead because her 4th graders were coming there for “Reading Buddies” time. Then I walked the 4th graders ALL the way back to Room 27 – which was a really long way in a large sprawled out Livonia elementary school. Then I was assigned to 2nd grade Room 16, then my lunchtime near the middle of the school, then back to Room 16, then finished up in Room 18 first grade at the end of the day. 🙂 Can you say “flexible”?

For some reason, the K’s in Room 9 were left alone for just a few minutes, and when I arrived there this morning, it was what the kids called “a wild party” going on. Kids had been flipping lightswitches, running around, and being wild and loud. I don’t know how many minutes they were alone (not supposed to EVER be alone – and there were adults in adjoining classes) – but some kids saw no adult in the room and took advantage of it. One boy was crying because the chaos scared him.  Once I arrived and called everyone to order, they were fine. I told their teacher about it later.

The teachers were having “Grouping” meetings all day. The K teachers meet to decide who all goes into which first grade classes, the 1st grade teachers decide about the 2nd grade classes, etc. I asked one teacher, “What do you do – say – I’ll give you two blondes for 2 brunettes, or is it more like I’ll give you 2 extroverts for all your introverts?” She smiled. More to it than that, I imagine. Must be interesting deciding who gets which ADHD kids. Of course, new people may move to the neighborhood during the summer and that will change things to some degree, but they try to be organized.

It’s June 2. Amazing. Everyone is counting the days to June 16th.

The other day I saw a seating chart that was made of sturdy cardboard with slots in it. the students’ names were on little cards that fit into the slots. I got the feeling that this had been around for a long time. I liked the idea because it’s easier to change the seating chart (although if was knocked on the floor, at least some of them might fall out, and kids could mess with it if they so desired.) Doing one on the computer would be simple, and changes could be made and printed out easily enough. Hey, teachers: seating charts are VERY helpful for subs.

Today, the first grade teacher had various items available for quiet reading time, including: red plastic adirondack chairs, green plastic adirondack chairs, large white laundry baskets (!) (some sat in them flat on the floor and therefore had a back rest, and some stood them on end and sat in them “statue of Mary” style), and yellow Emoji pillows to sit on. 🙂

Today one of the teachers at the Montessori school mentioned that they have a hard time finding subs. I told her that ONE reason might be that while they pay the same rate as everybody else does, they also require us to work one hour longer than the other schools do.

Wouldn’t that be a consideration if you were deciding between two opportunities?

I’ve worked there a lot, and I don’t put a huge amount of thought into the extra hour, except when I get placed on outdoor car-door-opening duty when it’s 10 degrees outside (it takes an hour!). I’m going to suggest to the principal that they might have to let the subs out earlier if they want people to come there.

$90 a day for 7 hours (we won’t count lunch breaks) = $12.85 per hour

$90 a day for 8 hours (not counting lunch) = $11.25 per hour

It makes a difference.

And since I’m on the subject of pay rates for subs – up until last year, some schools were paying only $75 or $80 a day. Now several of them are advertising that if you come there 10 times in a month, you get a $100 bonus. I managed to get that once so far, since I seem to skip around a lot (I take what’s open and reasonable when I’m looking at the list online).  I should also mention that subbing as a parapro pays $8-something per hour and so does school secretary – which is why I never do those jobs unless there’s nothing else available.

When I first entered the kindergarten room today, all was as normal. I left to do my “car-opening” duty (charter school) and when I returned there was a very distinct – not so pleasant – odor in the room. Remembering a recent classroom where a teacher had left some kind of incense burner hooked up – which I unplugged because it was making me nauseous – I asked the parapro if she knew the source of the scent. She did not.

During the next hour I noticed that it was stronger at times, and concluded that it must be related to a particular student. Sure enough, after awhile I was working with N. on his reading, and I asked him if he was wearing cologne. “No,” he replied. “It’s oil.”

“What kind of oil?” I asked.

“Frankincense,” he replied. “It keeps me from going crazy.” He added that sometimes his mom uses another kind of oil, but I wasn’t able to decipher the name of it.

N. is a very “antsy” boy – sweet, but not happy about staying still or quiet – a lot of which is required in this particular Kindergarten class. Essential oils to the rescue? I can’t say that I noticed any difference between Friday’s behavior and today’s that couldn’t be chalked up to our removal of his friend K. from the classroom due to continual hitting of other students on Friday.  Maybe it helps? I do wonder if they could lessen the amount though. When an entire classroom smells of frankincense – well, it’s just not very pleasant. I’d hate to be the kid who sits next to him.

Today’s “hot lunch” was something formed to look vaguely like bbq ribs. It was the length of the bun that came with the lunch, but it was way too wide. This meant that the kids either tried to saw it with their wimpy plastic forks, or pick it up with their hands to put it 2/3 of the way into the bun. This meant getting bbq sauce all over their hands, which meant trying to open the little plastic packet to remove the tiny napkin that comes with their lunch.    Along with the meat – which one boy happily stated “tastes like squashed meatballs”, was a grown-up sized portion (a cup full, at least) of collard greens. Yuck. I supervised two classes, and I’d be willing to bet that every bit of those greens hit the trash can. Some of the “ribs” did too.

I asked one girl why she gets the “hot” (I use the term loosely) lunch – of which she only ate the bun and the chocolate milk – and she said that her Mom wants her to have it so that she will try new things. Bwahahahahahahahahaha! Parents – if you want your child to try new foods, buying them the school “hot lunch” is NOT the way to make it happen. She will happily throw it all into the trash receptacle.

WHY did they even serve the greens? Government regulation. WHY couldn’t they make the meat at least fit the bun? Who knows? The people making these decisions should have to supervise a Kindergarten or first grade class that is being subjected to them. Let them run for wet wipes, wipe sticky tables, cajole kids into eating.

Along with every other “thing that really doesn’t happen” – this is part of FAKE education.