Today may go down as the longest day ever.
The day started with Barbara and me going to the polls to vote. We were the third and fourth ones in the door at 7AM. I then dropped Barbara off at her school, and then went across the street to mine. Today I would be teaching English.
I met long-time friend, and now retired teacher/substitute Annie at my door shortly before class. She told me that this was one of her favorite classes to teach, and that I should watch out for two particular individuals in 3rd and 5th periods. The other classes would be fine. She was right too… sort of. While those two individuals did indeed act out, I was able to subdue them just fine. It was all the other kids acting out in those two periods that gave me problems. Third period was consistently loud and talkative. One of the “problem children” that Annie had pointed out sort of became a ring leader for an impromptu study group on what was supposed to be an individual exercise. I let it go because the guy didn’t get a single answer right, and he was bringing all the others down with him. I hoped it would prove to be a valuable lesson to that group (though in the end, I advised them to check their answers). In period five, the designated “problem child” was indeed talkative, BUT he was also one of the first to turn in his work – all while talking and texting simultaneously. The guy was only a “problem child” because he was smart and bored in a class that clearly taught to the middle in a whole class style. Smart people hate that and will quickly get bored. The not so smart kids will struggle in this environment. And guess what: that’s exactly what happened in all five classes. The teacher had given me an assignment that the “average” person could finish in about 40 minutes, a struggling person might finish in 50 minutes (the length of the class), but that a smart person would finish in about 20 minutes. This meant that for most of the classes, I had people staring at me for up to 30 minutes because not only did they finished their vocabulary assignment quickly, but they had also done the “after” assignment of completing their 10 page book report, due tomorrow. The smart and proactive kids already had the 10 page assignment done! Some of them did other homework; most of them got bored and/or agitated and started getting loud. I tried to work with as many kids as I could, if they had reasonable requests for doing something alternative with their time, I allowed it, and I cracked-down on those kids who were merely being disruptive but didn’t have a plan for their free time. With that much free time though, I had to constantly monitor the class to maintain order. It was a nightmare for me because I felt more like a prison warden than a teacher. I also couldn’t simply sit at a desk and do work myself, which is what all my substitute friends tell me they do. I also couldn’t do any impromptu activities because some in each class were still working on the vocabulary. Actually, the day went so slowly, and was so stressful, that I began to rethink my whole goal of becoming a teacher.
And then I had night school.
My new class, “Second Language Learners,” was absolutely packed. I saw many of my friends there, but many more were not there. The teacher was young and full of energy… at least before break, and then he sat down & settled down after the break to some level that couldn’t keep me interested all the time. Still, the guy knows his stuff and I’m going to learn a lot from him. He also talks at a very high level, and assumes that our class knows more than it does. Some students in this class will struggle.
During the break, I learned three things: 1. the sign-up for this class was so large that it had to be broken-up into two classrooms; 2. the original teacher teaching this class had quit, and the two teachers now teaching these two classes were pulled from other places; 3. the other teacher wasn’t very good… or nice.
I can only speculate on that third one: that’s what one of my friends told me as we were both in the hallway during break (she had to sneak out to go to the bathroom). She was simply exasperated. The teacher wasn’t offering a long break, maybe 5 minutes max. Students don’t like to hear that. At least that teacher was going to let the class out at 8:30. At one point (during that classes’ break), a dozen students, including many of my friends, came over to my class to see if they could transfer. Nope, our class was as full as theirs. The administration had simply and randomly divided up the two classes.
Our class got out at 9PM, which is our teacher’s target time (half an hour early). Since he was only just given this class, his slides/presentation looked and felt like something he had done in his Master’s classes at Vanderbilt U…. and probably was. This class would also be light on handouts and heavy on reading from the required text… which meant that I would have to get the required text. I thought I had an older version of that text, but I was wrong. I’ll order a used copy on Amazon tomorrow.
I am NOT taking a sub job tomorrow.