The weekend was a lot of fun.  Sunday’s class on Advent went well.  I’ll continue to teach on Advent until Christmas comes.  My son also got the whole family involved in playing the new Call of Duty, which has a team play section where you kill zombies.  We’re not very good, but we’re acting as a team.

Today, I taught Art again at the High School.  The teacher liked me enough to have me back.  I see this as a good thing.  I also really like her class.  I’m discovering more and more that I would enjoy teaching Art more than teaching other subjects.  It’s more fun, relaxed and creative.

In the evening, the family played tennis.  My tennis elbow is getting worse, so I played right-handed about half the time (I’m left-handed).  It relieved my left elbow, but my family had to run a bit more for the balls; I have no aim!

I still didn’t feel great this morning and could have used another couple of hours of rest.  Too bad I had to teach today.

On this rainy day, I would be teaching Art in the middle school.  I was a little apprehensive about teaching middle school because the kids are so immature.  What I discovered though is that, while they are indeed squirrely, they are also easily intimidated.  Just my mere presence caused the kids to quiet down.  That would never happen at the High School!  My wife tells me that it’s because I’m a male teacher and they aren’t used to male teachers at the elementary level.  The kids are still (mostly) little, and I’m so much bigger!  The Art class was a breeze and all the kids were great.  I actually enjoyed this more than a lot of my High School experience so far.  I could actually teach at the middle school level!

I also observed a history teacher today as part of an assignment for class.  I was really impressed by the teacher’s control of the classroom and in how he taught this class of English Language Learners (kids who just came to America with only some English speaking ability).  He had kids in there who knew very little English, and only a few who were proficient.  Most were somewhere in the lower middle.  He handled the class deftly and helped each reader out as they read aloud.  He also arranged the tables based on reading ability, common primary language, and by sex.  The girls are so much more mature than the boys at this age, so mixing the two doesn’t work according to him.  Tables with a common primary language help the tables during discussions.  They can more quickly come up with a consensus on what the correct English response should be.  The primary language ability enhances their understanding of their secondary language: English.

At the end of the day, there was an assembly where we watched a 30 minute play (done by the theater students) on the dangers of drugs.  It was actually a pretty good script, though the acting was hit or miss.  The audience was so immature, bordering on rude, but then this is middle school.

Well, the cold returned this morning.  I didn’t get a sub call, so I stayed home and rested again.

Yeah, my textbook arrived today.  I can now study for tonight’s test.  Good thing the teacher sent an email reminding us to study chapter 9.  I would have read chapter 3.  And actually, many of my classmates did read chapter 3, and as a result, did poorly on tonight’s test.

When I wasn’t studying, I continued to build my cathedral in Minecraft.  I’m now on the upper windows and roof now.  I can’t simulate stained glass, so I’m filling the windows with cross icons (which work very well with blocks).  I also discovered that I can light certain types of rock on fire, so a few of my crosses are now fiery crosses.

Thanks to NyQuil, I was feeling pretty good this morning.  Still, I definitely had a cold yesterday, so I would rest today as a precaution.

I was fine at breakfast; I had no symptoms at lunchtime; I played tennis after dinner.  Gee, I guess that cold left!  Another possibility is that I was allergic to something in the Biology room yesterday.  Allergies feel similar to colds, but I did not have my usual allergy symptoms.  I still think it was a cold, but one that I beat thanks to some aggressive treatment and a lot of rest.

I was a Biology Sub today.  The teacher had me show “Battlefield Cell” to all five of his classes.  The movie is a bit theatrical and “dark,” over dramatizing a virus invasion.  The video had lots of detailed information to present in 45 minutes, but it could have been stated in five minutes or less, and without all the space-age computer graphics.  I was pretty much tired of the video after the third viewing.  At least the classes were pretty good, until the last period of the day – those guys were squirrely.

Funny, but on the fifth viewing about what is essentially a cold entering the nose (yes, really!), I began to not feel so well.  I felt a cold coming on.  Was this for real, or was I getting sympathetic symptoms because of the DVD?  No, it was for real.  When I got home, I ate a lot, and took all the appropriate cold medicines so I would make it through tonight’s class.  Those precautions worked; I got through class, though I did sort of fall asleep during one of the longer presentations.  I actually felt my head bob as I was dropping off to sleep!  Fortunately, the coffee kicked in soon after and I was attentive for the remainder of the class.

Monday was a holiday (Veteran’s day, observed).  My family didn’t do much, but we had a great time doing it!

I cooked Ethiopian food for dinner.  The spicy yams were delicious, as was the chicken cooked in a clay contraption that my son made for me.  The lentil dish needed lots of additional help to make it palatable – I won’t make that dish again.  The other two may become family favorites!

I was so weary from yesterday that I could barely get out of bed this morning.  Still, I had accepted a Friday substitute job back on Wednesday (thanks to a teacher recommendation from my Tuesday sub job!  Yeah, word of mouth!), and today was now Friday.  I had talked to this teacher yesterday during lunch and she seemed to be pretty solid, so I was expecting that the room would be organized and the lesson plans would be complete.  I was not disappointed.  Not only were the lesson plans complete, they allowed me to actually teach in every class.  It was substitute’s dream!  The students were so well-behaved (also a sign of a good teacher).  The material (and hopefully me) kept each class engaged.

Now, the first class was a lower reading level Sophomore class, so there was the potential for disruption.  The kids tried to be disruptive, but I moved one student to a seat right in front of me, told him that his next stop would be to the office, and he bothered me no more.  It also had the added benefit of straightening out the rest of the class.  I should move kids more often!  The honors English class was like the best class ever!  The two senior classes that followed were also pretty top rate (I think it helped that I spent my entire prep period reading up to where they were in this King Arthur book).  I could sub for this class every day!  It was the best class ever! What a turn-around from Tuesday’s English class; yesterday and today taught me that substituting can be a rewarding experience!

Oh ya, I also got two layout jobs today.  They’re short, which is good, but they also pay in an hour what I make in a day as a sub AND I can do the work at home in the evenings and on weekends.  They’re also with my favorite company.

Thanks God for providing the extra income!

I suppose somewhere in all this sudden employment, I’ll also need to complete my homework.  I have a presentation to give on Tuesday.

I sub’d again today, but today’s experience was like the opposite of Tuesday.  I had a blast!  I taught art.  The students were wonderful!  I also liked how the classroom was set up.  The lesson plans were more than adequate as well.  The call to sub came in late this morning, so I didn’t know if there would be a lesson plans.  I quickly made a back-up powerpoint on vanGogh just in case there wasn’t.  I didn’t need it though; the teacher had been planning a field trip to SJSU for a while.

The evening class was long.  One of the students in my Tuesday class (the one who had had this teacher before) bailed and moved to the other class; we got Gustavo in return.  It was a good pick-up, and I came to realize that I was more “cool” at my table simply because Gustavo and Karin were there.  I love the spunk and energy of these two positive future teachers.  I would want my kids to have teachers like them!

During our 30 minute “break,” the teacher gave us an in-class assignment to complete… which would take about 30 minutes.  Not cool!  I didn’t get a break for four hours!

At my table now are: Gustavo and Karin, who commute to class from Daly City/SF and Esperanza and Laura who commute to class from Salinas.  I feel so blessed to live so close!  Originally, I was a little put off by my 20-30 minute commute.  I have nothing to complain about compared to these guys!  Each as at least an hour to commute, if not two.

Better today: I studied and read until about 1PM, then played Minecraft.  In the evening, Jeffrey and I played tennis.  It’s beginning to get a little cold for tennis; this might be our last time playing for a while.  The temps are supposed to drop 20 degrees over the next few days, and rain is on the way.

I turned down a sub job this evening.  It was at a school I had never been to, and the assignment had no info on what the subject was (Math, English and the like).  I didn’t want to go to a new school unprepared.  Instead, I asked Barbara if she could get me a teacher list with the subjects they teach, that way, when I hear the teacher’s name, I can find out what subject they teach!

You know how I said yesterday was a long day?  It was actually longer.  I forgot to mention that when I got to school, my student placement professor, Teresa, found me and told me that “my” district suddenly decided not to have student teachers from NHU.  And after Teresa had worked for many years to get the first student placed (this module/semester)!  Well, that student got “bumped” on his first day and now has no placement.  Apparently, I will not either unless something changes.  “My” district decided that they would like to stick with SJSU and SCU students only.  This did not sit right with me, so I told Teresa that I would look into it.  When I got home, I told Barbara about this.  She said that she and her principal would ask.  I am willing to ask as well, but strategically, it’s better if Barbara’s principal asks first.  Actually, the High School principal is fine with having NHU student teachers at his school; it’s the district level that does not.  Don’t know why, but I hope that we can change their minds!

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 3^rd and 5^th 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.