Mar/100
Day 65 – 1st Grade
First graders are so easy to listen to everything you say, they mostly follow directions, they are still excited about going to school. Best of all is their surprise when they have a boy for a teacher. it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it is. Which is just fine with me because it usually means all have a very easy day behavior wise.
Today was no different. The worst part of the day was that I talked to another teacher during my break and didn’t get a chance to read my book.
Mar/100
Day 63 – Middle School Drama
Imagine a day where you could sit around and talk about comic books and superheroes all day with the kids. Sounds a pretty good day to me. Of course I did have the added bonus of getting paid for it.
The sub plans at this teacher left were for them to trace the outline of a human figure and then create their own superhero. I had no behavior problems in a middle school I think that is the first time that’s happened.
The only bad part of the day was when kids tried to create a superhero that actually existed. They were surprised that I know about Shark Boy and Lava Girl. They tried to combine two or more superheroes into one. If I was their teacher would’ve had an issue with that. But this was their work. So I didn’t tell them that they were creating somebody that already existed unless they asked.
Mar/100
Day 62 – 2nd Grade
This group was insanely self-sufficient. They checked homework. They did attendance, they did everything all by themselves. Probably didn’t even need to be there.
This class didn’t even write in the weekly reader they use for some of their work. I’ve had middle schoolers but didn’t understand the concept of using their own paper.
Of course, they did freak out when they saw the teacher for the day was a boy.
Mar/100
Day 61 – 5th Grade
Once in a while I get a class that I’m sure the teacher just loves but the environment she created is so far off from what I’d want that it’s hard to deal with. Sometimes it’s one where the kids seem to get away with a lot1, but most of the time it’s an elementary school where the kids don’t even try to talk while doing their work. This was one of those days.
The worst behaved kid was reading while he should’ve been doing other work. Reading, how terrible. I wish that was my biggest problem everyday.
The best part of the day was that the kids had clubs or something similar at the end of the day. I asked another teacher what we can do about dismissing since I’m not allowed to do any afterschool duty or be responsible for where the kids end up. She looked like she was going to freak out about that. Then she remembered about the clubs. The kids got dismissed from there and I didn’t have a club. End of the day break time for me.
- My guess when a class is really terrible. [↩]
Mar/100
Day 60 – 5th Grade
This was another late start day, but because the weather this time. The beginning of the day would have been rather boring1, but I asked another teacher, and we decided that the best plan was to just go with everything at the regularly scheduled time.
Figuring out the problem was the worst part of the day. While we were in class they worked. I’d had them before so I wasn’t surprised at all.
The only other issue was hearing the other classes complain during lunch about how we went outside and they didn’t. We probably shouldn’t have either. But they all wanted to, and they all had appropriate clothing.
- Language Arts again and I think I you know how I feel about that. [↩]
Mar/100
Day 59 – Middle School Spanish
This is possibly my worst day subbing ever. Yes, even worse than the 3rd grade class from Hell. I didn’t think that was possible.
It started off relatively well. I caught a kid chewing gum in one of the first two classes. He said he didn’t have anything, then went to throw it away later. I sent him out of the room for lying to me. Usually when I catch people with gum I just have them throw it away and that’s the end of it. Which is hilarious when I watch them put the gum in their mouth and then they immediately have to throw it out.
The next person who had to leave was eating candy. I asked her to get rid of it, she wouldn’t. I asked again and she said she’d swallowed it. Normally I would have just left that in the note and been done with it and let the teacher deal with it the next day. But she also yelled at me asking if I wanted her to throw it up. So she got sent to the office.
In the next class (right before lunch) a kid decided that he was going to leave early to go to lunch. They have a study hall during lunch but the teacher didn’t leave anything about letting people out early for that so I wasn’t going to let anyone go. This kid said out loud that when it got to be time for study hall people to leave he was going to leave. I told him that if he left the room there would be a referral waiting for him. He didn’t think I’d do it, he was wrong.
I also called down to the office so they could send someone up to make sure he got down to the principal since it was right before lunch and I didn’t think he’d actually take the referral down there.
While we were waiting for whoever that was going to be1 i heard this voice behind me. They weren’t saying anything about how stupid that kid was for leaving or anything like that. If that was it I would have thought it was hilarious. Instead, the voice was saying that he was going to jump me for not letting them leave for lunch early.
It was kind of funny when the principal got there. The kid who decided to leave was told that he was just going to be sent home and to go wait at the principal’s office. The other kid of a serious talking to as well.
Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice… the kid who was kicked out at the beginning of the day had a much happier end to his story. The room he was supposed to be in had nobody in it. So he went to the lobby area outside the assistant principals’ offices and did his punishment there. He brought it back and gave me a story basically saying that he didn’t realize I’d want him to spit out candy too and not just gum2. For some reason on this day though I went with it. I gave him the paper that I would normally leave for the teacher so he’d know I couldn’t do anything with it and told him that he was lucky.
Mar/100
Day 58 – 4th Grade
Maybe I’m just lucky, but subbing in fourth grade is really easy. The kids are still acting like elementary schoolers and doing their work without question1 . I haven’t really had any big behavior problems beyond tattle tales, and while that’s really annoying it’s something that I don’t have to put much effort into controlling.
I know I don’t want to teach elementary school when I start teaching for real, but as far as subbing goes it’s really hard to beat.
- Fifth graders are hit and miss on that. [↩]
Mar/100
Day 57 – Middle School Art
This was a late start day. It was also a day where there was an assembly. I don’t think that was the best idea in the world. But I didn’t have to bring any kids down there so it’s not a big deal to me.
What is a big deal was the scheduling for that day. Originally it was the normal late start schedule. Then we moved onto one that took the assembly into consideration. Then during class a different schedule was emailed to everyone. Since I couldn’t see the email1 I let the kids out “early.” They came back to pointless time.
From there it was smooth sailing since I finally had the final version of the schedule. The best part was that the plans left by the teacher were to finish working on a piece they’d started already. No explaining for me at all, just making sure they do the work. Which is fine in an art class because even though I can’t help I can still walk around and see what everyone is doing.
- The teachers should be teaching, not checking email during class time. And they wouldn’t have sent it to me anyway since I’m just a sub. [↩]
Mar/100
Day 56 – 6th Grade Language Arts
Another day in Language Arts. On this one, the kids had to read something and answer questions. Of course it was something I’d never even heard of so I couldn’t help with that. Of course it had to be reading, something I can’t really help with anyway. But the kids behaved, that’s all I can ask for on days like this.
Feb/100
Day 55 – 4th Grade
This was your standard day in 4th grade. The kids did their work and I didn’t even have to threaten anybody with their class’s form of punishment. The kids were surprised to have a boy as a teacher. The teacher left things that the kids thought was what they’d been doing if she was there, but I think was stuff the kids would never have seen if the teacher was there.
There isn’t really much to say.