Waffles Radio

Officially the title for this one is FL Assistant.  I had no idea what that was when I grabbed it.  All I knew was the school it was and there was a chance I’d see a few kids I wanted to run into.

Turns out that FL Assistant, at least at this school, is a part time thing^[1] that the school uses as a supplement to social studies.

4th and 5th graders had a packet about a country and the read that and took notes.  Maybe not all that exciting, but it is only the second time they’ve been in there.

2nd and 3rd graders started a book about the continents.  Today’s pages were the cover, the world as a whole specifying where they live^[2], and South America.  Pretty easy stuff for them so far.

1st grade and Kindergarten made passports.  Hand drawn self portraits and done on white paper that’s way too big to be real, so no worry about falsifying documents.

Actually, they were the only real problem of the day.  I spent too long with the kindergarten class explaining what a passport is and what it’s used for.

And those kids I wanted to run into?  Didn’t have either one of them in class.  But they both had to go by my room and stopped to say hello.  I got a hug from one of them and another kid asked if I was her dad.

1. I’m assuming this because she only has classes 3 days a week.  So maybe the other days she does other things around the school that I don’t know about. [↩]
2. Did I really just find a way to dorkify colering? [↩]

You’d think that by the end of the year if I hadn’t gone to a school yet I just wouldn’t be going.  There were 4 days left if you counted this day.  I’d had a job yanked out from under me at one of the 3 schools I hadn’t been to the day before.  I thought my chances were gone.  Then I got a call asking if I wanted to go to one of the schools I hadn’t visited.

So I’ve already got to make a judgment of the school based on end of the year craziness, including kids who know that school is almost over and there’s not much the teacher can do when she gets back because of that lack of time.

And you know what?  It was one of the best days I’ve had this school year.  A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that it was Field Day.  I didn’t know this when I went in, I don’t know if the subbing people knew this either.  I really don’t care, because the only thing that would have changed if I had known before I left was that I would have told them I’d be happy to go even faster.  And I might have worn shorts.

The class was amazing.  The only problems we had were clearly because of excitement about Field Day.  I was expecting them to be a lot worse actually.

Best of all, I got a cookie and a freeze pop.

Typical end of the year stuff for this assignment.  I was subbing for a long term sub.  Some very basic work was the order of the day.  In some ways, that made the day easier for me because if they teacher came back and didn’t like how I did things, well, she wasn’t actually the teacher.  Not that I took that as a license to slack off or anything, but it was nice knowing that since I had to wait for someone else to get to school who could call the long term sub to get the plans.

What also helped was that we watched a movie.  That took up a large chunk of the day.  And the movie wasn’t that bad either.

The other big helper was a special program that was going on during lunch.  I took my kids back to the classroom to eat and let that stretch out a bit longer than usual.  Recess at the end of the day didn’t hurt either.

The scariest part for the kids was that there were a few kids who could have behaved better.  I know for a fact that they’ll have a sub sometime next week because I know who that sub is going to be.  They know I’ll be telling this other sub who I had issues with.

On the most basic level, this was your standard 1st grade day.  The kids got work and I seriously questioned why the teacher didn’t leave more.  Then the kids actually took that long to do the work.  Which just proves once again that I have no business teaching lower elementary grades for real since I keep having this issue with knowing how long things will take.

There were really only 2 things that are worth mentioning with this class.

1 – One kid wasn’t there when I took attendance, so I marked him absent.  Turns out he was at school, just in the recovery room for something he’d done on a previous day.

He came to class right before lunch.  The person who dropped him off told me not to put up with anything from him and to just send him back if I needed to.  Adults in his life had already been at the school once that day to talk about his behavior.

I had no problems with him.

2 – The lesson plans were pretty sparse.  Which I expect most of the time^[1].  But I’d picked this job up the week before.  You’d think if the teacher knows they’ll be out that the sub will get really good plans.

Ok, it’s not like these plans were terrible.  But one of the things on there was to read directions for the worksheets.  They had no directions on them.  Turns out the teacher had written a message to the class and left it on an easel where they do stuff on the rug.  That had more directions on it than I got, and it only covered half the day.  I’ll bet a large part of my thinking this is because I saw the sub plans way before I saw what was on that easel, but it would have been nice to for the teacher to mention where those directions were^[2].

The other thing that wasn’t on there was snack time.  This class eats lunch really early and they get snack at the end of the day.  As in give it to them when they leave school end of the day.  The teacher didn’t say anything about snack time so the kids didn’t get any.  But they didn’t whine or anything, which was great.

I’m not some heartless person or anything.  I’ve just seen way too many teachers store things in their room.  A lot of that storage has been food for other things, and I didn’t want to give the kids food that wasn’t really for them.

1. Like today for example, when I go to a high school Spanish class I picked up about 10 minutes ago [↩]
2. I am in no way expecting the teacher to write that stuff twice.  That’s just crazy. [↩]

This was an afternoon half day^[1] with a class I’d had before.  It’s also still in the middle of state testing.  This should be the epitome of what subs shouldn’t do: babysitting and sitting around making sure nobody gets hurt.

I wish.  It started off with me going to the wrong school.  Luckily the kids at the right school were in music so I just lost some time to read over things.  Which were easy anyway.  Have them do state testing practice^[2] and a practice test^[3].

They still had lunch and recess to go to.  Honestly, if I hadn’t known they did state testing today the only clue would have been the flier they give the teachers to put on the door.

1. Note to self: There goes your 1 half day that’s worth as much as a full day for the rest of the year.  If I miss the bonus by 1 day or less I’m blaming the idiot teacher whose job I grabbed early (as in on a Friday for a Monday job)  only to find out she didn’t really need a sub for that day. [↩]
2. I think that’s just evil.  They just finished testing, give them a break. [↩]
3. Really!?  They just finished state testing and state testing practice.  I wonder if they were being punished. [↩]

Honestly, I have no idea what I was for this one.  Officially I should have been in the recovery room.  I was prepared for a boring day interrupted by kids who couldn’t behave in class.

But when I got there I found out I would help monitor state testing.  Which was fine, it gave me something to do that involved other people^[1].

They weren’t done when they went to lunch, so they couldn’t talk at lunch.  There was no recess.  There were no special area classes at all.  To put it bluntly, it sucked.  For the kids anyway, I had a lot of time to walk around absent-mindedly and think about stuff.

The teacher didn’t tell me anything about me leaving when we finished.  Which I didn’t think was weird because I thought I was in the recovery room the whole time^[2].  I didn’t think about it at all until one of the kids in the class asked why I was still there and that the person they had in the room in March left when they were done.

Oh well.  I got a full day in, and right now that’s all that matters.

1. Even if those other people couldn’t talk or have more than 2 pencils on the desk or have anything on the desk but could have water, as long as they left it on the floor. [↩]
2. I found out from my wife when I got home that I wasn’t because she’s spent time in that school. [↩]

It’s always cool to be requested for a job.  It’s doubly cool to be requested when you haven’t even been in that room before.

That’s what happened for me with this job^[1].  And as a bonus I needed to be somewhere at a time where working at a middle or high school just wouldn’t work.

The class was pretty good.  There were a few kids who could have been better.  1 in particular.  And there were reasons for that, so I was prepared.

Overall, it was a day.  Not great, not terrible.  Pretty much what I needed to end my week.

1. Oddly enough, I was also requested for a different class I hadn’t been in for the same day. [↩]

You know it’s going to be a weird day when the teacher is around.  And when she says she’ll stop by every once in a while to check on things.  Not that I’m complaining at all.  In elementary schools the teacher pretty much has the office and the recovery room to send kids to if they won’t behave^[1], so if the teacher is around I can have the kid make a visit.  Nobody wants that.

I can see where a lot of subs wouldn’t like this class.  They talked, they played around while the worked, some of them probably needed some minor form of counseling, if not medication, to help them figure out how to function in the classroom^[2], they were overly obsessed with asking how they were behaving instead of just behaving, and they talked.

But I really liked them.  These are the kinds of kids I understand because that’s how I was (am?).  Redirect, give them a goal, let them move if they need it, and everything’s good.

They also got a lot better when they learned I’d be back for another 4th grade teacher in a week.  Proximity is great for controlling kids, both in time and in distance.  4th graders switch classes here^[3], so they’ll be in my room again.  That will be fun.

The best/weirdest part of the day was that the teacher told me not to worry about cleaning up and organizing the mess I made on her desk.  When I stack papers I go around everything so it will be easier for me during the day.  Stuff slid all over the place.  It was crazy.  But if she wants to take that on I’m fine with it.  I just had to take the kids to the buses, which meant walking with them and that’s it.

1. The middle schools here have a sweet system where you can send kids to another room.  Which means I can get them out without any lasting consequences if it’s not something too bad. [↩]
2. I’m not a doctor.  I know that was probably out of line.  And really, I’d go with the counseling so they can talk to someone and learn to control it since most of the problems went away when certain people left the room. [↩]
3. I already think 5th graders switching is insane.  I’ll have to invent something for 4th grade class switchers. [↩]

After yesterday, I needed an easy day.  Not that I went out looking for easy jobs, because anything would be better.  Well, not quit anything, but close enough to it.

On the way to school I remembered that this school has twp PE teachers.  I thought I was going to have it easy.

Turns out they only do that on Thursdays and Fridays.  So I was by myself, which was only a problem because I didn’t know that until about 8 and the first class comes in at 8:30.  I went down the office to see if they had plans and it turns out the teacher had emailed them and the person didn’t check her mail before doing the school news like she always does.

Bonus points for me, the plans were to have the kids play with jump ropes.   I would have done that anyway since they were already sitting out.  That either makes me a mind reader or really lucky.

Everyone in the older classes was really good.  As in I’d have to lie to tell you anything bad that someone did wrong.  I like that.

The 3rd graders were warned that I was still in a bad mood from yesterday.  No details or anything, but I think that if I’m going to be in a bad mood then they deserve to know beforehand.  I also haven’t had a problem at this school ever so I knew they’d get me out of that.  And they did, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

My plan was to have everyone pack up with 5 minutes left so they could get the jump ropes halfway organized for the next class.  The 4th graders started running around and making all sorts of weird noises so they packed up early.  Then they started freaking out because they thought I was going to tell their teacher that they were bad.  They weren’t, they were just obviously done with the jump ropes so we put them up.  I wouldn’t have done that if we weren’t so close to the end of class anyway.  Besides, they weren’t doing anything that’s against the rules anyway so stopping early is enough punishment.  They love me know since I told their teacher they were good.

I had a developmentally delayed kindergarten class instead of 5th graders.  They had bean bags and balls instead of jump ropes, and spent more time talking to me than playing.  I love that age.

I’ll lump kindergarten and 1st grade together.  The only problem was that I forgot I’d need to tell them not to swing the jump ropes around like whips and not to run around like a crazy chicken.  Kids got warned, kids say out, we had a class discussion about how I shouldn’t need to tell them that because they all know what will happen, and they went back and played.  The only problems I told the teachers about were the kids who were playing around while we cleaned up.

2nd grade was the class I had the first time I was at that school.  No problems with them at all.  The worst part was that I had to keep looking at my watch because one kid leaves early every day, which happened to be during his special area.  I’m glad I don’t have to plan around that.

Overall, a good day.  PE always is.

Different class this time.  Although I really wish I had the ones I had last time again.  They were fun.  These weren’t.  They listened and did their work.  These didn’t.  In short, I really wanted to put them in a cage with a slew of monsters and [My editor has decided that it is in my best interest to take the rest of this paragraph out.  Trust me, it was good.] .

The kids have a snack time.  Which is fine, they eat lunch at 12:30.  But the teacher doesn’t have snack time on any schedule.  Turns out it’s because she lets them eat all day long.  Who does that?  My guess is somebody who doesn’t have control of the class.  These kids were pulling out chips at 8am.

That wasn’t even the worst part.  That was a group of girls who thought that since they knew other people who work at the school they could get away with being rude and talking whenever they wanted and however loudly they wanted.  They’re in for a rude awakening next year when they won’t be protected like that.

Here’s one snippet just to give you a taste of the day.  The girl with the strongest connection within the school wanted to go visit another teacher to get a water bottle because the one she had with her had soap in it.  There’s no way in Hell I’m going to let a student go interrupt another class to get a water bottle.  Especially at this age, and especially for something that they should have checked before they left home.  I was going to let her wash it out in the sink we had in the classroom and fill it back up with water from the water fountain.  But she informed me, in the way that only someone who has learned that she can get away with it can, that my idea wasn’t going to work because that water is nasty.  Too bad, no water bottle for her.

When I told the other teachers who it was causing problems and who it was, they seemed pretty happy that I didn’t let them get away with it.

The other group^[1] was better, but not by much.  By the end of the day I [My editor says I have to watch it or I'm getting cut off.].

There were good kids though.  And I really liked them.  I wish I could take the good kids from each class and just make a class out of that.  It would be amazing.  Albeit Hell for the poor soul who would be stuck with my leftovers.

1. Yep, another 5th grade that changes classes. [↩]