Waffles Radio Because if you don’t let off steam you’ll explode

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.

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.

1. I didn’t request anyone specific but I had a pretty good idea on who they’d send. [↩]
2. A load of crap if you ask me. [↩]

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.

1. 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. [↩]

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.

Day 53 – 7th Grade Language Arts

Ah, a return to middle school for me.  As much as I like getting out earlier for elementary schools, this is an environment I feel more comfortable in.

Of course it was language arts though.  It’s not that I don’t like the class, but subbing for it is kind of boring since the teachers usually just leave standardized test practice and reading and stuff.  Great for the kids because they don’t have to deal with some strange person trying to teach them.  Great for the teacher because there’s no way I can mess that up.  Boring for me since there’s not really anything for me to do.

I know, it makes for a great story doesn’t it?  I’m sorry I can’t do any better.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect.  There was the kid who got written up for refusing to do his work.  His method?  Asking me stupid questions the entire time.  Did I hear about the earthquake in Haiti?  Can I tell him the answers?  Can he go sharpen his pencil?  Can he use the bathroom?  Can he sharpen his pencil?  Squeezing his way between people in spaces barely big enough for his pencil (which he finally went to sharpen).  Eventually it just got to be too much.  The best part?  He didn’t think I’d do it.

Day 49 – 6th Grade SS/Science

This day was set up a bit weirdly.  At 6th grade at one of the local middle schools there are 2 teachers per team.  So you have to see the kids twice during the day.

Normally I wouldn’t think this was a big deal.  In fact, normally I would think this was a pretty smart way to get the kids used to middle school after 6 years of having the same teacher all day.  Except that some of the elementary schools around here switch classed in 5th grade for everything¹.

I’m glad I picked up on this, because it could have been a big problem.  One of the reasons I like middle school is because if I have a big problem with a kid I can send them out of the room and I won’t see them in class again that day.  But here, I might.  Thankfully I didn’t have any problems beyond people not wanting to do the work.

1. At least 1 switches for 2 things just like this middle school and there are some I don’t know about. [↩]

Day 47 – 8th Grade Math

This was the first time I returned to a class when it wasn’t on consecutive days¹.  That made it a lot easier for both me and the kids in the class.

It was your basic math substitute day.  Give the kids problems out of the book, take it up at the day, that sort of thing.  I decided the part of my general being nicer goal should include letting the kids work together since there were no instructions and that they had to work alone.  And except for having to remind one of the classes were quieter, things went pretty well.

It’s gotten to the point that school were all the kids know exactly what I’m going to expect them to do.  Even the “bad kids” don’t try to pull anything on me beyond chewing gum.

Maybe it’s because I was so quick to send people out of the room before.  Mmaybe it’s because I’ve just started to be nicer.  Maybe it’s something else that I can think of right now.  But what I do know is that I don’t think I’ll need to walk around with the referral forms anymore.

1. But not the first time I’d picked up a job where I could return to a class, that one just hadn’t happened yet [↩]

Day 46 – 6th Grade Science

This was a very boring day, which I guess can be a good thing when you’re a sub depending on how you look at it.

This was my first day back at school I frequent most since Christmas break, and I could see the look of joy on some of the children’s faces when they saw me walking down the hall.  I know it’s weird, but it’s true.

The first three classes just sat that their work.  No talking, no trying to work together.  Just doing their work.  It’s probably every teacher’s dream.

Thankfully the last class actually made some noise right might have gone crazy.

Days 43, 44, and 45 – 7th Grade Math

I was sitting around the day before school started back up when I decided it would be a good idea to check and see if there were any jobs available.  I’m glad I did.

This was originally a one day assignment.  The first day was rather boring actually.  Every class got the book for the state’s standardized test and did work out of that.  Since I think that part of practicing for the test is putting them in as close to the same environment as I can, I had each student work individually and didn’t help anyone.  And for the most part, everyone behaved pretty well.  Not perfectly, I still had to remind people to stop talking and work by themselves.   But they’re in 7th grade, if I didn’t have to do that at all I’d be a bit worried.

The next day was a little worse as far as behavior went.  Three people got lunch detention for talking when they weren’t supposed to and one kid got a referral for arguing with me when I told him to move to a different seat and then later arguing again when I wouldn’t let him move back after the work had been turned in.

The only other issue that day was with one class’ homework.  I let the class work together, and the didn’t do as good of a job budgeting their time as they should have.  So there were some kids with lots of homework.  I told them that the teacher would want to see it when she got back, but that I was going to be there again the next day and I wasn’t going to look at it¹ so they’d have more than the one night to finish it.

Apparently that wasn’t enough to keep them from freaking out in the next class, where that teacher talked to the one I subbed for and together somehow came up with the idea that they didn’t need to worry about doing that for homework.  Some of the kids got that message, some didn’t.  Oh well, the extra work won’t hurt anyway.

The third day was the best as far as I’m concerned.  It was another day of just giving the kids work out of the book.  Like the second day, I helped out when I could because this wasn’t supposed to be practicing for the state standardized test.  I did have one student who got a referral for arguing with me and rolling her eyes at me when I told her to be quiet after the class had lost the privilege working together and one kid who “forgot” that he had lunch detention for an inappropriate joke.  He got off lucky and one of the other teachers on lunch duty just made him finish that day and do whatever time he’d missed the next day.

This was really a great group of kids and hopefully I’ll get the chance to go back.  The other teachers and a few of the principals were impressed with the fact that I was able to keep them under control as well as I did and that I kept coming back.  Hopefully that will turn into more work for me at that school.

1. The teacher sent new lessons plan for each day and didn’t say anything about checking homework. [↩]