Waffles Radio

This one started off a bit weird.  The system said it would be social studies and science.  It was just social studies.  The teacher had also turned their desk into a fort.  I wish I could say that it set the tone for coolness.

It really wasn’t that bad though.  The kids watched a movie and took notes.  The movie pretty much filled in the class time.  No extra time means no downtime for the kids to get in trouble in.  Can’t complain about that.

The worst part of the day was that we watched it on a VCR so I had to rewind the tape.  I’d forgotten how long that can actually take.

The best part was that one of the teachers came over to make sure everything was set out right and said they weren’t worried about how I’d do because they heard I was awesome.

This was a weird day from the start.  They have 2 PE classes going at once so there was another teacher there.  She pretty much did everything.

6th graders were getting their PE uniforms so my job was to make sure they fit well enough now that they’d stay on but were big enough for them to grow into^[1], and hopefully keep them from needing to buy another one next year.  They all wanted to use the bathroom stalls to change in.  It makes sense, they haven’t really needed to change in front of people before.  But there were 3 stalls and a lot more boys than that.  It was kind of funny seeing them all wait around to change into the gym uniform for about 3 seconds, then wait around again to change back so they could take it out to the gym and have their name written on it.

7th and 8th grade would have been a lot better.  They’re doing something based on Survivor where they’re divided into tribes and compete with everyone else for points.  Yesterday they had to use PVC pipes cut in half longways as a path to roll a golf ball across the gym and back.  That was a great idea, forced them to use teamwork since the pipes were only a few feet long each.

The thing that kept those classes from being better though was that they also have PE assistants.  That worked out really well for the teacher, she had instant people to help demonstrate the game.  And it was great for me in the locker room, they took care of reminding people of their locker combination and stuff like that.  It also meant that there wasn’t much that I needed to do.

I’m sure that will be made up for later.

1. Boys only since I’m a boy.  They had parent volunteers helping but I’m pretty sure the other teacher handled the girls. [↩]

The best thing about these early in the year assignments so far has been that there’s no chance of the kids trying to tell me that the teacher always lets them do certain things like leave early or throw spitballs at people in the hall^[1] or anything else really.  They’ve had 4 days of school, not enough time to know that sort of thing yet.

The next best thing, and not by much, is that the kids don’t know if what they’re doing is something that would have been done anyway or it it’s only being used because I’m there.

This was a pretty easy day.  There were 2 worksheets that I passed out with a total of 3 sides of work.  Basic stuff revolving around discovering information about our state.  Well, maybe more than basic since they really did need to look the stuff up, but you get the idea.

The amazing thing for me is that I haven’t had to send anyone out of the room yet.  One kid got close, he wouldn’t stop talking and the people in the desks around him continually asked him to stop.  It’s amazing how much quieter the room got when he was off by himself.

The only other real point of interest is that I think something in the school hates me.  This is the only school where the schedule has been played with and I wasn’t told about it at the front desk when I signed in.  Thankfully the teacher next door came and told me about the assembly that day and what the new schedule would be.

I think I just need to remember to ask one of the other teachers if there’s going to be anything weird going on when I get there.

Update: I almost forgot something.  The entire day I felt like I’d been in the room before.  Being in the same room isn’t a big deal.  I’ve repeated class before.  Since this is my second year subbing I haven’t really had a chance to repeate a room with a different teacher yet.

So it sort of bothered me a bit all day about why I felt like this room was important somehow.  Then it hit me.  Remember the day a kid threatened to shoot someone first thing in the morning?  This was the room that happened in.  Thankfully nothing like that happened again or I would never go back to that room again because it obviously would be haunted or cursed or something.

1. Not that that one has every happened. [↩]

After the War and Peace meets Gone With the Wind (minus the southern charm and vodka^[1] length epic that was the day before, you should be glad to hear that this was a lot shorter.  In part because the kids were a lot better.

The first two classes were exactly the same.  They came in, they did the work (which the teacher wrote on the board before I got there) and there wasn’t really any talking.  Just a bit of asking other people for materials.  A teacher’s dream.  Not that great for me since I really don’t like silence, but it worked.

After a lunch break I had the other two classes.  The first one after lunch was a mess.  Only 7 people turned in their work.  People played around.

Thankfully the last class was better.  Granted, they were more talkative than the first two classes.  But they worked while they talked, and the talking wasn’t anywhere close to excessive.  I loved it.

1. Things I’m assuming are in at least one of those books since I haven’t read either one. [↩]

And on the fourth day, things were back to normal.  I went into the room and the kids had had a sub the day before.  Turns out it was someone I know, which was a bit freaky.  Here’s a rundown of who got kicked out of class.

1. Three kids for yelling out “nigger.”  Actually, two for definitely yelling it out and one for maybe yelling it out because people in the class said he did but he swears he didn’t but he was close to being kicked out anyway^[1].
2. One girl who had getting kicked out left over from the day before.  Her crime was at 3:36, they get out at 3:45.
3. One boy who decided to joke around about the pope.  Which I didn’t have any problems with on a disciplinary level^[2] until he decided to say that the pop makes the world safe for child molesters.  Not cool at all.

Throw in one kid who decided to announce that he was in a gang with some other people in the class while I was taking roll for good measure.  This kid was too white to be a redneck.  I probably should have sent him down too.

Then there were the good kids.  But I think you can fill in the blanks on that one.

1. I’ve been hanging around middle school kids too much.  My sentence structure is proof. [↩]
2. I did have a problem on a humor level.  None of the jokes were remotely funny. [↩]

I know, I’ve clearly stated my hatred for English/Language Arts classes.  At the most basic level I still hold onto that.  I’ve also stated my hatred for group work and working on projects.  Again, this one was different.  For one simple reason.  I’ve had this class a lot.  As in we get to totally skip me telling my name, or me writing my name.  I did that anyway because it feels weird not to.

Also, I’d gladly take project work over the normal English work.  The teacher requested me and gave me a choice.  It was really a no brainer.  The only issue was the many ways the kids found to be, well, stupid isn’t the right word but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

After their extra class (vocab work out of the book) and electives (where I read my book) the fun commenced.  We kicked things off with a kid saying he was going to shank someone.  I sent him up to the office (which is conveniently right across the hall) to have a conversation about that.  Ended up with kids getting pulled out of the room to tell the principal what was said and hearing kids say at lunch that he’s suspended.

Next, we had two people who did part of the project that wasn’t supposed to happen until today.  One person covered it with whiteout, the other left it hoping it could be incorporated.

Finally, we had two girls who couldn’t understand the concept of only getting one paper to do the project on.  One just got another one, the other crumpled up the first one and threw it away.   I made them get their first ones again since the teacher made a big deal to me about their only getting one paper.

Everyone else made up for them, and except for the first kid even they weren’t a problem.  The project actually looked like fun, I just hope I get a chance to go back and see them.

This was a weird day.  The teacher was taking most of the kids on a field trip.  I got there at 8:15 and they left at 8:45 so there was some time where everyone going on the trip was just hanging out in her room.  Which was weird and cool at the same time.

Once they left, let’s just say it was about the easiest day ever.  Something along the lines of the SPED day.  The school has 7 periods.  She doesn’t have a 1st, and periods 2-5 were either with her or went to another room to watch a movie with that class.  I didn’t have anybody staying in my room until about 2:00.

So there’s 2 classes that I actually saw.  The first one watched a movie that I’d watched in that class with a different group of kids before.  The second one watched The Sound of Music, or at least as much of it as they could fit in.  Except for taking some toys, there were no problems at all.

Oh yeah, except maybe the boredom.  I’m not going to complain about it, especially after hearing the teacher say that she realized later that she could have just gotten a half day and been fine.

I had this one lined up for a month.  Because the teacher went camping.  At least that’s what it said on his giant desk calendar.  I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that.  I just think it’s kind of funny that he took a day off to go camping and left it on the calendar like that.

As for the class, I can’t complain at all about most of them.  I did have 1 kid for 3 classes in a row and had to call his name each time because I was not having a good day remembering names^[1], but that was just a look the 3rd time wondering why I was such an idiot.  Honestly, I thought so too.  And he didn’t say anything, so it was fine.

The teacher left enough work so things went smoothly for the most part.  There was one girl who wouldn’t stop talking.  There was also a boy who asked if he could eat^[2], argued with me about why it was stupid^[3], and almost went to the office when I asked him if he wanted to go ask the principal why they couldn’t eat in class.

At least he was smart enough not to do that.

1. Can you blame me?  I get a new set of kid every day.  It’s hard. [↩]
2. right after they got back from lunch [↩]
3. to which my entire argument was “I don’t work here, so I don’t make the rules” since I really didn’t want to say “I think it’s stupid too, and if it was up to me I’d let you eat.” [↩]

Most of the time when the schedule has changed I’ve been a not very happy person about it.  I think my day of middle school art is the best example, but I don’t think I have to tell you that it’s a pain to go into a school, read the plans, then learn that you’re going to be thrown off because the schedule is different.  I think you can figure out where I’m going here.

The problems actually started the day before, when the class had a different sub.  They didn’t finish the work, and the sub left a note saying that they should get to finish it the next day.  The teacher did leave sub plans for multiple days so the I’m guessing that the sub was just incompetent^[1] and didn’t make them actually work^[2].  So I had to pick up their slack and try to get the work done that he wanted to have done on my day too.  What fun.

Too bad I was doomed.  The school decided they would need to have everyone in the musical go practice.  So everyone not in the musical went to their first class and watched the movie version.  All 3 hours.  The kid I thought would be a problem^[3] was actually the biggest help in keeping everyone quiet, if not paying attention.

We ended up having about 30 minutes in each class.  Not enough time to get anything done if you ask me.  Surprisingly, the kids actually tried.

I never assign homework, it’s just not my place^[4].  But with these kids, I told them it would probably be a good idea to take the book home and catch up to where they were supposed to be.  I have no idea if they did it, but they were at least good enough to not complain about it.

1. and thus should go hang out with these monsters [↩]
2. Just for reference, I take up work and let the teacher know if anything out of the ordinary keeps the work from having an opportunity to get done.  This rarely works out to where the entire class has the same excuse.  Rather, individual people get a special note left about them.  Usually it’s because they were called to the office. [↩]
3. I’ve had him before.  Let’s just say that he’s not the kind of kid you’d imagine would appreciate Matthew Broderick in something that didn’t involve monkeys or gallivanting across town. [↩]
4. Except for one girl who’s dad was in Iraq.  I told her to go home and make something to send to him.  But I don’t think that counts. [↩]

One of the best things that can happen when I go into a class is knowing that the kids are doing the same thing with me that they would have done with the regular teacher.  That’s what happened with this class.  Sadly, no super heroes were involved.

But they did work on the monologues that they would have been working on anyway.  Except for the class that swore they had them done and memorized.  Which I believe since the teacher told me they were further along than everyone else.  They ended up playing improve games to fill the extra time.