I bookended my three days in elementary (Tuesday was in a mentally impaired classroom) with middle-school jobs at the same school.  Monday I subbed for a specialty teacher who teaches a course about cultures.  I am not sure what it entails, but is a separate course from the normal history/social studies courses.  Being a specialty course there are two classes each of grades 6-8.  Actually, 8th grade is a completely different course from the other two grades, so I guess the cultural studies is only for the two grades.  8th grade was a course on business- they were making products and campaigns.  It wasn’t too exciting a day.  The 8th grade classes were working independently in their groups so I just walked around and watched mostly, occasionally giving some input.  6th grade had videos, and 7th grade had a test.  The highlight was 6th grade, before the videos.  I got to read them stories with problems they had to find solutions for, like for example a couple of kids who wanted to build the largest snowman their town had seen.  They did eventually build it, and without special equipment (you know how heavy even a normal snowman can be- just think back to the last time you made one and had to push those large balls to become bigger ones, then lift two sections into place on a traditional snowman).  They had to figure out that the kids built a ramp out of snow to push the giant balls up to form the head and body, then tore it down after the snowman was done.  It was really interesting to hear some of their solutions like making the sections by throwing snowballs at a smaller one until it was big enough, or the snowman was laying down.

So that was Monday.  Friday I was down the hall in a different multi-age room.  It wasn’t one grade at a time- each class was mixed.  It was ELL, so the classes were according to their ability in English.  My largest class was six students.  What made this ELL class different was the large variety of cultures represented.  Rather than 95% Hispanic, the students were from Poland, Albania, Taiwan, Korea, and several other places in addition to Mexico.  They ranged in ability from new to English to lived in the US all their lives (what were they doing in ELL??) with immigrant parents.  The students were all very good, willing to learn.  There were only a couple of chatterboxes, but even they worked.  The classes consisted of three writing classes abtly called Writing I, Writing II, and Writing III.  These classes all had a writing prompt and spent the period making an organizer, writing a paragraph or more, then editing and finally sharing their pieces.  Two of the classes were literacy courses and we read stories together, went over vocabulary, then they made sentences from the vocabulary words and worked on packets about the story for the rest of the time.  The last class was a class of just one.  This was the student who knew very little English.  We worked on a noun packet together.

Either of those two classes I would sub for again in an instant.  That ELL class was completely unlike the one at the other school in behavior.  In actuality I had another ELL class at the other middle school in the district last year that was similar, but a little crazy due to an assembly.  Like this one, I had a period where I worked with just one student.  In that case it was an Italian student instead of the Korean student at Friday’s school.  Both kids were really great to work with.  Overall Friday was more pleasant even than that day.

Well, Monday will be an off day due to Presidents Day.  I remember when I was in school we actually got two days off in February for Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays, but in the 80s they combined the two into a general day to celebrate all Presidents.  I felt cheated when this happened.  A year or two later they added a day off for Casimir Pulaki (I think that’s how it’s spelled) but that didn’t last more than a couple of years.  I’m still not sure who Pulaski was.  In any event, I’m not sure what my next post will be about.  I’ll figure it out I suppose.

EDIT: Oops- forgot a title!

Last week when looking for jobs, an assignment for this week came up and I jumped on it even though it’s an age group I normally don’t work with outside of specials like gym or music, or potluck (floater) assignments.  However, it was a two-day assignment so I figured why not after all the middle school assignments I’ve had lately.  It was first grade.  It actually turned out not so bad.  One of the reasons I tend to stay with older kids is the type of management younger ones require.  It’s not just teaching with them, but mediator, parent, shoe-tyer, and other roles.  Well, I didn’t have to tie any shoes this time around in any event.  The first day had a slow start.  After taking attendance, bilingual kids (some Hispanic, many Indian) would leave ordinarily, a good third of the class, but this time only a few left while a teaching assistant came in to help with the rest.  Teaching assistants- always good to have.  They are a familiar face to the kids when there is an unfamiliar face like mine there- young kids love consistency.  The slow part was when we did calendar.  The lesson plans, generally well-detailed, was not so with the calendar time.  They pretty much just said the kids would help me.  The thing about that is younger kids always want to help, so as expected I had at least half a dozen little ones all trying to show me what to do.  Once the chaos was sorted out, I flipped through the cards they gave me and let each child do one of the dozen calendar activities until we made it all the way through.  We started the next activity, reading, about 15 minutes late.  I had to skip independent reading, but we eventually got back on track.

So the morning went- reading, stations (centers), some writing, and then the Spanish teacher came in for his lesson before lunch.  During centers, there were a couple of students who were at the computer center.  Unfortunately in this district there is no general log-in, and the teacher didn’t log in for me beforehand or leave me the password, so- no computer center.  They got to read instead.  Once the Spanish teacher came, it was a little break for me, but I stayed in the room anyway.

Following lunch the kids always spend five minutes quietly listening to music to settle down from recess.  Then the “star student” talked about her family, showing some photos.  I presume all the children get to do this throughout the year.  Once she was done, it was gym time, then music.  Another break- yes!  As asked in the plans, I graded homework while they were away.  The final part of the day was math.  I had two teaching assistants this time helping out, so it went well.  They learned about fact families for addition and subtraction.  Well, most of them learned.  I found out on day two, a rarity since most assignments are one day, when grading their homework that five or so did not in fact understand.  Well, I tried.  Finally, at 2:30 they were dismissed, I straigtened up, and left a note.

The next day was mostly the same, except no Spanish, art instead of PE and music, and dismissal was 3:00 (Wednesdays are early days in this district for teacher meetings- why they don’t just have the teachers stay a half-hour later one day I don’t know; I guess it works for them [and for me 🙂 ]).  The math lesson was more fun though- candy heart math in the spirit of upcoming Valentine’s Day.  They of course got to keep the candy hearts to take home afterward.

I should probably note that the biggest issue was one boy in particular.  He was one of the ELL kids, and he was all over the place- so much so that one of the counselors came in and marked off an area for him that he had to stay in.  I wonder what the teacher thought of it when she came in today?  Fortunately, her class uses a behavior plan where the kids have to change cards if their behavior is unacceptable.  They start on green and get two warnings, yellow and orange, before landing on red which means trouble.  For the one student, it meant a note home to his parents.  I’m not sure if it’s the same for the rest of the class, but whether it is or not as I said it means trouble for the student.  Only that one ended up on red one of the days, but several more wound up on yellow or orange.  The Spanish teacher was most unhappy about the class today- something about “worst day in five months…”

Well, in any event I survived the two days in first grade.  Next up: Friday’s ELL.  No silent h before that this time, but I do have things to say next post.

Okay, here is the long-awaited part 2 of the teaching poll.  Please choose as many as you would want to teach.  And please feel free to comment/expound on any of your choices. 🙂

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Continuing in the soap opera theme of a couple of posts ago, I have one to share from my own experience on Thursday.  I didn’t even have to adjust the title to fit as it works well just as it is- they are of course young, and they were quite restless.  If anyone knows about autism, one of the things even the higher-functioning kids need is a structured environment and schedule- everything should remain the same from day to day.  It appears that the same holds true for kids with behavioral issues.  I was in a middle school BD/LD classroom on Thursday.  I should start by saying I was in this class before several times and have never really had a problem before Thursday.  The fact that there are usually two teachers and two assistants in the room has always helped a great deal.  However,  this time both teachers had subs.  Also, the day before both teachers and both assistants were out sick- believe it or not, this was not engineered!  Between these two events, the kids just fell apart.  It didn’t really help that the plans included having the kids do something they apparently never do even when the teachers are there.  This was mentioned, loudly I should add, by 6th grade and 8th grade students alike- “We never do vocabulary!”  In addition, they absolutely would not listen to any instruction from me.  I tried to follow the plans as given, but they were already trying to go ahead, and were actually getting upset at me for trying to do what the teacher had written.  Sigh.  In the end I just had to give up and let them work on their own.  The 8th graders I think actual did the work.  The 6th graders, on the other hand, for the most part chose to do their own thing.  One even brought in a video game book and would read only this.  The assistants tried too, but in the end they were just back after being sick for a few days so it really wasn’t worth getting on them until the teachers returned.

However, trying to get them to work was only part of this story.  All day many of the students had anger issues, threw thing st one another, and had to be pulled from their regular classes.  There were a couple of teachers or social workers who were in on and off trying to keep the kids in line.  Parents were called.  What a drama.  Even the class where I had only one student was a bust.  She came to school late the period before, ate her lunch for that period (she was supposed to be doing math), and continued eating it during her social studies period.  She refused to read until she was done, never mind that girls are generally good at multitasking.  Clearly she was just stalling.  Of course, when she did start reading she couldn’t concentrate thanks to other kids in the room creating problems.  If you’re confused at this, you’re not alone- it can be confusing.  Most of the day there are two classes going on at once- one by each teacher.  Additionally, there can be kids in there who cannot be in their regular classes for some reason or other (remember above where I mentioned pulling kids out of other classes).  At this time, I had social studies with 7th grade (the one student), but the other sub had math with 6th grade.  One of the 6th graders had big issues all day.

Well, tune in next time for hopefully a post with less drama.  Well at least a better day for me- drama is great for the reader 😛 .  Otherwise, I will have to work in another soap opera title. 😉

In a tale of adventure about an archaeologist a substitute teacher from Indiana Illinois (yes I know he was named for a dog, not a state 8) ) a secret organization steals the famous Rosetta Stone and holds it hostage until a billion dollar ransom is paid…  Okay, not really.  In fact this post really doesn’t have anything to do with the Rosetta Stone at all.  The Rosetta Stone, for those who are not in the know or just plain forgot, is an artifact discovered over 200 years ago which aided in translating ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.  From Wikipedia:

The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and one in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta and contributed greatly to the deciphering of the principles of hieroglyph writing in 1822 by the British scientist Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion. Comparative translation of the stone assisted in understanding many previously undecipherable examples of hieroglyphic writing. The text on the stone is a decree from Ptolemy V, describing the repealing of various taxes and instructions to erect statues in temples.

The Rosetta Stone I am referring to in the post, on the other hand, is a popular software tool to aid in learning a second (or third, or fourth…) language.  Just as Christmas break started, one of the districts I sub in put up a huge list of days subs would be needed in bilingual and ELL classes six weeks from then.  I took three of the days.  Starting last week, those days came up and last Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday I found myself with students who knew varying English from little to some.  This district actually paid the big bucks to get this software (over $250 per module, or $550 for three- truly the Adobe of foreign language software, in that Adobe is infamous for charging ridiculous prices for its software) for their ELL program.

Thursday I didn’t pay too much attention to the 5th and 6th graders as they used the program as I was working with one student while another was on the computer.  This week, however, the 7th and 8th grade ELL students all spent an entire period each day (twice a week- I got both days) on this program and I worked with no one as they used Rosetta Stone so, bored, I watched them use it.  Some of them were learning numbers, some were on phrases.  The way the program works is it will say some words or phrases, four at a time,  in English (or whatever language module you may have purchased), and show pictures representing the words or phrases.  Then, it will display four pictures and give you one word/phrase.  The user has to then find the proper picture representing the word/phrase and click on it.  It’s not as easy as it sounds as the pictures may look similar.  For example, there was a set where people were starting to go up stairs, going up stairs, and just finishing going up the stairs.  In addition, there were different people, say a man and a boy, navigating the stairs.  The phrases then, of course, were very similar as well.  I am sure there is more to the software, but this is what I saw primarily.  The numbers were pretty straight forward, but there were some pretty off the wall phrases included.  Sure, most of them were straightforward like the stairs example, but then there were some like, “The boy is under the airplane,” “The children are standing on the table,” and “The woman is sitting on the man.”  😯 . I guess wacky phrases must help people remember.  And by the way, yes, the latter example was quite clean.

Some day I will have to try out this software myself.  Maybe the library has it?  Surely I could never afford it.

An interesting story hit the Christian school news recently about one girls high school team that beat another in basketball 100-0.  No, that’s not a typo.  There has been much drama about it since Christians are of course supposed to reflect Christ and show Christ-like behavior at all times.  The principal of the winning school apparently felt that the team did not in this extremely lopsided victory and made a formal apology to the other school.  Their school after all had a winning team and the other one hadn’t won a game in the last four seasons.  The coach of the team felt the apology was in error and respectfully disagreed with it.  Shortly after, he was fired.  Just from this, it may seem that the coach was in the wrong and should have been fired, but from here it just gets interesting.  The coach had apparently just a few years ago led this school from lopsided losses to their current winning team.  Also, according to the players they did not try their best on purpose: missing shots, not taking some shots, and generally not playing hard once they racked up 25 points.  From their testimony there was really not much more they could have done as the other coach wasn’t giving up and it would be silly for the winning team to just up and call the game just because they were winning so badly.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Read the articles and let me know what you think.

Original article (mistitled- the principal was the apologetic one)

Article about the coach being fired

Testimony from the coach and players

Please vote, too.  Voting is good.  After all, voting is what finally removed our disgrace of a governor tonight:

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(Sorry for the misalignment of the question vs. the options.  I don’t know how to fix this, though I did try in the templates section)

While we’re on the military theme (see last post), I should mention yesterday.  I subbed at the school with the ELL troubles, right next door to that very room.  That was enough to turn a bad day into a much better one, in other words- no problems.  It was all eighth grade this time, and language arts.  Four classes of letting students work on advertisement projects while I just filtered around making sure they were working, one class where they watched the start of a movie (must see if the library has it so I can finish it!), and one tutorial/study hall.  All except one period went very well.  That one period had a few students who did not like to work.  One of them even got on the nerves of two of his group members, girls who bopped him on the head twice with a tissue box.  Hey, I think I forgot to write that part down for the teacher…  It was an empty box and he was laughing after it so no harm done.   The other two thought they would have a little marker war- with open markers.  The one’s white shirt was quite colorful after that.  Hopefully for his mom washable means completely washes out.

What?  You want to know about that military theme?  Well our military uses ads, so that’s the connection.  Okay, that wasn’t it.  No need to bop me with that tissue box 😛 .  I had noticed the teachers were all wearing T-shirts so I asked about them.  Apparently they like to periodically remind students of certain rules and drill them on it.  Each class takes a turn at this and fortunately language arts didn’t get the short straw this time.  Rather, during social studies the students were drilled on proper hallway manners.  That’s right, how to walk in the hall.  I actually ran into this drill- well really they almost ran into me- during one of my planning periods.  Students quietly marching through the hall like the school would ideally have them do it all the time.  Do these drills work?  I have no idea.  They just started them this year so it will take time to find out.  They’re probably wasted on eighth grade though since they will only be doing the drills this year before going on to high school, and you probably know how eighth-grade-itis goes.  They’re minds will be in high school weeks before they leave middle school.

Once again there was a second day with this teacher, and the same sub as last week got the second day.  This time I would have gotten it had I not already been committed at another school for today so I’m not complaining.  It was actually a very easy day too.  I subbed for the industrial tech teacher, and they had just started the, er, hexter.  And semester (6 weeks and 18 weeks).  Which one matters depends on the grade, but in either case this was only their second day there (no school for them Monday) so they hadn’t started on any projects yet.  That, and the fact that I’m not sure they would be allowed to work on them with subs anyway, meant that they would be watching videos.  sixth grade watched a video on how cars are built.  It was quite informative- they showed a plant where Ford Mustangs were being built.  7th and 8th grades watched a video on movie stunts.  I’m not quite sure what that one had to do with IT, but that was what he wanted shown.  Guess which movie series had a prominent role in this video?  Indiana Jones?  Good guess, but only a minor showing.  Harry Potter?  Are you kidding me?  Yep, James Bond.  Loaded with stunts.  Yes, I know that was your first guess- I was just messing with you   8) : .  A very unevenful day with six very good groups of kids.  Today was this school’s turn for 8th grade graduation pictures (tomorrow at Tuesday’s school) but they had it set up so each student had an appointment, so they just left from whatever class they were in at the appropriate time.  Lots of nice clothes on most of them, though many realized their lower portions wouldn’t be in the photo so there were several guys with dress shirts and ties with jeans.  😮  Anyway, uneventful as I said, until about ten minutes before the end of the day when a 7th grader chose that time to be sick all over the table.  That was the end of the video for that group as they all headed away from the sick spot, then couldn’t stop talking about it.  Well, it was the end of the day.  The custodian was called, he was sent to the nurse, and that was that.  Yep, that’s that for today.  😉

Sa- a deer, a female deer
Re- a drop of golden sun
Ga- a name I call myself
Ma- a long, long way to run
Pa- a needle pulling thread
Dha- a note to follow pa
Ni- a drink with jam and bread

Hmm.  Something doesn’t seem quite right there.  On Friday, I, along with the 6th grade body of the school I was at, got a little lesson in playing the sitar.  A college student who used to attend that middle school came in to give a demonstration.  The teacher I subbed for had “concert” written on the schedule, but it really wasn’t a concert though he did play a couple of short tunes.  I hestitate to use the word “song” here, because apparently classical Indian songs are over 15 minutes long, but what he played for us were tunes about half a minute in length.  The reason?  He is just a sitar student himself, but that was good enough to bring him in for a demonstration for students who are in the middle of learning different world cultures in social studies.  As far as being a student, in fact, he told us that it takes about 20 years before one can be considered a good enough sitar player to play professionally in India, and another ten before one can teach.  Wow.

He started off with a little lesson on musical notation.  Remember the song above?  Well, the form of musical notation he has learned for Indian music involves a musical scale similar to that referenced to in the Solfège technique, from which we get the syllables do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti.  For Indian music, the syllables used are sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni.  The music also doesn’t use the staff Western musicians are familiar with.  Instead, they use |, ^, and -.  These symbols tell them how to pluck the playing string (the one of 17 strings used most of the time) and a letter above the symbol tells them which note- the first letter of the aforementioned syllables.  A dot above or below the letter. if present, tells the octave.   The sitar is capable of playing three octaves.

Along with the lesson, he played a little bit of a CD which included a type of percussion instrument that typically accompanies the sitar and is capable of 30 different sounds on two drums.  I forget what he said the name of this instrument is.  Again, he also played a little bit himself.  During one of the class periods, a teacher, my former junior high band teacher in fact, came in halfway through with his “Beatles” class (seems the one school with its African drumming course- see post archives from about a couple months ago- isn’t the only one to have such specialized music classes 😮 ) and asked Bob (the sitar player- what do you mean you thought he was Indian? 😛 ) to play some bits from the few Beatles songs featuring George Harrison on the sitar (Youtube link).  He wasn’t very proficient on this though as his studies were primarily Indian music.

All in all it was a very interesting lesson I thought, even though I learned it five times. 😛  This turned out to be a far better day than the day before.  I was definitely pleased that I did not get that second day in that ELL class.

I am too tired and lazy right now to write up anything, but upcoming are two posts.  The first is about an interesting day I had on Friday with a musician who came in and talked to the students.  What sort of musician?  You will have to wait for the post for an answer to that.  😮

The second post will be about the winter retreat we just had, essentially a 24-hour lock-in at my church, also known as the reason I am too tired to post right now.  Note the lack of an accompanying picture to complement this post which just serves to give proof to my tiredness. 8)

Why bother making this post at all?  Why to add to my diminishingly-increasing post count of course. 😉

Until tomorrow. 🙂

The regular reader knows just what letter to place in the title parentheses to complete the picture of my day today.  Some time ago I wrote about an experience at a school that left me passing over certain assignments for the next year.  A couple of months ago took the challenge and subbed for that teacher again since most of those former ELL students were gone and was relieved that things had changed for the better, so when another ELL assignment popped up at that school I took it without a second thought.  It was for a teacher I don’t remember, but it shouldn’t have been a problem.  Well, we have second thoughts for a reason so taking the job without one was akin to famous last words like, “Nothing will go wrong; trust me.”

So, at the beginning of the day I arrived and it was mentioned that it was a two-day assignment.  What?  Two days?  I had to check my schedule again because I was sure it was only one day.  The teacher, who was there but would be testing students, finished going over the plans with me and I went right to a computer.  Yep- just one day.  At that point I was actually hopeful there was a mistake and it was supposed to be two.  By the end of the day I was glad it was not a mistake at all.  For some reason the two-day absence was put in as two separate assignments- my guess being that the software they use cannot support multiple-day assignments as I have never seen a multi-day assignment posted.  I had two such assignments a few months ago in this district, but it was put in manually as a different job number for each day which just serves to validate this theory.  So apparently what happened was I got one day, another sub got the other day.  I do hope she is up to it.   Ironically, she was there today subbing for another ELL class, the one I had no trouble with earlier this year.

When going over the plans I was somewhat pleased to find that I would be covering three math classes.  I expected the toughest would be 8th grade, so once that was over (it was the second class- 7th grade was the first) and things were still going, if not smooth, only slightly rough I thought it would be a pretty good day.  The rough spot for 8th grade was really no more than the quick quiz at the beginning being anything but quick for a few students, making less time for going over homework and letting them get started on their assignment.  So, after a two-period break I was ready for sixth grade math.  Remember those famous last words?  Ready- Uh-huh.  This was the loudest and most complaining class I’ve had in the last couple of years with some boys who loved knocking over the books of each other while I wasn’t looking.  Sigh.  They even complained when I didn’t check in their homework.  I mean, who complains about that??  Just take the extra day to have it done as a gift and keep quiet about it!  Then the plans called for them to take a test which they had in their packets.  Did you catch what was wrong with that sentence?  In their packets.  So what happens when some students couldn’t find their packets and the teacher didn’t leave behind extras?  Well, I found out.  I had three kids run to the office, which I only did because it was just down the hall, so someone in the office might take pity and make some copies for me.  Then I found some students only had one of the pages.  They had ripped the other page out, which had a prior assignment on the back.  Back to the office?  Not a chance- the secretaries suffered enough with the two runs (they only copied the first page last time) so I just marked down their names and let it go.  I also forgot to thank them after school too when I checked out- oops.  And throughout this there were some students who just would not stop talking.  I needed this class before the two-period break, not after.

So after this class was a multi-grade language arts class.  Needless to say, some of the 6th-graders from math were back for two more periods (block period).  While not as bad as the prior math class, it had its own challenges.  8th grade left after the first half to see counselors from their respective high schools they would go to next year, and that relieved some pressure but not all- remember 6th grade was still there and so was a very obnoxious 7th-grade girl who loved talking back and doing as little work as possible.  After this class and a tutorial class (study hall) the day was finally over.  Now I’m writing it up for you to enjoy too…