Back to the school entries- it’s been too long.  Before I continue though, one of my friends mentioned that I have been too general with my district descriptions, that she is always wondering which district I’m talking about.  I have been thinking about how to refer to these districts because I want to play it safe so any wondering eyes from those districts don’t lock on to my posts and figure out who this is in case I post something I shouldn’t.  I could of course refer to the districts as A, B, C, and D, but that would probably get to be just as confusing.  How about I come up with some better descriptions:

♦ Hometown district = the district in which I live, presently my favorite district I might add.

♦ Near-city district = the district I work in that is closest to the big city, Chicago, to where I live and bears a few similarities.  This is the district that has the really tough ELL and BD classrooms.

♦ Next-door district.  Of course, there is more than one town next to me, but the ones to the north, east, northeast, and southeast of me I am not signed up in at the present time.  Two are too small, and the other two called me so rarely I didn’t sign back up with them.

♦ Supersized district.  This district has a lot of schools.  It encompasses one entire town plus parts of at least three others.  It of course isn’t as big as Chicago’s school district, but what is?  Besides which I am not signed up for that one of course.

With that out of the way, I was in near-city district today doing something quite crazy- I returned to the classroom I had big problems in just a few months ago.  C will be glad to know that this is officially a BD/ED classroom, no LD kids to be found, unless they are also BD or ED (behavior, emotional disorders).  I was in my full faculties when I accepted this assignment just so you know, tired but not so much I didn’t know what I was doing.  I reasoned that there were unusual special circumstances last time- all four teachers/assistants were sick the day before, and I was one of two subs that day.  If you think young kids need consistency, these kids are like autistic kids in their such need.  They just broke down without it and I happened to be one of the targets that day.  So, in full figurative battle gear I headed to the school this morning, expecting anything.  I was early, got a look at the plans, talked with the other teachers, then read a book until the start of the day.  Fortunately I was the only sub this time.  The kids arrived, I waited for the explosion, then.. nothing.  It was actually a quite pleasant day.  One 8th-grader was absent for the first few periods meaning I didn’t have him at all which turned out to be a good thing as when he arrived it was apparent he remembered last time and got visibly upset if I just talked to him.  As for the rest, they had no such problem even if they did remember last time I was there.  Also making for an easy day, two of the classes involved just listening to an audiobook while the kids followed along (and they did, I guess S.E. Hinton is a hit with them), and one class was a single girl watching a movie.  The other two had potential for disaster as they actually involved my input and/or teaching, but the other teacher smoothed things out before they happened.  Kudos to her for using her planning time to keep watch as I led reading a story together before they could get a chance to work independently, which is what they are most comfortable with.  The other two, assistants, were off in watching the ones in specials at this time.  The last class was tutorial, and because this is the last day of the week (Good Friday tomorrow) the ones who did well that week got to watch part of a movie.  The other teacher took the ones who didn’t earn it to another room.

You were looking for a, err, more exciting day, weren’t you?  Admit it!  Sorry I had to disappoint you

How about the other three days this week?  Well, I subbed for art in hometown-district yesterday, special-ed math the day before (same district), and, lessee…  oh yes- Spanish in the near-city district on Monday.  All days went very well.  The Spanish lesson, oddly enough, was actually social-studies lesson on Latin America rather than a lesson or worktime on actual Spanish.  At that school the 6th-graders don’t take Spanish so it was all 7th and 8th.  They also don’t do industrial tech which leads me to wonder what they do instead of these classes.  Art was movies for all followed by a little drawing.  5th grade had the most problems but the rest of the day went well.  The only real thing to report for the special-ed math day was 8th grade at the end of the day- they were so quiet and really worked- was this really 8th grade in April (the start of 8th-grade-itis, a common condition in those who know they will be in high school in a few short months).  That and there was a little mess-up at the end of the day when I found out I was supposed to bring the 8th graders down at 2:00 for an assembly.  Couldn’t they have announced it at 1:55 or something?  Oh, well.  They only missed 15 minutes of it.

For the other two districts I haven’t worked much in them as of late.  Next-door district continues to have next-to-no assignments available for some reason and supersized district actually canceled the last two days I signed up for.  Thanks a lot.  At least they didn’t do it the morning of so I was easily able to get other assignments.  Speaking of canceling, I wonder how long it will take to cancel this next one I signed up for?  This isn’t bitterness talking, but reality.  You see, it’s a three-week assignment.  Yes, you read that right- three weeks.  As a noncertified sub, they are sure to pull that one away when they realize what happened.  I have my suspicions it wasn’t even meant to go up on the system.  Perhaps another sub canceled the assignment by using the system instead of calling the school.  I will be genuinely surprised if I still have the job come next Friday.  I am more than willing to do it-  I just don’t think the district will let me.  Anyway, make your wagers and I’ll keep you posted.

What a snooze… No, not me last night which was anything but- I think I may have gotten about five hours of sleep if I’m lucky.  I’m referring of course to the assemblies that happen sometimes at schools.  Especially those that totally mess up the schedule.  For me, it was pretty much irrelevant too.  Not to the kids or staff, just to me and any other sub that might have been there.  You see, it was an awards ceremony.  For the entire school.  All, or at least many, sports and academic clubs.  As a sub I knew pretty much zero of the names, hence why it was kind of a snooze to me.  It was a snooze to probably nearly all the students as well because it lasted for more. Than.  Two.  Hours…  For nearly all of the awards, they handed out certificates to every student involved, name by name, and then gave awards to high achievers.  I would guess well over 300 names were read over those 2 hours 20 minutes.  There was one sport I couldn’t believe they had, let alone the number of students involved.  Bocce-Ball.  I kid you not.  Nearly a hundred kids involved too by my estimate.  Wow.  Only track compared to that with four teams, 7th and 8th grades, boys and girls.  There were probably 60-80 students involved there.  The only other sport I remember was girls volleyball- I’m guessing there was no boys volleyball team because one of the students was a boy.  The teacher was careful to not refer to that particular team (7th or 8th, I don’t remember) as “the girls.”

The academic teams and clubs consisted of a math team, geography team, and science olympiad.  Probably more- I don’t remember.  Interesting to note the math team was entirely Indian (or similar) or East Asian.  Hmm.  Perhaps our schools really are failing the children in the math field.  Band, orchestra, and drama were part of the other extracurricular activities.  And finally, there were also service clubs.  One club helped the mentally-challenged kids, and another- well club doesn’t really apply here (you’ll see why in a sec)- recognized students who did some sort of community work.  Thankfully they did not recognize these students individually as a good 90% of the students raised their hands when the principal asked who has done some community work or project!  Was this part of a class assignment or were they really this outward-thinking?

Well, after some 25 teams, clubs, and organizations they wrapped up, had a drawing for some Pepsi T-shirts, and then were dismissed.  The scheduled ending time was 9:45.  The actual ending time was 10:35.  Oops.  Reminds me of television networks and sports for some reason…

So, we skipped two of the periods and I went on break.  Finally I could get off my feet.  Oh, did I mention that I had to stand for the entire assembly because there were no chairs provided for the teachers?  Some plopped down with the students, other stood right along beside me.  Now, I have an injured foot so I did a lot of leaning, walking, and a little bit of sitting on the floor in addition to the standing.  So, all good and well now.  Unfortunately I had about twenty minutes and I had to start eating my lunch as the teacher I was in for had no scheduled lunch.  Instead, she had a study hall period.  So, I had a panini during 4th period, an orange and a Mountain Dew 6th during study hall, and the rest of my lunch last period.  Well, an interesting day for sure.

In days of banning tag from the playground because some kids “get too rough” it seems only natural that dodge-ball is so far banned, it is even anathema to mention it. Perhaps that is really only valid in the elementary school though. Or maybe the ones making the rules don’t like the attitude of middle schoolers so they say to go ahead and bash each others’ brains out with round throwable objects. In any event dodge ball is definitely allowed in middle school, or at least some middle schools. It was probably banned a while ago before the advent of soft foam balls more commonly known as gatorskin, or rhinoskin balls, though something tells me no alligators or rhinoceroses were hurt in the making of these balls. Softer even than Nerf™ balls ever were, it would take a pretty thin head to actually get hurt by one of these balls, but yet they can still be thrown across the room or even used in a pinch for kickball.

If you haven’t figured it out by now I subbed for a PE teacher today. I actually wanted to get up a 6AM to see what was available, but I woke up at 5:30 instead, and this was the only job on the systems so it’s the one I took. Of course I didn’t mind at all since it was only a mile away too. 🙂 I probably mentioned earlier that middle school PE is one of the easier positions to sub for as the other teachers usually run the show with me helping out. Not always, but most of the time. Because there was another teacher out as well, and the field was still wet from yesterday’s two downpours, they mixed up thing a little and instead of doing softball and whatever one of the other teachers was supposed to do (health?) we all played dodge-ball instead. We divided them up into six teams and they played three-minute games, rotating between games to keep things fresh. Three grades, six PE periods, all dodge-ball. There was one period where a girl came up to me and asked if she could take attendance. I had to do a double-take as she clearly had some hormonal problem. There were patches of hair on her face. Growth that would take a guy weeks to grow, so it wasn’t just peach fuzz like on many eighth-grade boys. I just took a look at Wikipedia and it looks like it could be either androgen excess or a rare disorder called hypertrichosis (werewolf syndrome). I tried very hard not to stare at her, and felt guilty every time I so much as glanced in her direction. Of course I let her take attendance even though I was really just playing at it since I was told I didn’t need to take attendance and didn’t have a record book to take it in in any event. I just didn’t want the kids to feel they could blow off gym sometime and not be missed.

The end of the day was kind of interesting. This school schedules homeroom at the end of the day, so I was on my way up to the 8th grade classroom I was supposed to be in when I found out all the eighth-graders were on their way to the multipurpose room for an assembly. Okay then, I went there instead. They had a presentation from some Japanese-American people about World War II. I’m guessing it was put together by a teacher from one of the middle schools as she was there and she teaches world history. And she is Japanese-American. They had a video of shots taken in the WWII internment camps and then two elderly people who lived through it talked to them. It was interesting, especially as one of them after going through this decided to join a special Japanese-American infantry that was formed some time after Pearl Harbor. He did this even though he like the rest of the Japanese-Americans were treated so shabbily. He had a few reasons for doing this though other Japanese-Americans understandably refused to have any part of the not-so-good ‘ol US of A at this point in history. One reason was he had very good childhood growing up under the tutelage of several teachers who left good impressions on him. Alo he wanted to prove that not all Japanese-Americans were on the side of Japan. In reality, I think very few were on Japan’s side in this war making this whole internment camp thing a ridiculous waste of time in addition to being reprehensible. This man became a teacher himself, apparently well-regarded in the circle of Chicago’s school system. It would be eye-opening for me if I didn’t already think the whole thing was wrong. In fact, when 9/11 happened we didn’t do anything even close to this to Middle-Easterners in this country and it looks like we’re still here. I still don’t trust Islam, and many others don’t either, but there have been no more terrorist bombings in this country since so it was clearly the right choice to leave them be.