As most of you know I generally sub at any grade level I can in the districts I’m signed up for.  That could mean anywhere from K-8, though my most comfortable levels are around 3rd-7th and during the less lean times I stick to them for the most part.  However, these are not those times and I will pretty much take anything that comes up.  8th grade is actually not uncommon at all for me to take even in the best of times, and neither is 2nd- adding one level to each end of my comfort range.  However, pre-kindergarten is pretty rare.  Not just for me to take, but just to be offered since it is not one of the required grades.  Come to think of it, I don’t think kindergarten is required either but it has pretty much become standard since at least the middle of last century to prepare kids for 1st grade.  Now of course many, many families take advantage of preschool, so it is no surprise that school districts are picking up on this age bracket as well.  I’m not sure just what the requirements are to enroll ones child in public preschool but they are probably simple like “must be able to walk” and “must be toilet trained.”  In some districts they actually have to be considered special-needs kids to qualify, so toilet trained is not necessarily required for these kinds of kids- I can attest to this as assistants regularly change kids of all ages, usually behind closed doors but there was one classroom where they changed an 8th-grade-aged boy right in the classroom with very little in the way to prevent seeing those parts usually covered up, not that any of the kids would have cared anyway since they were all similarly impaired.

But back to normal kids.  Monday I was in an 8th-grade science classroom at the very early district meaning an arrival time of 7:15AM- this coming after I had maybe 4-5 hours of sleep.  Fortunately this lack of sleep always hits one the following day as opposed to the current day, and Tuesday was no exception.  The kids had a video to watch about the first 25 years of NASA.  They talked about the start of our aeronautics exploration back in 1915 with the inception of NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) though the birth of NASA itself wasn’t until 1958, and continued with the US response to Sputnik, the trips which eventually landed us on the moon, and remote exploration of the planets.  This was a 60-minute video so I didn’t get to see the whole thing, but I suppose it must have ended talking about the three space shuttles up to that 25-year point in time.  There really isn’t much to say about the classes themselves- they were six identical classes.

Tuesday I found myself at the opposite end of the scale, but only at the end of the day- I started as an ELL resource (pull-out) teacher for 1st-5th grade.  In fact, most of my morning was spend with some kids from the very classroom I subbed in a few weeks ago.  We went over some reading, some letter names and sounds, played some games… Pretty enjoyable.  I then went to Wendy’s (baconator- mmm) to grab some lunch and headed to the other school where I would be in preschool.  This was where my lack of sleep two nights before would catch up to me.  I really did nothing much in these two classrooms (half an afternoon in each of two preschool classrooms as a floater) except act as an extra set of eyes.  I had been in one of the rooms a couple of weeks before during ISAT week and that day they started with putting simple puzzles together but today they would start by doing some coloring.  St. Patrick’s day pages of course, this bing March 17th and all.  There was one little girl who smiled at me with a “you don’t see me doing anything wrong” smile the entire way as she headed to the trash, hands behind her back, to throw away here pages because she messed up coloring the first page.  Uh-huh- nice try.  I fished them out and she had to go back to coloring them.  I guess I did get to do something- I got to read a book about some kids trying to catch a leprechaun for his you-know-what.  I tried to give it a bit o’ an Irish lilt as I read the leprechaun’s lines, and other parts of the story.  During their centers time I had to gulp down the rest of my caffeinated water as apparently the caffeine from the Dr. Pepper I had for lunch was very weak and I was in danger of collapsing on a chair.  But I made it.  They were in their centers for an hour before I went to the other room which then finished up their own centers- both rooms have pretty much the same routine, did some singing and listened to another story (read by someone else in the room regrettably), packed up, and went outside to play until their buses arrived.

So how was today?  Maybe I’ll tell later.  Another LD classroom, self-contained, 5th and 6th grades.

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.

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.

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…

Well, it’s been awhile since my last work-related post.  I finally got season 4 of The Office from my library and have been watching it.  For those who don’t remember back that far 😛 , Ryan, who was the temp at the Scranton, PA office is now Michael’s boss, and is trying to make many changes to the company to bring it more up to date with the times.  Oh, and he is making Michael’s life miserable.  I watched the first five episodes so far, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the first few were 40+ minutes.  I thought at first these were two-part episodes combined into one, but apparently they are actually extended versions of the original episodes.  There are supposed to be five of them out of the fourteen episodes on the DVD set and I saw four of them.  The fifth episode was the normal 20+ minute length.  I am guessing the season finale will be the fifth extended episode.

Anyway, on to work.  Today was a difficult day with a pleasant ending.  I substituted for 3rd-grade ELL at the school that made the local paper a few months ago for its supersized 3rd grade classes with 30+ students per class.  As far as that went, I prepared myself for it.  It turned out to have 24 students- 23 after today as it was one student’s last day.  For some reason that student is transferring to another school in the same district.  To any who didn’t catch it, this was an ELL class, which I’m guessing is why the class was a normal size.  I bring up ELL because while I prepared myself for a supersized class, I forgot to prepare myself for ELL kids.  Fortunately most of them understood English to a point, and there was an assistant who spent most of the day in the class to translate when there were difficulties in understanding.  However, the behavior in a few of the kids was just off the wall.  As I have mentioned in the past, ELL kids can be challenging when it comes to behavior, and these kids were no exception.  Again, I think this is due to us being to soft in this country as compared to other countries like Mexico.  And I especially am more easygoing than other teachers.  I would like to think I have gained better management habits, but I know I am still kind of a soft teacher, at least when I am in a good mood.

In the end, I did make sure to point out the kids I had a problem with in the note to the teacher, so something will happen I’m sure.  So what was the pleasant end?  Well, a 4th-grader from my church is apparently a student at that school.  As I was lining up the kids for dismissal, he spotted me.  A few years ago I had a student who showed some major excitement when he recognized me when I subbed in his class, with a very excited, “Hey! I know you!!”  Well, that boy’s record for excitement was just broken today by this other boy.   He shouted to everyone who could hear, “Hey, you go to my church!!” which was repeated a few times, once to his teacher.  When I failed to come up with his name right away, he happily offered it, not disappointed at all like a few others I have run into.  I should remind you that I am not that great with names at all and this year I lead a fifth-grade small group so he isn’t in it.  Tomorrow night I will make sure to give him some extra attention.

This week I was was in middle school only one, which was just an okay day in Spanish, with two 8th grade, two 7th grade, one 6th grade, and a 7th/8th combined class (which I thought kind of strange for a Spanish class).  The other days were strictly elementary.  The music class was a highlight of my week.  Normally these can be difficult classes behaviorally, but it was a rather pleasant day.  The teacher left plans that were clearly meant for the Friday before break with some of the classes having a Christmas-y theme, but since that turned into a snow day she apparently thought it would be just fine for the day after break.  Three of the classes watched part of the Nutcracker while coloring Nutcracker pictures.  It was in one of these classes I ran into a rare occurance- an Albino.  Okay, that term was politically incorrect.  I guess I should say he was albinistic.  I joked with him having hair blonder than mine was at his age (I had very light blond hair once- it has since become almost gray.  Yes I have some grey hairs now, but most of it is still blond when looked at closely.  It was pointed out to me that he had a vision problem which is often an effect of the condition and when I looked at his eyes a certain way I noticed some red which I think may also be common, though seeing red in pupils apparently is not.

Well, time to head back to Scranton, PA- I only have a week on this DVD set.  Later!

EDIT: Whoops, forgot the title!

Monday: 5th grade.  Location: my hometown, same school as last week’s PE assignment.  This wasn’t my favorite fifth grade assignment, but it was still a good day.  The day started with specials.  As I subbed for PE last week, I knew a little bit of the schedule so I expected this.  It’s always nice to have extra time to go over the lesson plans, particularly in elementary school when there are so many different things going on.  Spelling pretest went well, but I thought there were some challenging words on that list.  It didn’t stop three students from making the challenge list though with three or less incorrect, to the disappointment of one of them.  They tell me the challenge list is much harder so they don’t like to do it.  One student mentioned purposely spelling some wrong to avoid this list.  I hope he wasn’t serious.  Note to self: make challenge list more fun too so students actually want to succeed.  Math was next, and being the advanced group I started out with my usual routine of putting up some high school or college problems on the board and asking them to solve them, saying, “This is the advanced class, right?”  Yes, ha ha.  So the real lesson was kind of a review for them I’m told, so the teaching part was kind of short.  Toward the end a student came back it asking for his homework for the rest of the day.  I asked him to wait a minute while I addressed a problem with the math group, but he just left.  I found out later he had a migrane so I can excuse his impatience.  I ended up sending his work home with another student.

The afternoon was reading and writing, followed by social studies.  There was a whole group and small group lesson.  Then we went over the reading test they took last week, the one the teacher still had with him.  Oops.  He asked me to make fresh copies for the kids, but since they were only going to look at them and nothing else, the teaching assistant gave me an alternative by making transparencies instead and saving a tree.  The social studies was finishing up a packet, and studying for their quiz on Tuesday.  I wish I had seen the packet ahead of time.  There were so many questions on the first page it would have been easier to go over a whole class example before they started.

So that was Monday in a nutshell.  Today I was at another school for the first time, another one close to home.  I picked up on it right away though.  It was a low-level reading program.  In fact, I subbed in a class like this just last week.  It was another district, but it seems they use the same program, just as many districts use the same U of I math program.  It was mostly small group work with 7th and 8th grade classes.  There was some whole group instruction, but it was just introducing the small group lesson.  It wasn’t a bad day, though I’ve had far worse.  Some of the students were ELL, and regular readers know about some of my experiences with ELL students.  Speaking of ELL, I had an opportunity to sub for 1st grade ELL today but I decided to take a pass.  One thing worse than those bad experiences in middle school ELL was in the primary ELL department, where there are many students who know very little English and are therefore that much more difficult to teach.

So, tomorrow I will be in yet another school I’ve never been in.  3rd grade.  Until then.

This has been an early week for me.  I know a friend of mine over here always gets up at 5 or 5:30, and once upon a time I had a job where I had to do that, but these days I am just not used to it and exhaustion leaves its mark on me by the middle of the week.  Such as today.  Fortunately I was able to nap for a little more than an hour so I am good for the moment.

Let’s see, by Sunday night I had no job for Monday so I had to go to bed at around 11 with my phone by me.  Sure enough, I got a wakeup call at about 5:30.  I would be needed in a middle school so I could not go back to sleep, and up I went.  I did have a chance to catch up on my newspaper reading before work.  How was the day?  It was actually quite interesting, thanks for asking.  It was a class where there were students with semi-severe learning disabilities- about as disabled as students can be in this district as they hire out a special education company to handle more severely disabled students unlike the other two districts I work in.  There were two assistants in the room and a student teacher, so I didn’t have so much work to do other than walking around and helping out.  There were three grades represented so it was a little crazy, though not as crazy as last Thursday when I did ELL.  I’m not sure why I didn’t write that one up.  It wasn’t so crazy because of the students, but because of the school play.  That Thursday and Friday they were showing the school play, Around the World in 80 Days (link to random theatre company that performed it) (link to publishing company page).  Between the two tays all three grades had two see it. Let’s see- two days, three grades- how did that work?  Well, they had 8th and 6th grades go on separate days, then split up the 7th grade.  Now how does that work when half the ELL class, comprised of all three grades again, would see the pay one day and the rest the other day?  You see?  Quite a mess, especially when the absent teacher made no note of how she wanted to do it- no mention at all in fact about the play.  Oh, and the play lasted for three periods, not all of which the students were in this room, so no, we couldn’t just say, “We’ll all go today and tomorrow you’ll all have class.”  That would have left some students missing actual classes one day and having no classes the next while their team or grade was at the play they already saw the day before.  It wasn’t easy but we worked it out.

So back to the topic of early starts.  The next day I was scheduled in the district that starts middle school really early.  So, up at 6AM.  I worked as a 7th grade LD teacher.  All the classes were either team taught or resource, so I didn’t do any teaching.  In fact, even the guided reading groups I was supposed to do were vetoed by the other teacher who was concerned about behavior of the students.  She was scheduled to be observed- apparently the administration was impressed at how she teaches her class and set up other teachers to observe what she was doing.  Yeah, If I were her I’d probably be worried too about how the kids would act with a sub when I was trying to lead a group (we were both supposed to do groups).  Resource was just simple reading together and students answering questions about the reading.  Again, I was not alone with the kids as there was an assistant this time.  Better than a homework period I suppose.  Math was like language arts- walk around and keep students focused.

While yesterday I was like an assistant but getting paid as a teacher, today was the opposite.  Like Monday I didn’t have the job set up by the next day, so I set my alarm for 6 so I could get up and look for jobs if I didn’t get called first.  Problem is, my mind was awake before 5:30 and there was no way I could get back to sleep for the half-hour until the alarm would go off.  Up I went again.  I searched for jobs in vain as none showed up this morning.  I got caught up on my reading again while I checked every five minutes.  Ironically, it was a phone call at 6 that gave me the job.  Low paying, but more than a half-day which is probably all I would get otherwise at that point, though I still kept an eye out for a better job in another district up until 6:15, afterwhich I knew I could no longer cancel the first job (two hours before starting time).  Again, no time to go back to bed, so I finished the paper and opened the book I was reading until it was time to eat and finish getting ready.

I was really hoping I was not going to be a one-on-one assistant.  I really dislike those jobs.  I got my wish.  This teacher getting paid as an assistant (seriously, if they are going to give her so much responsibility they should pay her as a teacher (and on that note the subs like me… 😛 )- I have done less as a sub for a regular special ed teacher, and I don’t mean because there was a student teacher either.  All day I was pulling out groups for reading or math, three different grades, taking them to a different room to work with them.  There was supposed to be an intervention group as well after lunch, but I had no plans for that so they cancelled it.  If I were to hazard a guess at why she doesn’t get paid as a teacher, she probably doesn’t do much planning, but I wouldn’t be so sure.  My mother worked as an assistant for a couple years and they gave her some planning as well so I guess districts are allowed to do this.

That brings me to now.  I have two more middle school days.  They are at a close school so I get to sleep in until a late 6:15. Okay, still early.  I will be glad for the extra hour on Sunday.  Next week I will also have a day off as all districts are taking off election day.  All but one are taking the next Tuesday off as well for Veterans Day so I will likely have that day off as well.  Nap days. 🙂

We all know what that date represents.  Well, most of us do.  As I mentioned a couple of posts ago I worked will ELL students today.  One student actually didn’t know about what happened seven years ago as he just came to this country less than a year ago.  I suspect there were others as well.  Needless to say, he had a little trouble answering the journal question, “What happened on September 11, 2001?”

Believe it or not, I have been subbing for a few years but this is the first year that the school I was at had a big thing going for September 11.  The morning started with the entire school crowding around the flagpole.  No, it wasn’t a “see you at the pole” event, though I would wish it would get these kinds of crowds.  If more kids were followers of Jesus there would be so much less trouble at our schools.  Back to the topic, the principal called out everyone to observe the all-too-recent holiday remembering what happened those seven years ago.  There was the flag raising of course, a speech by the principal, and some students read poems they wrote.  The principal made himself heard, but they really needed some amplification for the kids- I wasn’t able to understand, or in some cases even hear a single poem.

After that, everyone went in and first period started (late).  The 9/11 theme continued with the aforementioned journal question, and then we saw an interactive CDROM.  Apparently the Chicago Tribune gave away these CDs back in 2002 commemorating the one-year anniversary.  It provided archival footage of ten days of the Tribune headlines following the destruction with some commentary and a Flash intro to start.  I was hoping to provide a download link for this, but I guess after six years it’s either off the map or I didn’t look hard enough.  Actually, I did find a torrent (peer-to-peer download) with the title (When Evil Struck America) but there didn’t appear to be any seeds, meaning it couldn’t be downloaded.  I’ll check Usenet in a bit, but I’m not holding my breath.  To the students’ credit, they really were engaged and asking questions.  A few periods later I was helping in the 7th grade social studies classroom, and the teacher did his own presentation on 9/11.  He chose some really thought-provoking pictures, including one building closeup where people could be seen to the side falling because they had jumped from the towers, perhaps hoping for a better outcome than death by fire or smoke inhalation.

These were the only periods I had dealing with this topic, but it seemed like half the day.  The rest of the day had typical lessons.  I either taught, helped out, or led a review.  I could say more on that, but I think I will leave this post focusing more on 9/11.  Until tomorrow.

EDIT:  I may not be able to give you the Tribune CD, but the History Channel has it’s own interactive media: 102 Minutes that Changed America

(Not my picture.  For more pictures like this, CLICK HERE)

And only day this week, partly thanks to my connection issues which are unfortunately still ongoing.  I had no internet at all for yesterday afternoon and evening, while today it’s been intermittent.  I wonder if the signal is now too powerful if that’s possible?  I mean, it was going through a cable that was chewed or worn to the center wire, so it’s possible that in the past they have had to increase it to compensate (the cable didn’t get that way overnight after all) and now that it’s fixed, the signal may be too strong.  Just throwing a guess out which is probably completely off.  The tech who was here was unable to measure it as his portable reader needed recharging.  Since the connection was up and I was getting nice speeds (around 19000kbps on speakeasy.net), he just let it go.

Still in special ed on Friday, but not due to meetings this time.  Apparently the teacher had a bad case of bronchitis on Thursday so he wisely opted to take Friday off.  It was actually a rather easy day.  Four classes (well, three really- one was a typical two-period-long language arts class) were team teaching, meaning that a sub just takes the role of a teaching assistant while the other teacher takes over the teaching part.  The other two classes were resource periods.  I just gave them a topic to write about in their journals and once finished they just worked on homework.  There was also a teaching assistant in these classes (a sub too, by the way) so as you can imagine it was a pretty light day.  Next Thursday and Friday I have a job lined up for ELL in another district.  This is a teacher I refused to work for last year or most of the year before.  I am hoping things have changed since most of the students from that problem class have gone on to high school.  I will let you know how it goes, hopefully with other stories throughout the week.