Well, it looks like I was somehow able to get a day of work in this week.  Apparently the teacher was gone yesterday too, and they didn’t use the same sub which left the door open for yours truly.  I am writing this post with a headache, so don’t be too surprised if it turns out shorter than normal.

I was able to pick up this day early yesterday afternoon meaning that had I worked yesterday I may not have secured a job for today.  Who knows?  Only one opening slipped past my radar for yesterday (locked when I tried to select it) so I imagine today would have been no better with the selection still being only one district.  The job?  Mentally impaired kids at the school furthest from me at about 13 miles.  I hoped to run into one of my church students here who graced my cabin at summer camp a year ago, and even found myself in the classroom across the hall from his, but as it turned out our paths never crossed.

So what is this sort of classroom like?  Think kids who can barely talk even though some are ten or eleven years old, two of which are wheelchair bound and can’t even feed themselves.  There were seven kids, three aides, and one teacher.  Yes, a ratio of less than two students per teacher; it takes that much energy to work with these kids.  Now these kids were very low-functioning, but that doesn’t mean non-functioning, so there is room for teaching them.  Mostly this is very basic math and simple writing (not all can write though), and a lot of coloring, cutting, and pasting.  Naturally the theme for the reading and writing lesson was- drum roll please- Thanksgiving.  I read them a book parodying The Night Before Christmas, replacing Christmas with Thanksgiving.  Then the kids did a sequencing activity on the book.  The ones who were able to write not only sequenced things from the book, they also had to write about it, a challenge for me to get them to do this.

Mostly the aides ran the class.  This was pretty much my only lesson.  I acted as an aide myself for much of the day which is standard practice as the aides know the routine and what to expect out of their students.  In the afternoon the day ended with an actual Thanksgiving feast.  There was corn, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and turkey- erm, cookies.  No actual turkey- several kids don’t eat meat anyway- but cookies decorated to look like turkeys.  I actually didn’t eat much of anything, and since this was less than two hours after lunch not much was given to the kids, but for them it was supposed to be a learning experience.  A lot of what these kids do is life skills, including cooking.  Last year I subbed in a class like this where the kids folded laundry (gym loaner uniforms).  I did force myself to eat a small slice of pumpkin pie.  There was only once slice left and I didn’t want to start any arguments 😉 .    I also took a cookie home since they were homemade and I didn’t want to offend.  You got me, I have a sweet tooth anyway so I didn’t mind.  One thing that the meal was missing was the thanksgiving part.  I didn’t expect prayer, this being the 21st century in a public school, but the aides didn’t ask what the kids were thankful for.  Maybe that’s too high a level for them, I don’t know.

Well, it looks like my post isn’t short after all, though I do still haved my headache even after taking an allergy pill and a 600mg Tylenol.  Come to think of it, I seem to remember that you don’t take Tylenol for headaches.  Waste of a pill- now where’s my Aleve?

Middle school is an interesting age.  Not quite child anymore, but not completely adolescent either.  It is a transition state.  Many teachers stay away from this age, but I don’t mind it so much, depending on the class.  They can range of course from not-a-problem to watch-your-back depending usually on the area.  It is my belief that the family income has a lot to do with it, though really only because it leads to parental involvement.  With low income families, kids are often left to their own devices much of the time when not in school, and I think we can all, by experience 😀 , attest to the fact that young pre/adolescents don’t always make the best choices in life, especially when they are starting to listen to their peers more and the parents become even less active in their kids’ lives, meaning if they were already less active then that almost leaves it at, “Hello son/daughter” and little else.  I am not saying this to blame these parents, as they are often just trying to make ends meet with sometimes two or three jobs and are often the sole parental figure doing it.  I am merely trying to explain why sometimes students are very hard to handle.

Another group of kids that tend to be a problem are ELL kids. Often, but not always, low income is an issue here as well, but another factor causes these students to be a problem.  That factor being that the school system they come from is far more disciplined and strict than our own.  When they come here then, they see school as something to blow off.  Detention has no effect as they just see it as a break instead of a punishment.  Some see getting in trouble as an opportunity to see the teacher get steamed because our options are limited compared to back where they came from.  They learn, in other words, to play our system knowing serious consequences (as they would see it) can’t happen because then the teacher would be in trouble for improperly discipline.  Typically I just warn these students, maybe move them, but other than that just leave a note to let the regular teacher deal with the problem.  There is actually a school where I no longer accept ELL jobs.

Anyway, I just bring this up because for the last two days I was at middle schools.  Thursday was my unexciting science day I already wrote about, and yesterday I did language arts/life skills at another school.  Apparently they were short a sub at that school because they gave me an extra class one period and I know they were doing that throughout the day for that one teacher- every class period had a different sub.  I actually worked with all three grades as a result.  This teacher’s (the main one I subbed for) normal schedule had language arts with 7th grade and life skills (cooking, sewing, ironing, washing clothes…) was with 6th grade.  My added class was with 8th grade.  It was certainly more interesting than the day before.

Well this post is getting really long so I think I will just wrap it up now.  I will probably post tomorrow about drama this week at church and how my teaching goes in the morning- I will be teaching about Saul.  The king, not the pharisee turned Apostle.