Combining Jobs

School Site: CHS
Subject: Spanish

My 3 hours of sleep was abruptly interrupted by the Imperial March, my ringtone, at 5:30am today. The nice automated lady came on asking for my password, she's so rude, she never does formalities. I listen to the assignment, and instead of pressing '2' to hear the assignment again, I press '1', sealing my fate for the day. Every ounce of my grumpy sleep deprived body tells me to go online and cancel the assignment, except for the ounce that needs money, and ultimately that wins out.


Mi Espanol es bien en los areas que lo usan mucho, en mi trabajo por ejemplo.  But to teach spanish the whole day, to spanish speakers? This task seemed much more daughting. I arrived on time, unfortunately the other teacher who was supposed to give me the assignment arrives 10 minutes before the start of school. By the time his computer has loaded up and he has translated the email from the teacher I'm subbing for, I'm left with the following instructions.

"Ask the students where they are in the book, and have them do the next assignment."

Yeah, ok, unfortunately students can't remember what they had for lunch, let alone what they did before their vacation. Never fear though because I am a war veteran by now, and I know how to dance.

Period 1: 

This was English 1, I did not feel they would be advanced enough for a writing assignment, so I did assigned them something out of the book, I survived without consequence.

Periods 3-6: Spanish for Spanish Speaker

 I had a blast improving a lesson today. During my prep period, which was second period, I decided to do a writing assignment based on video games. I am, afterall," The GameStop Guy," might as well embrace it.

I explained to the students that I work at GameStop in Colton and that I get a lot of Spanish speaking customers, my vocabulary is unfortunately limited so I had them help me out. I had them help me translate words pertaining to the games I was trying to sell, and then I tried to sell the game to the class in Spanish.  

The resulting assignment looked a little like this.

Halo 4	1 Space   2 Aliens 3 FPS 4 Online 5 Coma 6 Extra Online Content	1 Espacio 2 Extra Tereste 3 Primer Persona 4 Enlina 5 Coma 6. Extra cosas avancadas
Call Of Duty Black Ops II	1 War 2 Futuristic 3 Robots 4 Zombies 5 Co- Op	1 Guerra 2 En El Futuro 3 Robo 4 Zombies 5 Equipo De Dos or Mas
Assassins Creed III	1 Civil War 2 Native Americans 3 Graphics 4 Assassin 5 Hack and Slash 6 Open World	1 Guerra Civil 2 Nativo Americano 3 Buena Graficos 4 Assesino 5 Contrar y Trajar 6 Mundo Abierto

After each set of words I would try to sell the one game, then move on to the next game, translate some more words, and try to make my explanation better. At the end I had them try to sell me something, anything, on their own paper, in Spanish, and within a minimum of 5 sentences.

The result was a lot of fun, even if a lot of the girls were not wholey interested in the subject matter, they were very engaged with translating the words. I felt pretty accomplished with this assignment. The kids were engaged, I snuck in some learning, and it killed 1/2 hour of an otherwise loud and long babysitting gig. I cannot say that it had wholey renewed my vigor to teach, but I certainly found that feeling that first drew me to teaching, I thought it was long gone, turns out it's a drug for me, unfortunately I need stronger doses to keep the buzz going.

Dr. Gabe and Mr. Sub

Substituting from day to day makes me feel like I have split personalities, this may be more of a personality trait than a reaction to substituting, but I digress. My day is governed by so many factors; kids (32 different ones every 50 minutes), location, age, etc, the only constant I have is that I wake up at 6am, if I have a job and I get out of school, eventually, sometime during the daylight hours. Everything that happens in between is  anyone's guess. Take my last 3 days for example, (no really);

School Site: THMS: 

Subject: Math

I have substituted for this teacher multiple times, both back when I was more of a Nazi than a babysitter, and also during my more apathetic days, so I knew, more or less, how his class worked, and how his students felt about him/ treated him.   

Monday

I was a little apprehensive to enter this class, I did not hear the name correctly, but I liked the school site so I accepted it anyway, and later found out it was a class I have had previous rough experiences with. I started this day expecting to write out a lot of detentions, send kids to the office, just the usual rigmarole that comes with 8th graders. What I got in return was this weird parallel universe where the kids were well behaved, most students were on task, and in general just a pleasantly surprising nice day. 

The only thing to note was a kid with ADD who added "Your mom... " to everything that was being said. I gave him taste of his own medicine when he was commenting " how is this possible?" and I responded "You're mom is possible." This was met with a roar of "OOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo" from the class, but I think the kid took it well, I haven't received any angry phone calls... yet. Yeah, we were real mature in there that day.

Tuesday

Apparently my nausea in the morning was my transition back into the real world because the little hellions were back! These are block classes, so I am held captive by the children of lord of the flies for 2 hours at a time. The first block of classes was ok, and then it rapidly went downhill from there. 

The second block of classes want to listen to their ipods during class, so I gave them some incentive yesterday, if everyone finished their work I would let them listen to their ipods, which worked great yesterday, but if I had done that today I would be punishing those who were on task unnecessarily.  The down side to this is the knuckleheads who "don't feel like doing work," (man I wish I had that option at my job), continue to do nothing but chat about their very important middle school lives (?) But hey, they are freshmen now, there isn't going to be a whole lot of hand holding in high school, better they realize the consequences now. I told this one girl I would tell her dad she was not working when I saw him at job #2, to which she whined and complained saying how uncool it was that I was threatening her just to get her to do work. I let her know this was a no threat, I am more than happy to let parents know how their kids are doing =D. She completed a total of one assignment, out of 2,  in the two hours she was there, I do not consider this being productive, can't wait to see her dad next time. 

The third block is usually a little more productive but as I mentioned different kids produce different results. There was a student here today who was not here yesterday, and  he made all the difference. It started off with a pencil being given to him to which he replies to the girl " This smells funny, I know what you've been doing with this, that's gross," and then he proceeds to throw the pencil haphazardly behind him. I told him to pick it up three times, each time a little more sternly, to which he replies " it really does smell though..." so I wrote him down for a detention. He comes to me later and says " Hey I picked up the pencil can I get my name off of the list?" Um, No, how about doing it the first time and not giving me crap about it, and how about doing some work too, he says again "because it smelled..." He comes to me  a second time " Hey I've been doing work, and I picked up that pencil... it really did smell..." as if I'm blind and have not seen him playing a game with other classmates the whole time. Then to top this off, I'm assuming on a dare, he rocks this kid in the nads, running start and everything. There is no altercation but don't touch another student like that in front of me!  " Really dude? You expect me to take your name off of the list?" I call security and have him escorted out. 

School site: BHS

Subject: Math

Wednesday

Today I am peacefully blogging in a Trig/Calc/ AVID class. A rowdy game of UNO, but no nut shots.

Humans are creatures of habit, I order the same thing every time I go to Lucille's, prisoner's feel more comfortable in prison because they have a routine much in the same way students need a schedule and some sort of pattern to their school day in order to progress academically. I don't feel that as a substitute I have achieved this pattern-like day for myself. I ran into someone today who was hired at the school site I am at, but finished the credential program at the same time I did. On the one hand I feel a little defeated, she has come out ahead partially because she chose Math and I chose History. On the other hand I am insanely happy for her and it gives me hope that I too will get to my own classroom.  Her trials and tribulations have been equally as hard as my own because she started two months ago, at the end of the year, her students are low level, and she gotten comments like "I forget I need to go slower for you because you are an ELL," from her fellow colleagues. Despite all this it's encouraging to see that someone from my school made it, even if it's only temporary. 

So, to go back where it all started, I feel like I have two personalities, regular, everyday, calm, blogging in the back Dr. Gabe, and Anxious, calling security, writing up referrals Mr. Sub. I still feel it will be an incredible relief to get a full time position, even if everything else is still chaotic, it will be nice to have that constant in my life. 

It feels like I am still on the river while many of my friends have set up camp on the banks, lucky for me I've always viewed life from an Easter perspective and so I go with the flow.  I'm still optimistic for my life though, and hey, if I didn't have such a crazy experiences, what would I write about?

The Problem with Kids These Days.

Aside from having good parenting I was a pretty amiable kid. When someone said shut up, I usually shut up, If a teacher was talking I listened, and I can remember all of 1 time in which I had OCS in 7th grade, in fact I can't remember where OCS was in high school, that's how many times I went there.

I've said it once but I will say it again, I do not understand the motivation behind being a rude or disrespectful kid. Where is the payoff? They get the immediate satisfaction of "besting an elder in front of their peers," but this victory is short lived once they are in the principles office or have some other sort of behavior correction. The last couple of days have given me a couple of examples of kids who have been just Rude.

School site : CHS

Ssubject: English

I've kind of let go of my tough guy exterior, I used to try to yell and scream at the kids but this was never really productive, I was never convincing enough or the situation would just backfire on me. So as a substitute I have been much more reactive, you do something wrong you get punished for it, kind of like the real world, if you break the law there are consequences. I was having trouble with this class in general, they were all at risk students so I was actually pretty liniment, one thing I will not tolerate however, is rudeness. During the second part of this class I mentioned that I would not allow cell phones out, they are not supposed to be out any way. Well one male student had his out and I gave him plenty of chances to put it away, he was grumpy but not rude. The female student next to him took this to the next level. She placed her book in front of her phone, to "hide it." I told her it does no good, I know you are still on your phone, please put it away. To which she responded by displaying her phone more prominently and giving me a " I don't give a damn what you say" look. So off to in-house she went. Really, I assure you,your conversation was not worth getting a referral over. I'm sorry was I infringing on your time during my time? Yeah, it doesn't work that way.

School site: BMS

Subject : History

I finally get to teach a little bit, I have all of an hour to put my lecture together, but this should remind me why I wanted to teach, right? Well during my lecture I finally get the kids to settle down, except for one student sho kept making a gaging noise when I talk. I asked him to stop, and he starts arguing " I didn't do anything, " sure you did that's why I called you out, there is more arguing, really all he needed to do is be quiet at this point and concede that he was being rude but no he steps it up by saying, " be quiet with your stupid goatee." I.E. please give me a referral. The old substitute me would have huffed, puffed and sent him out, instead I was calm continued my lecture an wrote him a referral.

Once again where is the motivation? If I talk and I'm a jerk then I will be the greatest ever. The greatest what? It really makes no sense to me, and all of this animosity because you simply can not shut your mouth? It boggles the mind.

Last, but certainly not least,

School site:BMS

Ssubject: History

Same day by the way, next period. I've had this student in the past, somewhere along the way I lost his respect and this is always the hardest because I do not feel effective as a teacher, and these kids have even less respect for a sub than normal. He will not read, he will not stop talking, and even after I ask him to stop he just continues being a neusance. Even the RSP sub has taken notice to this kids behavior. When I tell him I'm going to write him up he says" it's just a piece of paper, it doesn't mean anything…" 

I should mention that this kid has "identified special needs," but honestly I think he us just BSing. He's a smart kid, I know he is, but he has been allowed to get away with murder for so long that no one questions it. His whole motivation has been to see how much of a rise he can get out of the substitute, so I've kind of played it poker faced with this kid, so far is has been a better avenue, we'll see, I know this is not the last I have seen of him. 

This kid kept talking throughout my whole lesson, so i wrote him a referral. 

UPDATE: I had this kid for two periods today, I was definitely concerned, but I did my poker face routine and he was actually a lot better today. He would get up out of his chair and I would ask him to go back to it, and this was much better than trying to compete with him. I let him know he could ruin everyone's break if he was not quiet during the movie, and he was even quiet. 

So I did not emphasize it too much in my description of the days incidents but the problem with kids these days are their parents. In fact the kid in the last story had his parents pick him up early because he didn't feel like staying, this is of course his parents enabling this type of behavior. If I acted a fool like this and I got a call home, and a referral, there would have been consequences. Does this not happen now adays? I realize, once again that I had great parents and my mentality was never to defy them, or anyone of authority for that matter, but is there no motivation to just not be a jerk now these days? I can, by no means, claim to be an expert on parenting, but I have always lived by the ideal that you should treat others as you would want to be treated, but if everyone is being treated the way these little jerks treat me, then I am afraid for the future. I know things are not all rainbows and flowers, but if would be nice if they could treat the other human being in the room decently for the whole 60 minutes they may ever see them in their life. 

Substitute teaching continues to be a challenge, my abilities, and my motivation, are put into question almost everyday, but I forge on bravely, or stupidly, really it is hard to tell. 

The Drifter

School site: CHS
Subject: Where ever the heck they put me.

The holidays wiped me out. Retail is absolutely brutal that way, the funniest part is the majority of the stress came from our lack of trained staff. They were trained enough to preform their jobs, but certainly not psychologically prepared for what they would encounter. This of course is a post for different blog, so on to today's, insanity(?)

I've mentioned once or twice how impersonal substituting is. The mentality I receive most days is " you're not my real teacher..." which is followed promptly by bout of apathy regarding the person conducting the class. Don't get me wrong some classes are great, but this is often brought about by great teachers who have set a calm atmosphere for the class, a routine, and ultimately have some kind of personal connection to their students. This is what they taught us in our credential program, and it is evident in some classes, but if I had great classes everyday this would be a very boring blog.

I don't think I have found a less personal experience than being a roving sub. My assignment this week was to watch some classes while the teachers went to discuss a student's Individual Education Plan or IEP. These are for students who have been identified as having trouble in their classes. This student could have special needs ranging from bad vision to an auditory processing problem. Basically if the student needs specialized attention for a learning disability that has been -identified- if will be in this IEP and all teachers who have student will have to adhere to these guidelines.

So basically the teacher is out for a period, at the most, and many teachers do not have a sub plan written out for this occasion, I mean it's only one class. So I have encountered classes where I just sat and watched them goof off the whole time, to classes where they had a PowerPoint set up for the students to take notes on. This kind of amused me because before they left they did not really go over much of the content of the PowerPoint, but rather teaching me how to run the PowerPoint. I was polite because they obviously do not know my background, but seriously? I am well aware of how to run a PowerPoint. These were very simplistic explanations too, I mean

" So, just press the arrow forward to go forward, and press it back if you need to go to the previous slide, remember there are different things going on during the slides so press the 'forward' or 'back' arrow"

"Yeah, got it... "

The structure brought on by the teacher I'm subbing for is what I often rely on to have a decent day, but in these cases I only have an hour to really get accustomed to this structure. On a normal day I only see the students for an hour anyway, but I'm able to get a feel for the impact the teacher has made on their students. Do the students hate them? Are there pieces of  " I love (teacher)" art everywhere? Does the teacher's desk look like a tornado hit it? These are all indicators of the kind of day I'm going to have. I can also get a feel for the type of students I'm going to encounter based on the first couple of periods, there are of course exceptions to this rule. The schools social network is also a buzz "Hey there is a sub in so and so's class" " Oh yeah he's cool!" or "Aww I hate that guy, I'm going to ditch." In the end I leave a pretty detailed note of how the day went and let the teacher really deal with anyone who was disrespectful or went against the rules of the class.

I don't get these kind of experiences being a roving sub, I literally show up, sit with the kids, or conduct whichever activity they were in the middle of, and 30 to 59 minutes later I'm out of there. In some respects it's like a band aid *poof* it's gone. On the other hand I need to work hard to find the flow to my day as a rover, which truly helps me set the teachings of my Sensei into perspective, "Your movements must be fluid, ever changing, both pulling and pushing, like the Yin Yang"

Would I do it again? Heck yes, I have definitely been in worse situations, block classes and alternative schools to name a few, I think the biggest downfall I see to roving is that I really am trying to progress in my career, and this feels more like I am filling space rather than "Teaching." You could literally stick anyone in that classroom for those 30 minutes, with the obvious exceptions, Herbert the Pervert, or a serial killer, and the students would be fine.

I was wiped out from the holidays, and not looking forward to dealing with more rude kids after retail hell, but subbing for a friend and roving this week has brought back the gluten in me, it has instilled some confidence in me, "Hey I'm still capable of handling myself in a classroom," and I think I'm ready for more abuse. This is of course once more jobs become available, the beginning of the quarter is usually very light, but you can see the semester wear down the teachers, and progressively more jobs are available midway through the semester.
Substitute teaching is an experience