The Sad Economics of The Classroom

I was in a classroom late last spring, when I asked the teacher I was subbing, if she had anymore paper for the afternoon assignments.

The teacher told me the paper that was on the window sill was all she had left.

My mouth dropped.

She then told me that the paper that was left was from several packets she bought after she ran out of the paper the school gave her months before.

How did we get here?

Years ago, teachers bought supplies because they wanted to, now they are buying supplies because they have to.

It would be great if every kid had a laptop and they can do their assignments without paper, but most schools do not have that luxury.

You can tell the kids to ration their supplies , but kids usually waste their fall supplies by drawing cartoons, writing notes or making triangles for table football games and they lose they pencils and pens just as fast!

(I can't count how many times a kid has asked me for a pen or pencil).

In August, parents and teachers are bombarded by school supplies at deep discounts, but by the end of September, the prices usually go back up. Not astronomically, but enough where you have to bargain shop for supplies.

Something that might help could be if stores like Target or Wal-Mart have back to school sales twice a year.

A second back to school drive right after New Years could help teachers and parents stock up on supplies for the winter and spring.

Maybe the discounts would not be as deep as in August, but it could be cost-effective enough for to help educators, parents and students for the rest of the year.

However the chances of stores doing a second back to school sale is minimal and with talks of the GOP maybe cutting more funding in education, teachers could one day run out of supplies by the second day of school.

Sure that's a joke, but how much more funding can be cut from schools, before it will eventually effect how teachers teach and students learn?

(* Have you come across teachers or schools that were low on supplies? What did they do to survive? Do you have any ideas that might help educators with their school supply shortage?)

No Lesson? No Problem! (Sort of)

During my assignment as a middle school music teacher, I ran into a problem.

I only had two days of lesson plans for a three-day assignment.

The music teacher was only supposed to be out for a two days, but unfortunately he could not return until the following week. The school asked me if I could finish out the week, so I said OK.

I knew that the morning classes wouldn’t be a problem because they played instruments, so I told them to break into groups and create their own music. Which worked well for some, but very noise for others.

However the afternoon classes would be different story because those students were in classrooms and didn't play instruments.

I could have turned the classes into a student hall, but if you are a substitute teacher, you know that unless you are a tough or have a another teacher with you, study hall is more talking than reading.

I was screwed...or so I thought.

While I was cleaning up the music room (students are messy at every age), I noticed that one of the students left their history assignment, which was a word puzzle on the civil war.

I was about to toss the puzzle out, when it hit me. Why not create a musical word puzzle!

I scoured the net until I found a number of websites that allowed you to create your own word puzzles.

Instead of Bach and Beethoven, I decided to make the word puzzle a bit hipper.

I used the names artists that the students knew like Drake and Nikki Minaj, but I also added artists like Prince and the The Beatles to give the word puzzle a sense of music history.

The word puzzle had around 25 names and it was pretty difficult, so I allowed the students to work in groups, but I said it was also a competition to see which group could correctly finish the puzzle first.

Surprisingly, the students really got into it.

I would walk around and to give words of encourage, but if I noticed a group that was doing more talking than solving, I would change the group's members.

For groups that were moving a little slower, I would say “You guys doing a great, but **Keisha’s group is almost finished. I know you can do it, but you might need to work a little harder.”

I believe that slight nudge helped some of the students focus and work as a team.

When I passed the puzzle out to the next class, some of the students said it was too hard.

I responded by showing them the puzzles of the previous class and said that while the puzzle is tough, the last class was able to finish it and I knew they had the ability to do the same.

Towards the end of class, we talked about the artists that the students didn't know.

Most of the time, I didn't have to say much because there was always a student who said their parent brother, aunt,etc. exposed them to an artist like Led Zeppelin or Al Green and they would rattle off some facts about the artist, (if there was one older artist that students knew the best it was Michael Jackson, which is amazing since most of them were born way after his peak.)

Although word puzzles may not work in every class, it's a great and fun way for students focus and promote teamwork.

(* Have you ever been in position where you were without a lesson plan? What did you do to make a stressful situation, a productive one?

(* *Keisha is a fake name, but her group did finish first. )

Try these sites to create your own word puzzle:

www.puzzle-maker.com

www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/

www.discoveryeducation.com/puzzlemaker/  

http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/words/search/

www.edhelper.com/crossword_free.htm

www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/

www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com/create.html

How I Used Subway and Videos Games to Inspire Kids

Before I was a substitute teacher, I was asked to talk to a group of 9th graders.

There was a program in town, sort of like Junior Achievement, where professionals to speak to high schoolers about their careers

Now keep in mind, before I knew what it was like to be teacher, so I didn’t know what to expect, because standing in front of young kids is a pretty daunting thing.

When you first look at them, you start asking yourself, “Did I look that young in 9th grade?”
Uhh, yes!

So I stood in front of the kids and talked about my life, going from high school to college and professions I held, then I asked them what they wanted to do with their lives.

All I heard was crickets

The silence was deafening that I felt like were staring at each other for hours instead of seconds, when a kid suddently said “I want to work at Subway”.

The kids laughed.

I knew that if I didn’t say something fast, they would think this whole thing is a joke, so I said, “Hey there is nothing wrong working at Subway, it’s a good job”.

I then asked the young man if he worked at a Subway and he said yes.

I told him that since he was working at a Subway that he would have an opportunity to either become manager or better yet own his own subway and make money?

The laughter stopped. Their eyes began to widen.

I then asked how many of them liked playing video games.

A bunch of hands went up.

I told them that even though playing games is fun, there were many jobs in the gaming industry from testing games, to designing game to create the art for the boxes to actually owning the games as a business.

By that time, the chatter turned from who is this guy is wow that would be cool.

The last thing I told them that the best jobs in the world are the based around what passionate about or a hobby that you enjoy, because then it’s not a job, it’s a career.

It’s been a few years, so it’s almost time for these kids to graduate, hopefully I made difference.

For non-teachers, I think it’s important to help mentor young minds, either by going to schools to talk about your profession, allowing field trips to your business or being involved with afterschool.

For some kids, they may not see a man or woman in suit or wrap their brains around the possibility of becoming something bigger than their neighborhood like becoming a doctor, lawyer, computer programmer, teacher or a franchise owner of Subways around the world.

*(What are your students’ responses when professionals come and speak to your classes? Are they inspired or does it take a bit more to encourage them to think big?)

Every Class is A Different Stand-Up Routine

When I was in college I was a DJ performing on the radio and in the clubs.

One of the principals of being a successful DJ knows how to read the room. You might play a set of the songs that a crowd loved one weekend, but those same songs could people off the dance floor the next weekend.

Stand-up comedians are the same way.

Where a set of jokes might kill during the 8PM show, those same jokes may fall flat at the 10PM show.
Being a teacher has a lot of these same principals.

Unless you are assigned for consecutive days, where students become familiar with you, walking in as a substitute teacher is like the first day of school every day.

On the first day of school, a teacher meets their students for the first time, but by the end of the month that same teacher realizes what buttons to push to help their students succeed.

My personality is quite fun loving and relaxed, but I realized quickly that my personality may work on some grades and classes, but fail miserably in others.

I taught a high school English class where some kids were disruptive as we read stories out loud. Luckily for me, my humor helped me calm those students down and in fact one of those disruptive students actually read in class for the first time!

However, a few periods later, my humor did not save me.

The assignment was the same, but tactic I used to get the students to read did not work. Where In the last class I had a few kids talking, in this class kids were actually going to sleep!

I was at my wits end, when the teaching assistant told me that this particular class likes to stand up and read the story as a play than to sit in their seat and the read the book out loud.

I quickly pivoted and asked for volunteers to perform the story as a play. Surprisingly enough I had more kids than parts.

Although the class only performed only a couple of pages of the book that information from the teaching assistant saved what would have been a wasteful day in class.

While most teachers leave notes to let you know what works in particular classes, sometimes subs are left to figure out what motivates a class by themselves without the help of a fairy godmother aka teaching assistant.

Like DJ’s and stand-up comedians, the ability of a teacher to read a class room takes years to perfect, but for subs, years are reduced to precious minutes to quickly figure or may not work in a classroom.

For substitute teachers, what method do you use to connect with your students? (I like to hear the good, the bad and the ugly).
For long time teachers, how long to did it take to figure out what works best in your classroom and what happens if you can’t connect to your students?

Stopped a School Fight...Scolded By Office

One of my first assignments as a substitute teacher was a physical education class in a middle school.

During my one of my classes there seemed to be a growing disturbance between a group of girls and another young lady who was developmentally challenged.
At some point during the class, a fight broke out between the girls.

As I stopped the fight out to find out what happened, I realized quickly that the fight wasn’t as simple as the group of the girls jumping on the special needs child.

In actuality, both of them said things that were derogatory to each other and seemed more likely that the special needs girl started the fight. With no resolution in sight, I decided to take all of them should be sent to the office.

Once I took the girls to the office, the secretary asked me who was watching the gym. I said no one. I was immediately reprimanded by the unit principal for leaving my class and was told to go back to the gym.

Once I went back to the gym, I noticed that the office that was in was ransacked and although my personal positions were not taken, (I put them in secret compartment buy the desk) all of the basketballs that were secured in the back room were gone.

I immediately shut everything down, retrieved the basketballs and made the kids sit until the bell rang.

Although I was probably wrong for leaving the gym that was the first time I was involved in a fight and I didn’t trust the girls to go to the office on their own. Nowadays, I know it’s best to contact security in those situations, but I still question what the best way to handle a school fight.

For my educating friends out there, how would you handle this situation differently or how have you handle fights during your time as teacher?