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?

...And You're Late Because?

One day I had an assignment at a middle school, where part of my duties was to sign in students in who were late for homeroom.

Growing up, the only time I was late was if I overslept, (which as rare since my mom mad sure I got up on time).  I figured, how many kids could possibly be late for school?

Umm... a lot

By the time the last home room bell rang, I was deluged by over 20 kids waiting for me to sign hall passes for homeroom, (the line was so long, I thought the kids were waiting for the next Twilight movie).

At first I began filling out the slips carefully, but because there so many kids, I had to write fast. Astonishingly, some of these kids became upset with me.  

Some kids were upset that I wasn’t writing fast enough (really!?!), while others were frustrated because I wrote their name wrong, (hey kid, blame your parent for your name, not me).  

The thing that was most shocking was that neither one of the two secretaries didn’t help me at all until one realized that I was completely overwhelmed and she reluctantly assisted me filling out hall passes.

There were a few kids who had their parents with them and they explained their child was late, but the rest of these kids didn’t have an excuse for their tardiness, (I later found out that most the tardy students are usually on school grounds before the bell rings, but they rather hang out with their friends than go to homeroom).

For kids who are late, they are sent to detention during lunch time.

The guy running the detention lunch hour was pretty tough, but I don’t think that he nor the detention was much of deterrent, especially since quite a few of the kids were tardy on a regular basis.

I think if you are tardy for homeroom more than three times, you don’t have detention for lunch, you actually have to help clean up during the lunch hour.  

This means sweeping the cafeteria, cleaning lunch tables and dumping trash.  

No child, especially during their puberty years, does not want to be seen cleaning up their peer’s Jell-O Pudding cups. Though embarrassing, this might be a way to make sure kids show up on time for school.

During your assignments, have you encountered kids being late for homeroom?

What did the school or teachers do to alleviate this problem?