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?

Where is Ms. Crabtree?

During my travels as a sub, one of the things that surprises me is when I walk into a classroom and several of students will ask me “Where is Mrs. Lewis” or “Is Mr. Murphy” sick?

Even if the kids complain that they are glad their teacher is not in class that day, it’s rather touching to see students have that much empathy about their teacher.

It doesn’t matter if its first grade or high school seniors, good kids or troublemaker, students seemed to be knocked off balance when their teacher is not in their room. 

For some students, maybe seeing their teacher everyday gives them a safe haven.

 A structure consistency they need to succeed or the daily reassurance of words they need to survive, especially if their lives are rocky outside of school.

For a sub, it’s difficult to fill those shoes.

All I can do is reassure them that their teacher is fine and to make sure they do their work efficiently; but it’s quite heartening to see the impact a teacher makes on his or her students.

I’m sure there are quite a few  teachers out who already knows how much their students care about them, but there are probably much more  who has no idea that when they are away, their  students truly misses them.

If you are sub, who do students react when you fill in for their teacher?

If you are a teacher how does it feel when students tell how much they care about you or the impact you made on their lives?

What To Do With School Absenteeism

A month after I was at the middle school with the tardy kids, returned there for another assignment.

One of my duties this time was to call the homes of the kids who were absent to see why they did not attend school that day.

As much as I was shocked by the kids who were tardy, I was even more surprised by the number of the kids who were absent, which was about a page and a half, (the secretary told me that the list usually longer than that!?!)

• Amazingly, most the calls went pretty fast:

* About half of the phone numbers were disconnected (probably due to people losing their cell phone service).

• Some of the parents/guardians could not speak English, so it was difficult to ask them about their child, (there should be a bi-lingual educator on staff who should handle these calls).

 

• I left quite a few messages on voicemail, which at times felt like I was calling a club due to music and slang that I heard on the voice mails, ( Hey its C-Dizzle, you know what to do…Beep!)

But some of the calls were encouraging.

• The parents/guardians whom I was able to connect with told me they forgot to call the school to report the child’s absence and some asked me about the child’s homework.


• Unfortunately in other cases, the parent/guardian did not know their child was absent  from school that day.

When I was growing up, the very thought of me skipping or flicking school wasn’t in my vocabulary.

 I knew once the school called my home, my mom and then my dad would punish me swiftly. 

I know that kids skipping school is nothing new and this has been going on schools began, but having nearly two pages or more of children absent is quite frighteningly because some of these kids might not ever come back.

It’s hard enough to find a job with a degree, but to try to find a job with a limited education, makes the world a much tougher place to survive.

So why do you think so kids skip school these days?

What do you think parents and school systems should do to decrease these numbers?  

Should we give kids incentives for going?