Shock, Surprise, and Sadness

After my nightmare experience teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science in that trainwreck urban charter school, I am always amazed at the difference between the public school suburban students and my former beloved terrors. Today's science lesson for sixth graders:

"Have them read pages 55-61 and answer the
questions on page 61. Go over the questions if there is
time."

So I tell the students what to do and.... wait for it.... they do it! I mean, really do it! Suddenly the room is filled with the sounds of adolescent voices taking turns reading the book. Reading the book? What?! I could barely get my students to read the questions, let alone the chapter. In fact, most probably couldn't read the book, having been passed over too many times in a decripite system.

But these kids? "Describe how the motions of gas particles are related to the pressure exerted by the gas." No sweat. Of course it's "as the moving gas particles collide with the walls of their container, they push on the container walls." In the words of Liz Lemon, "A doiii!"

Still, I miss my charter school kids. They have flavor and soul and pizzazz. I miss their dancing and their swagger and their banter. Most of them had to grow up too fast, unfortunately. It wasn't their faults that they were stuck in a charter school that fed their parents a good line and then screwed them over. I wish I could have taken them out of that school and into this district with me. I really, really miss them, but then again I wouldn't be able to stand any more abuse by the administration.

The Substitute Survival Kit

Most sub plans can be summed up thusly:

"Tell them to do this work and make sure they don't kill each other."
(a loose interpretation)

In the nice suburban school district I sub in, most teachers have trained their students well enough to have them do self-directed work relatively quietly. The few rebels can be easily cowed by a stern command and the teacher "look of death." Therefore to prevent utter boredom, the substitute must come prepared with her own means of amusement in order to prevent certain death by boredom.

My substitute survival kit usually contains:

• Light reading material
• Cell phone equipted with Tetris
• Illicit login and password (although all subs sign the acceptable use policy, we aren't given logins-- another sign of our "sub"-par (get it? lame, I know) status)
• Super strong coffee
• Lunch
• Knitting (usually a toy for my cat)
• Additionnal work, i.e. applications for jobs or grad school, transcriptions I'm working on

Is there anything I'm forgetting? Look, I know I'm probably not putting a model version of substituting out there, but there's not much "teaching" to it. I get excited whenever I can actually teach something or help a student, but to be honest, it doesn't happen very honest. So let's not pretend subbing is something it's not.

Welcome to the fabulous life...

...of a substitute teacher. Here are some of the benefits you can look forward to:

• Never knowing if you'll get a job
• Groggily typing your passcode after being woken up by your cell phone
• Watching the same movie five or more times in one day
• Kids who equate substitute with day off
• Teachers & administrators treating you as a sub-par educator and human being in general
• Wondering if taking out all of those college loans were really worth this
• Constant prayer that you will get a full time job over the summer

This blog will be the chronicle of my substitute teaching experience. There are hundreds like me who, every day, participate in this glorified babysitting. Some are retired teachers who must be running low on their social security benefits or are insane enough to enjoy subbing. Most, however, are recent graduates in the field of education, hoping and praying that they can weasel their way into a decent school district and begin the thankless, exhausting task of teaching.

I began subbing in January 2009 in a suburban district in Ohio after leaving the urban charter school I had taught at for four months. Believe me, this suburban kids are cake compared to what I put up with at the urban charter school. I was naive enough to believe that the administration would support me and run the school consistently. Now I'm stuck in the limbo of substitute teaching. My husband is getting his master's, so I'm stuck in this area. He keeps me going, along with the goal of getting 30 sub day so I'll get a pay raise.

So welcome to the jungle.