Year Two Begins

Controlled chaos, the phrase I use to explain my subbing days during my first year. I definitely use this word without hesitation during my first four weeks of the 2009-2010 school year.

Friday to Friday, September 4 to September 11

I do not ask much from the teacher that I am guest teaching for, except for a good lesson plan or basic idea of what happens in the classroom and good classroom management already enforced. However, when I walk into rooms with no lesson plan and do not have any classroom management from their teacher, I learned quickly that it would be either a great day or a very bad day. I can tell what a classroom will be like within 10 seconds after the bell rings, if they are going to respect or at least listen to me, or they could care less.

Subbing for the first day was easy, shortened class periods due to an assembly and it was Friday. I had a somewhat useful lesson plan from the previous sub. This teacher has been out since Wednesday, and the students have seen more subs than their actual teacher, not a good sign. Friday was okay, one government and four world history classes. Nevertheless, Friday afternoon, a few hours after school was over, I get a call asking to come to the following Tuesday and Wednesday.

Make a very stressful week story short. I found out Tuesday I will going to be there the whole week. By Wednesday morning, I found out I would staying for the following two weeks and canceled my few already acquired subbing jobs. Someone from the District came in to help me plan lessons for the 2.5 weeks I was planning to be here Wednesday afternoon. I started filling out paperwork to get log in and an email address. I was really stress, I would come home stare at the lesson plans and just sleep. No matter how much information I read on Chinese Dynasties I could not comprehend what I should be teaching.

To be honest, I was not getting very good support from the school I was subbing at because of just the uncertainty of the situation. Granted the Principal and the school did not know what was going on and it changed day by day. I still needed textbooks from two of my world histories classrooms. By Thursday night, I get a call that I was no longer needed after the next day. The school decided to hire a different long-term sub who has worked in the social studies. I chatted with her and at least she is getting a classroom with better understanding than how I received it. I was disappointed because I was just starting to get my footing in this hole I was getting out of mess, and I wanted to prove myself. I was also grateful, because I was exhausted from the week.

All I want is to prove that I can teach. All I want to do is prove that I am a capable teacher.

Tuesday to Friday, September 15 to September 18

The school district I work for claimed that they did not lay anyone off but they did not renew many of the first year contracts. For some reason this district also had more students then they realized. Therefore, this week I subbed for classes that currently did not have teachers, because they just reshuffled students and classes and were in the process in looking for long-term or new teacher to cover the newly formed classes.

I covered Computer Skills and 6^th grade Science.

Computer Skills, it was easy. The students worked on typing skills the whole week.

6^th Grade Science was another story. One thing I forgot from student teaching 6^th graders in the Fall is that they still think like elementary school students, not middle school students. I dislike elementary school students. Another thing was this class was ahead of all the other 6^th students and they did not want to start science experiments with them, so it was really babysitting. We watched a Nova movie and discussed categories of life.

I survived but I never want to do four days in the science classroom.

Monday, September 21

Alternative High School, Spanish.

I like subbing at the alternative or the last chance middle and high school. They have smaller classes and half the time half the class decides not to show up. Once I had no showed up until ten minutes into class once. I also get more respect from the students.

I subbed for a teacher I have subbed before. Granted she had more Spanish classes than history this time around. However, she wanted me to sub because I subbed for her before. It was easy. Granted not much Spanish actually happened. But you can only do so much Spanish in 90 minutes before the brain shuts down on the subject. I left a note telling her what happened. She will understand that half the classes ended up being a study hall.

I also chatted with another teacher I usually sub for to let her know I was still a sub. She was happy and sad because she can use me as a sub, but sad because I should have my own classroom.

It was good day.

Tuesday, September 22

Middle School, Resource Room

Special Education Resource Room – is a catchall phrase. Usually it means teaching practical foundation classes on all subjects like math, English and social studies or study hall like support classes to help students catch up or understand. The students are all over the place in terms of issues, behavioral, emotional, physical, mental or just lazy (in some cases – yes).

It was one of those days when you are subbing and the only thing you can really do is sit there and watch the chaos play out. Let me just say, I never seen so many middle school kids in one class that actually verbally displayed dislike to their classmates. I am seeing detentions in their future, based on the note I left the teacher.