Another Day

I had no assignment for today but I received a call at 7:25 a.m. to come to School A because a teacher was unexpectedly going to be absent.

The day consisted of two periods of World History, a conference period (in which no students are present, so the teacher can relax and think about what is coming up next), followed by an American History class, lunch (45 minutes), and two more periods of American history.

For starters, these classes were to take place in one of the temporary buildings, and there were no keys to the classroom available. I had to go find a custodian to unlock the classroom. This sounds as though it isn't important, but the walk from where one signs in to the temporary classrooms is quite long and seems even longer when one has arthritis as I do.

The teacher had become ill and there had been no advance warning. When I got to the classroom there were no lesson plans. A search of the files and binders with classwork information in them revealed only lesson plans up until the day before, but nothing for the day I was to substitute.

When the students came in and took their places (reluctantly), I passed around a sign-in sheet and tried to remember various students' names. Then the moment of truth arrived. I had to tell the students what they were to do for the period. Nobody seemed to have any inkling, so I announced that they could 1) Work on classwork or homework for other courses; 2) Catch up on work for this course; 3) Listen to their ipods and relax -- which many of them always want to do, and which doesn't accomplish any learning; or 4) Those who wanted to learn something new could come down to the front of the class and I could tell them about Africa. About four students out of 25 came down, and I began a rambling, but internally connected talk, writing terms on the board as I went along. I told them about the Ivory Coast in West Africa, which I had visited the year before and which I will be returning to in three weeks. I discussed the French colonial capital of Grand Bassam; the yellow fever plague that killed 3/4 of the entire population in the area; the cause of yellow fever; the Kingdom of the N'Zima, which includes Grand Bassam, Southern Cote d'Ivoire, and part of Ghana; the French treatment of the King of the N'zima; the Assima holiday (which I will shortly be photographing); and that other scourge of Africa, malaria. All of this I couched in terms of relevancy for the African-Americans in the group because many of the slaves who were brought to this hemisphere were captured and sent from the N'Zima area. Once we got into malaria, I tried to point out that all things are connected. I asked if anyone knew someone who had sickle cell anemia, explained the difference between the sickle-shaped red blood cell and the normal shaped red blood cell, which can carry more oxygen, and explained that the sickle-shaped red blood cell was an adaptation of Africans that help them be less succeptible to malaria. From there we got into DDT, the near eradication of malaria, the discovery that DDT had enormously bad ecological effects, and the discontinuation of the use of DDT before malaria had been totally conquored. This. of course, is what caused the recurrence of malaria in many areas where it had been thought to have been eliminated. Then I discussed the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

At least one students actually wrote down the name of the book !

That was about as much as I could accomplish impromptu, so then we all relaxed for 15 minutes before the bell rang.

I had a repeat show with the same material for the second period and some time to relax during the third. Then the fourth period -- American history -- was upon me, again with no lesson plan.

I noticed that some of the students wanted to play "hangman," the game where you write spaces for the letters in an expression and the students guess which letters go where, and slowly piece the sentence together until they properly guess it.

I decided that since this was American history, I should use some sentences about important figures in American history, give some clues, and let them piece together what the sentence was about.

I wrote clues on the board, clues such as "Bang ! Bang ! Blood !" And I set out the outlines of a sentences like this:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ ?


As the students start guessing letters, what takes shape is: "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play ?" And this led us into a short discussion of Lincoln's assassination and John Wilkes Booth, whom most had never heard of.

We also did: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _' _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _." As they guess letters, I told them this was a song lyric, and gave them the hints that it concerned a white male who was strongly anti-slavery, who many people thought was mad, and who was eventually hung. And I added, "Shall we take the ferry, Harper ?"

In case you are wondering, this was "John Brown's body lies amouldering in the grave." So I got to explain some things about who John Brown was, what he did, and his significance.

This sort of thing took me through the fourth period, after which I had lunch, and then through the fifth and sixth period. I was exhausted when I went home. However, it did seem to me that I had managed to do some interesting impromptu songs and dances to get through the day. The next time around, may I PULEEEEZE have lesson plans awaiting me !