I spent the first day today on a three-day assignment where I had an excellent time and where I know I am going to have two more excellent days. The job was at a middle school and I was substituting for a science teacher.
Just about everything concerning this job was excellent. The regular teacher had written out a clean explanation of the times and classes when I would be working with students -- always a great start.
I have substituted for a few classes where I walked into the classroom and found no lesson plan and no obvious work to be done. In cases like that, I have had to wing it and do a song and a dance about whatever subject the class concerned, and/or I have asked the students to spend their time reviewing work for the class and doing homework for other classes. Compared to that sort of situation, today's classes were wonderful.
The schedule involved other teachers bringing their classes to my room, where I took over the students and gave them pages of work to do and then turn in by the end of the hour. Some of them had difficulty understanding some of the reading on the sheets, so I was able to move among the class to those who had raised their hands for help, and give some assistance.
Before the day started, when I signed in at the main office, I had the foresight to ask for the number I should call in case I needed security. It turned out that I didn't need it. The students were fairly well behaved.
I also went to two classrooms on either side of mine and introduced myself. I asked what measures they recommended for taking care of troublesome kids. Both teachers told me that I had three good recourses. First, I could send one or more students to their own classes. Since kids are much quieter and better behaved with a teacher they know to be a "regular teacher" instead of a substitute, these two teachers didn't mind. Second, I was given a name of a staff member who seems to be in charge of discipline and told that I could send a kid to him anytime, and have one of the other kids accompany the malefactor to make sure he got to this gentleman. And third, I was told not to hesitate to send a student to the principal's office.
With these three behavioral tools, I was armed and ready for whatever might happen. It was quite a contrast compared to a few schools I've worked in recently where almost no sanctions for misbehavior are provided, and where, having denied a substitute the tools he or she needs for classroom management, they then blame the substitute if the class does not behave.
The kids were third and fourth graders. Don't assume that the little, younger students cannot be difficult. When they are badly behaved, they all tend to run around in the classroom at the same time, and it is almost impossible to get them seated and doing productive work.
One of the great aspects of today's work that made me happy was that I was not confronted with what I have elsewhere called "the Black princess complex." Many Black young ladies seem to start behaving as though they are "princesses" and deserve no discipline when they are in the firth or sixth grade. This may sound like a racist remark, but any substitute in my school system would immediately recognize what is meant by "the Black princess Complex" if you simply named it to them. We've all experienced it, and it is one of the most maddening things to deal with a student who shows no respect and who has "an attitude."But today's classes had no "princesses" in them. The kids were not yet old enough.
One lf the teachers bringing a class to my room in the afternoon stopped me as I would leaving for the staff lunchroom. She told me that her class, which was coming after lunch, had several problem kids, and I should not hesitate to send them to another classroom or to the principal. One of them, a student larger than the others, was aggressive and got into fights. Three of the students, she warned me, seemed to have weak bladder control, and if they asked to go to the bathroom they should be sent there immediately.
The student who often fought showed up in the classroom about fifteen minutes before lunchtime was over and asked if he could help. I gave him the job of passing out worksheets to every place in the class so the kids would have them as soon as they arrived. I also asked him to be a scorekeeper for me. I set up a big chart on the whiteboard, one side designated with a big + and the other side with a big -. I told him I would instruct him which names belonged on the chart, the plus being for the names of students who worked and the minus for the names of students who just fooled around.
A number of teachers in various schools I have subbed in have had a system where they award red tickets such as what one might get at the movies, and which the students can use eventually, when they've amassed enough, to "buy" prizes. I announced that students would get tickets at the end of the class for completing their work. And five minutes before the period ended, I asked for all the students' worksheets, quickly scanned them, and awarded tickets to kids who had completed answering the all the questions on the worksheets.
The pugnacious kid didn't get into any fights, and simply felt important. And most important, although the students were a little noisy at times, about 95% did all their work and were awarded tickets.
I would be the first to admit that my classroom management skills are not first-rate. But with the help of other teachers and with the sanctions that were in place and ready to be used, today went so well I am looking forward to tomorrow.
Just about everything concerning this job was excellent. The regular teacher had written out a clean explanation of the times and classes when I would be working with students -- always a great start.
I have substituted for a few classes where I walked into the classroom and found no lesson plan and no obvious work to be done. In cases like that, I have had to wing it and do a song and a dance about whatever subject the class concerned, and/or I have asked the students to spend their time reviewing work for the class and doing homework for other classes. Compared to that sort of situation, today's classes were wonderful.
The schedule involved other teachers bringing their classes to my room, where I took over the students and gave them pages of work to do and then turn in by the end of the hour. Some of them had difficulty understanding some of the reading on the sheets, so I was able to move among the class to those who had raised their hands for help, and give some assistance.
Before the day started, when I signed in at the main office, I had the foresight to ask for the number I should call in case I needed security. It turned out that I didn't need it. The students were fairly well behaved.
I also went to two classrooms on either side of mine and introduced myself. I asked what measures they recommended for taking care of troublesome kids. Both teachers told me that I had three good recourses. First, I could send one or more students to their own classes. Since kids are much quieter and better behaved with a teacher they know to be a "regular teacher" instead of a substitute, these two teachers didn't mind. Second, I was given a name of a staff member who seems to be in charge of discipline and told that I could send a kid to him anytime, and have one of the other kids accompany the malefactor to make sure he got to this gentleman. And third, I was told not to hesitate to send a student to the principal's office.
With these three behavioral tools, I was armed and ready for whatever might happen. It was quite a contrast compared to a few schools I've worked in recently where almost no sanctions for misbehavior are provided, and where, having denied a substitute the tools he or she needs for classroom management, they then blame the substitute if the class does not behave.
The kids were third and fourth graders. Don't assume that the little, younger students cannot be difficult. When they are badly behaved, they all tend to run around in the classroom at the same time, and it is almost impossible to get them seated and doing productive work.
One of the great aspects of today's work that made me happy was that I was not confronted with what I have elsewhere called "the Black princess complex." Many Black young ladies seem to start behaving as though they are "princesses" and deserve no discipline when they are in the firth or sixth grade. This may sound like a racist remark, but any substitute in my school system would immediately recognize what is meant by "the Black princess Complex" if you simply named it to them. We've all experienced it, and it is one of the most maddening things to deal with a student who shows no respect and who has "an attitude."But today's classes had no "princesses" in them. The kids were not yet old enough.
One lf the teachers bringing a class to my room in the afternoon stopped me as I would leaving for the staff lunchroom. She told me that her class, which was coming after lunch, had several problem kids, and I should not hesitate to send them to another classroom or to the principal. One of them, a student larger than the others, was aggressive and got into fights. Three of the students, she warned me, seemed to have weak bladder control, and if they asked to go to the bathroom they should be sent there immediately.
The student who often fought showed up in the classroom about fifteen minutes before lunchtime was over and asked if he could help. I gave him the job of passing out worksheets to every place in the class so the kids would have them as soon as they arrived. I also asked him to be a scorekeeper for me. I set up a big chart on the whiteboard, one side designated with a big + and the other side with a big -. I told him I would instruct him which names belonged on the chart, the plus being for the names of students who worked and the minus for the names of students who just fooled around.
A number of teachers in various schools I have subbed in have had a system where they award red tickets such as what one might get at the movies, and which the students can use eventually, when they've amassed enough, to "buy" prizes. I announced that students would get tickets at the end of the class for completing their work. And five minutes before the period ended, I asked for all the students' worksheets, quickly scanned them, and awarded tickets to kids who had completed answering the all the questions on the worksheets.
The pugnacious kid didn't get into any fights, and simply felt important. And most important, although the students were a little noisy at times, about 95% did all their work and were awarded tickets.
I would be the first to admit that my classroom management skills are not first-rate. But with the help of other teachers and with the sanctions that were in place and ready to be used, today went so well I am looking forward to tomorrow.
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