Before I get back to the district assessment scoring day, I have to give props to the sub (sorry, guest teacher) who filled in while I was eating snacks and reading papers and “calibrating.” The scene when I announce that I will be gone on a particular day plays out the same almost every time. The following is from last year when I wen to my units’ 50 anniversary, but it could be from any time in the last 19 years. There’s a mixture of yeas and ooohs. I always play it up, “I see how it is. I’ll miss you guys too…” Then there’s the chorus of, “You should get ______. (S)he is the best!” (Insert three or four names of pushover-type “guest teachers” who resort to videos or games of Heads Up Seven Up.) Then there’s me saying, “I never request a particular sub, sorry–guest teacher; you guys will have to learn to cope with whomever they send at you. Sometimes they will send you a bonehead. In your life you will sometime, no doubt, have a bonehead for a boss. But guess what? He’s still the boss! So the watchwords are: silence and respect. If you end up with
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I had to take last Friday off (for travel to Suckromento), and it was the first time I’d taken a day off this year. It’s always the same the first time I tell them I will be gone. There’s a mixture of yeas and ooohs. I always play it up, “I see how it is. I’ll miss you guys too…” Then there’s the chorus of, “You should get ______. (S)he is the best!” (Insert three or four names of pushover-type “guest teachers” who resort to videos or games of Heads Up Seven Up.) Then there’s me saying, “I never request a particular sub, sorry–guest teacher; you guys will have to learn to cope with whomever they send at you. Sometimes they will send you a bonehead. In your life you will sometime, no doubt, have a bonehead for a boss. But guess what? He’s still the boss! So the watchwords are: silence and respect. If you end up with a bonehead, let me know, and he won’t be back. But you better be better for the sub than you are for me.” “What?” “I believe I said, ‘You better be better for the sub than you are for me.’ I
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Before I started student teaching, I “knew” I wanted to teach high school. I figured I ‘d have classes of juniors writing witty recreations of “The Nose” By Gogol, and other suchlike fantasies we only see in movies starring Robin Williams. My part-time student teaching (1988, I think) at a junior high (Legit! They were still called that then.) did nothing to change my mind. And even though juniors turned out to be a pain in my full-time student teaching heinie, I still thought that high school would be my milieu. (See, I could use words like that with them.) Aside: After that, I subbed for a year or so at both levels. I had a lot of fun. If you have the right attitude and weapons, and can afford to live on $85 a day, it’s a great job. TIP: When you have a sub (at our school they’re called guest teachers…hahaha), ask the sub to rate each class’s behavior on a scale of 1-10, taking into account cooperation and respect. Tell the sub, and the kids, that only scores of 8 and above are acceptable. I reward classes who score a perfect 10. I go old-school Catholic school
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(Friday Flashback – Last Year) “Mrs. G” has been teaching in our district for over 40 years. She’s been at our school since it opened in 1980. She’s taught English, art, social studies, music, and much more. She is literally an immovable object, and doesn’t need to rise from her chair to strike fear (well, not exactly fear any more, but…) into 8th graders’ hearts. She doesn’t care what people (parents, admins, other teachers) think of her, and speaks her mind whether it’s “appropriate” or not. She currently teaches 8th grade US history, and has been going toe to toe with a particularly pesky student I had last year. Now, this “Steve” sends me e-mails about how the posts he’s reading in the discussion forums on our Moodle don’t have enough thought behind them, and he has a real brain. But he’s a loud-mouthed pain in the rear, whose parents it seems, are wrapped around his finger. I was probably the only teacher he got along with…until Mrs. G. He’s still a pain, and though, like me she recognizes and likes the Steve underneath, she’s not afeared of giving what she gets. So… Food is not allowed in our classooms. [...]
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