Sub-sistence

To butcher a line from a Weird Al song about Yoda (which parodied a song called Lola), but if it fits…  This was my fate Thursday when I accepted a PE job at a middle school.  This was every bit as unexciting as it sounds.  There was a yoga instructor two double-classes of eighth grade with myself and at least one other teacher standing bored while the kids went through a yoga routine.  When I first found out about the yoga my spiritual sensors perked up as yoga can be taught from a spiritual point of view.  Hey, if Christianity isn’t allowed in the public schools neither is Eastern Pantheism; i.e. new age religion.  Fortunately they left this part out, and I did pay close attention to make sure of it.  I have read too many stories of kids being taught the experience of other religions, and not just about them to just sit back.  In any event, as I said, all was well.  They mostly did relaxation exercises and positions, with no explanation of those positions, at least on that day.

You might have noticed I mentioned eighth grade with the yoga.  What about 6th and 7th grades?  After all this is PE we’re talking about.  Well, those grades did yoga too, or fitness, depending on the class.  However, the teacher I was subbing for had four periods of health and just two of PE.  6th grade had a video to watch.  It was a video that was shown on prime time TV around 1990.  It was a “test” about how much we know about handling emergencies, and was hosted by the late John Ritter.  It also had several other stars of the day including Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Landon, Julia Child, and the one that played the geeky character in The Wonder Years.  I tried to look up this video on IMDB but it never got entered in as none of the actors I looked up had any reference to it listed.  Essentially it was a 45-minute multiple choice/true-false test (with at least one other type of question thrown in).  Of course we didn’t finish it, but a couple students asked if they would finish it tomorrow which means it interested them.

The 7th grade classes also involved videos.  They were making videos with iMovie, using the built-in webcams on their iBooks.  This got interesting watching them finish them, playing the parts of police officers, drunks, homeless people, announcers, and whatnot.  Many were editing though so I didn’t get to see everyone act.

Wednesday was really nothing special, just an easy day with 3rd grade.  Easy particularly because they had a half-hour of gym in the morning, an hour of art in the afternoon, and twenty minutes of filling out a “wish list” for the book fairs.  These Scholastic book fairs are really for the benefit of Scholastic and the schools, which receive commissions in books for the books sold.  As for the consumer, the parent, it’s just an opportunity to pay full cover price for some books and software.  I guess since it does benefit the schools I really can’t complain.

This brings us to today.  I was in the rival school to the one I was at Thursday.  The subject: one of the five foreign languages taught at this school.  In fact, for 6th graders they have to take every one of them during the year.  They all have one period divided into quarters for the year and one period in sixths.  These “hex-mesters” are a short six weeks, so needless to say they don’t learn the languages as much as explore them.  7th and 8th graders are treated to a full year in one language for the learning purpose.  I would suppose they get to choose which language they want to take.  Which one did I sub for (don’t even think I taught this class…)?  Just call me Herr Teacher instead of Mr. Teacher.  Actually, don’t because I don’t like the sound of it. :)  These kids just made word searches all day with a particular set of deutsch (German) words each grade had been learning.  Well, they can’t all be fun days.

From Tuesday to Thursday, I guess it could be said that I went from 8th to 8 and back again… :D  Eighth grade to 8 years old, like C & L’s eldest, back to 8th.  Well 6th and 7th grades were involved too, but still… 

I keep meaning to mention this bit of info.  Or maybe I already did but don’t remember.  In any event, I was at a middle school doing PE, but you already knew that.  Unlike Thursday’s PE, we actually got to go outside.  Well, there were two periods of sixth grade health, but that’s why I specified PE, didn’t I? :)  So, for PE 8th grade played kickball and 7th grade played soccer.  We used the baseball diamonds to play kickball.  The first class went fairly well.  They chose to play boys versus girls which worked out about as well as you would expect, being the girls at that age are more, well, feminine than a few years ago.  This of course is not meant to be sexist as there are many female athletes, most, if not all, of which can wipe the floor with me as I am a non-sports guy.  However, when talking about eighteen girls, most of them react to sports like kickball as one might expect.  It should be noted that they wanted to do boys versus girls.  I was skeptical about it, but if even the girls wanted it than I wasn’t going to stand in the way.  They outnumbered the boys too, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt.  Except the boys still issued the girls a major defeat.  The second class I didn’t even let get to the point of suggesting boys vs girls.  As soon as we were on the field I randomly picked two students as captains and had them pick teams, alternating boys and girls as long as possible.  This class was the goofiest of the day, though not matching the two classes I mentioned Thursday.  They just didn’t take the game seriously.  Well, I guess if I was going to be in high school in just a few weeks I might take advantage of a nice day outside with a sub too.  I didn’t let it bother me- I just wrote it down for the gym teacher to read when he gets back.

But where does the title come in?  Well, it has to do with 7th grade soccer, which went quite well by the way, excepting the fact that the goals were not placed across from each other which I only noticed after a student informed me that the point I was about to place the ball wasn’t center.  I looked back at the goal I was using to center the ball and it was centered as best as I could tell.  I looked at the other goal and I was putting the ball at a point that wasn’t even between the two goal cones.  What the…?  Unfortunately I couldn’t move the goal because the teacher this morning had drawn goalie boxes .  Oh well.  There were no sidelines anyway so no big deal.  The second 7th grade class is where the title finally comes into play.  How often is it one finds two students at the same school, in the same grade, and on the same team with the same name?  And by this I mean first and last name.  I actually noticed this issue weeks ago.  It was when in one class I noticed there was a boy named Peter who sounded like a student I knew from church.  Once class started I looked at him and he wasn’t the one.  Another day I noticed the name again, and found it was attached to a different boy.  Huh?  This boy did look familiar.  It took another couple times subbing for this grade before I realized the two were on the same team though rarely in the same class for some reason.  At least the classes I subbed in.  My guess is they were purposely given different schedules to aid the teachers.  However, when it came to PE, there was only one time available per team so both Peters were in the same gym class, though different teachers.  Well, for soccer the two classes combined and I took the boys out on one field while she took the girls out on another field.  So, you guessed it: Peter vs Peter.  They aren’t really two of a kind other than their name.  They look different, and in soccer one defended while the other played on offense.

Oh, and only one was the Peter I knew.  He goes to a different church now, but he did attend mine a few years ago.