Sub-sistence

That’s how the saying goes, only it’s talking about children while I’m talking about me.  Welcome to my journey in a deaf and hard-of-hearing classroom.  I always like to joke about how I am monolingual, speak only one language, but even with others from another country, when I talk to them they can usually understand me at least a little.  The problem with subbing in this sort of classroom, I know extremely little sign language.  At least in Spanish, I can tell them I don’t speak Spanish in, er, Spanish (“No hablo español).  Without a translator I am hopeless in a deaf classroom.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve been in one of these rooms.  In fact, I subbed for this same teacher once last year so I knew what to expect.  I arrived there and first thing I noticed was there were no plans.  Sub plans that is- she did have the plans she expected to teach herself.  For the most part, these plans worked out fine.  For two hours in the morning the kids worked on packets called “News-2-You.”  Another teacher in the room for the morning actually taught that.  What did I do in the meantime?  I cut out word cards and laminated book pages, and put together number cards.  They would have had me make copies too, but the machine was taken over by the PTA for the morning.  I did get to teach one lesson though, aided in part by an assistant who was none too happy about being sucked into a translator role.  She was replaced by one much less cold to me about 10-minutes into the lesson (she had to be somewhere else).  I taught the math lesson.  It was an… interesting… experience.  The students were at a lower level than I expected them to be, and I had to skip parts of the lesson and adjust.  Yes, be a real teacher for the hour.

The afternoon was far different from the morning, but I was about as useful.  For most of the afternoon I was in other classrooms acting as the third wheel a teaching assistant for the classes.  I couldn’t help the deaf students mainstreamed in the classes- that was left to an assistant who could sign.  I just walked around, made sure students were working, and in rare instances helped a student or two.  There was a small portion of the afternoon where I was scheduled to teach.  However, when the time rolled around it was myself and the two 6th grade kids (there were two each of 4th, 5th, and 6th-grade kids in her room).  No translator.  Well, scratch teaching.  The cold assistant came in and set them to read for the half hour and then left again.  About 5-minutes later a translator came in, sent by one of the assistants or a teacher as she said she normally wasn’t in the room.  Lesson time?  Nope.  I didn’t have the materials for the lesson, so they continued reading before going off to speech at 2:30, leaving me to act as an assistant again in the 4th grade room where the two 4th-graders were mainstreamed for the afternoon.

All-in-all it was an easy, unexciting day.  Compared to my time in this room last year, it went great.  I remember some dramatic moments, one where a student swore at me in sign language- not that effective since I didn’t understand and he was seen by the teaching assistant, but strange just the same.  I also saw one of my weekend kids in the hall.  When I call him up this week- I’m calling all of my two small groups to remind them of rewards week- I’m sure he’ll want to talk about it.

Did I really not post about my teaching for the last week?  Well, let’s see what I can remember.  Monday I worked as a special ed teacher at a junior high.  The teacher I subbed for I remember used to work in the district’s therapeutic day school program which is a program for students with particularly strong behavioral problems.  They even had large people specifically trained to restrain problem students and bring them to a cooling-off room when required.  I actually subbed for him in that position a couple of years ago.  These days he has moved to those with lesser, but still behavioral, problems.  Much of the day was quite simple with either team teaching (read “sub acts as teaching assistant”) or resource periods where students would work on homework.  He did have a language arts block at the end of the day though.  I did have an assistant to help as I worked with a group at a time so it wasn’t too bad.  We read a story about grey wolves.  The fun began last period, which was a study hall.  That’s when a lot of the behavior problems came out.  No, that’s not true- the last group of language arts was a struggle as well.  They were pretty much the same students in both cases in any event.

Tuesday I worked in grade 1. And 2.  And 3.  And 4.  And 5.  And- no, I’m finished…  I was in fact a floater.  I took over classes for an hour at a time.  I do wish they had organized the meetings a little more in my favor though.  I actually had to go from one end of the school to the other end at one point, a few minute walk due to the design of the building when I had to be in the next room right away.  Fortunately in that case the kids in the second class had been sent out to recess so the teacher was able to go to her meeting though I had not yet arrived.  It was overall an easy day and I was mostly able to talk directly with the teachers before and after meaning no written notes.

Wednesday I was in music.  This was actually the most challenging assignment.  The kids in many of the classes were very talkative.  Grades were mixed here too of course, from second to sixth (not inclusive- I had no third graders).  The older ones were the most challenging.  We did some music games the teacher had left, including instrument bingo (a standard) and a game where they formed musical symbols on the ground with their bodies.  That one was fun.

Thursday- let me look it up.  Ah yes, 5th grade.  Pretty normal though I had one very challenging boy in that class.  I’m not the only one who had problems with him either- I overheard a conversation in the lounge about him.  Apparently when we switched for math (I had the advanced class and did pan balance problems with them- similar to hands on equations I think I mentioned once before) he refused to do any work at all.  Well, with me he worked slowly but he did work.  He got distracted very easily though.  In the end he wasn’t as bad as some students I have had, but still a challenge nonetheless.

Friday I was in another special ed classroom.  The three sixth graders- wow.  Next to ELL a couple of years ago they were the most troublesome.  It was at this same school by the way…   One of the sixth grades is apparently on ADHD medication.  His parents I’m told are quite good at making sure he comes to school ready and medicated.  Guess which day they forgot?  Yep.  Once he had his meds after lunch he was a pleasure to work with.  Of the other two one was got very easily distracted and the other tended to work on only what he wanted to work on and was quite belligerent toward another student.  Two of the three finished their science assignment by the end of the day (worked on during no less than three periods…) and one even finished his math assignment.  There was one seventh grader who mostly worked independently and an eighth grader who wasn’t a problem when working, but he got some bad family news in the middle of the day and he was pretty much done working at that point.

Well, that was how my week went.  Now who would like to join me in subbing?  Come on, there must be one of you…

And only day this week, partly thanks to my connection issues which are unfortunately still ongoing.  I had no internet at all for yesterday afternoon and evening, while today it’s been intermittent.  I wonder if the signal is now too powerful if that’s possible?  I mean, it was going through a cable that was chewed or worn to the center wire, so it’s possible that in the past they have had to increase it to compensate (the cable didn’t get that way overnight after all) and now that it’s fixed, the signal may be too strong.  Just throwing a guess out which is probably completely off.  The tech who was here was unable to measure it as his portable reader needed recharging.  Since the connection was up and I was getting nice speeds (around 19000kbps on speakeasy.net), he just let it go.

Still in special ed on Friday, but not due to meetings this time.  Apparently the teacher had a bad case of bronchitis on Thursday so he wisely opted to take Friday off.  It was actually a rather easy day.  Four classes (well, three really- one was a typical two-period-long language arts class) were team teaching, meaning that a sub just takes the role of a teaching assistant while the other teacher takes over the teaching part.  The other two classes were resource periods.  I just gave them a topic to write about in their journals and once finished they just worked on homework.  There was also a teaching assistant in these classes (a sub too, by the way) so as you can imagine it was a pretty light day.  Next Thursday and Friday I have a job lined up for ELL in another district.  This is a teacher I refused to work for last year or most of the year before.  I am hoping things have changed since most of the students from that problem class have gone on to high school.  I will let you know how it goes, hopefully with other stories throughout the week.

People who know me know that my preference for teaching is about 3rd-7th grades. Stretch a year in either direction, and those are pretty much the jobs I gravitate toward when I have a choice. Of course specials are an exception; I do take those no problem though they may include kindergarten or 1st grade. Since you are an observant reader, you will have noticed the words when I have a choice. Well, I was unable to procure an assignment yesterday leaving me at the mercy of what’s available in the morning. First call came in at about 5:40 and was for kindergarten. I thought about it and foolishly chose not to do it. I figured I would take a chance and check the web since I was awake. I did find a couple of half-day jobs which I also skipped. Then came the full-day preschool assignment. I didn’t think I would see anything younger than the one I rejected, but here it was. Being about 5:50 I decided to gamble again and keep hoping for a better assignment to show up. Nope. Oddly enough though, no one was picking up this full-day assignment for some reason. Finally, the system called me for the assignment so I gave in and took it. At least it was a lot closer to me than the kindergarten job. Then I went back to sleep for an hour.

As it turns out, this district as far as I know does not offer normal preschool. It does however offer special education preschool for the “developmentally delayed.” The morning had eight of ten students there, and was actually kind of a breeze. This kind of classroom has teaching assistants (three!), and today the speech teacher actually came in to take over the class! I had absolutely no problem with this as this age is really out of my comfort zone anyway. I just acted as another T.A. The most I did teachingwise was running a center where they matched patterns and did a connect-the-dots worksheet. Other than that it was keeping kids focused and helping as needed.

The afternoon was a little different. There were slightly fewer students (seven), but this was a more challenging group. One was very autistic and needed special attention, and as a whole the group was lower than the morning group and like the one autistic boy, required more attention. The title of this post refers to me, but in actuality one of the part-time T.A.s in the afternoon was a guy! I would guess he really likes kids to do this, because he is a retired principal from the school I was at and retirement packages for top school administrators tend to be very generous. Either that or some bad investments, but his actions during the afternoon clearly showed the former. He was very good with the kids- unlike a T.A. from another school I worked with recently. That T.A. really yelled at the kids, sometimes for very minor things. To be fair, that school was a middle school, but I really felt for those kids. Aside from that she did a pretty good job, doing things for the students she didn’t have to. If not for this I would have thought she was in the wrong profession entirely.

I was somewhat relieved to go home a little early- preschool ends 15 minutes before the regular grades- partly due to the afternoon class and partly due to the relative inactivity of my job. This is one reason, aside from the very low pay, that I would not want to be a teaching assistant full time. The absolute wost times I have had subbing were as teaching assistants, particularly one-one-one assignments. Never again on those, though I would sub (at regular pay) for other types of teaching assistants, like those with multiple kids or general classroom helpers.

7:15.  That’s what time a sub has to be at the junior high schools (still called that even though they are on a middle-school system- I guess they didn’t want to change the letterheads ) in the district I was in today.  That means being up before six.  At least I had a solid night’s sleep instead of constantly waking up like I often do.  Once I got there, it turned out this teacher had a class that started ten minutes before the regular classes.  Say what?  Fortunately the plans said another teacher was asked to run this class so no problem not being able to completely go over the plans.  The one I was subbing for was also a traveling teacher, which in this case could be called class-on-a-cart.  This teacher had a class in a different room every period.  One class even had two different rooms- more on that below.

So I got to the room with my cart and the teacher who was supposed to take over (surprise to him!) just said that I could handle this and just ask if I had any questions since he would be in and out of the room.  Well then, I had to look at the plans again after all.  It really wasn’t hard like he said.  All I had to do was pass out quizzes they had to complete, inform them of their class/homework assignment once finished, and then monitor them.  Fortunately I had second period off to look at the rest of the day.

The next period was communications, basically a speech class.  Well, they were good at speaking all right- to each other in conversation that is.  They were completing an assignment as well, so again no teaching- just monitoring.  The next two classes actually lasted for a period plus another half-period.  Being math classes this was a bit odd.  This is actually why one of the classes was in two different rooms.  They spent one period in one room, then had to move for the next period.  I would gather the regular teacher in that room doesn’t have two periods off in a row to allow us to be there for the full time.  To get the half-period the students actually sacrificed their study hall half of lunch to have the longer math period.

Where does the small classes part come into play?  Well, you three who actually read this blog ( ) already know special education classes can be smaller.  Well, two of the math classes were such classes- the first had about eight students in it.  Most of them worked well, but there were two girls who thought they were in that communications class and chatted pretty much the entire time, sometimes with others across the room.  At least they did some work so I was able to put up with it without sending anyone to the office.  I left a note about this of course.  This was the first of the two special-ed math classes.  The second, get this, had two students.  That’s right, just two.  They pay for a teacher to teach a class of two students??  I would really like to know more about this but as a sub for just the day I really only know what’s in the notes- nothing about it there!- and from what I might pick up from other teachers, but I didn’t want to be nosy.  Oh well, some things just remain mysteries.

Until tomorrow then.  Time for me to sleep…

It happens from time to time that I will only get a half day.  Due to the advent of online systems though, it is relatively easy to accept a job and then later cancel when a better one comes up.  I don’t do that too often, but a half day is one reason I try.  Since this half day was for the afternoon I could try even the day of, as long as it’s early enough in the morning that they can get another sub easily.  As it worked out though no other job was to be found.  I was up until about 11 and then woke up just after 6 to try again.  Nothing.  Finally, at around 7 I decided to give up and go back to bed, mostly due to not sleeping well the last couple of nights.  As I write this I am exhausted again.  I don’t know why I usually wait until the end of the evening to write.  Oh, well.

So as it worked out, not only was it a half day but it was at probably the furthest school from me, at the opposite corner of one of the further districts.  It took me about 25 minutes to get there.  It was in one of the mentally impaired rooms, but I knew this at the outset as I have subbed in this school many times.  It was easy.  Silent reading followed by computer time.  Then they wrote a letter to a classmate that had transferred schools (moved I guess) a couple of weeks before.  The writing varied, but generally the kids were pretty slow, letters not well-formed- but remember these are mentally impaired kids.  One couldn’t really write at all, but that didn’t matter.  It will get sent with the rest to the girl’s new school.  After that they went to language lab where it should have been a nice rest for me since it is run by another teacher.  Nope- I was told I would be needed in another classroom while their teacher went to a meeting.  It was another mentally impaired room.  I had worked with several of the boys in that room before, but oddly enough I do not remember ever being in that room.  Maybe from last year?  I will have to go through my past positions to figure this out.  I do remember subbing for that teacher in the past so maybe my memory is just bad.  Anyway, they cooked some muffins.  Well, the boys only got to stir a little, taking turns, but that could be considered a life skill for them anyway.  One of the IAs brought them to the lounge to cook in the oven.  In the meantime, we played some bingo while waiting for the muffins.  The teacher still wasn’t back from her meeting by the time the original class was back from the lab, which by the way is simply working with the kids on communication skills in case you were wondering, so the kids actually stayed in the lab a little longer since I couldn’t be with both classes and a certified teacher or sub is required to always be in a classroom.

As it turned out the teacher never did come back so I stayed until the end in that one room.  I’m thinking the language teacher came back with the other class after a while, but I’m not sure on that.  I do know they came back eventually.  I pushed one of the wheelchair-bound boys to the bus at the end of the day.  It’s interesting that at that school there are about a dozen short buses lined up at the end of the day, half of them wheelchair-capable, as the kids come from all over the district.  So that was it, end of the day.  Until tomorrow folks!

Well, that is just what half the class did today.  Literally.  The flu is just knocking everybody down for the count.  Okay, the class size was only six students being a special education class so half the class was only three students, but that is still very high statistically speaking.  Plus, the teacher I was in for was out due to the flu as well.  When all was said and done, there were practically two adults per students, and apparently from what I was told the three that were out were the most *ahem* challenging students.  Apparently it wasn’t just this class either.  In the afternoon they combined our three students with another class’s two students for speech, still less than the full six students of the one class!  Wow.

As one can imagine this turned out to be a very easy day.  So easy that a couple of the assistants just decided to disinfect the room in hopes of avoiding more illness.  As for me, I helped a little bit with calendar time and yoga (very low-ability students due to their disabilities) and colored.  Yes- I colored some pieces of a game that would be cut out, laminated, and added to the file-folder game collection.  I’ll tell you, there are days where they just don’t pay me enough, but today wasn’t one of them.