Sub-sistence

Continuing in the soap opera theme of a couple of posts ago, I have one to share from my own experience on Thursday.  I didn’t even have to adjust the title to fit as it works well just as it is- they are of course young, and they were quite restless.  If anyone knows about autism, one of the things even the higher-functioning kids need is a structured environment and schedule- everything should remain the same from day to day.  It appears that the same holds true for kids with behavioral issues.  I was in a middle school BD/LD classroom on Thursday.  I should start by saying I was in this class before several times and have never really had a problem before Thursday.  The fact that there are usually two teachers and two assistants in the room has always helped a great deal.  However,  this time both teachers had subs.  Also, the day before both teachers and both assistants were out sick- believe it or not, this was not engineered!  Between these two events, the kids just fell apart.  It didn’t really help that the plans included having the kids do something they apparently never do even when the teachers are there.  This was mentioned, loudly I should add, by 6th grade and 8th grade students alike- “We never do vocabulary!”  In addition, they absolutely would not listen to any instruction from me.  I tried to follow the plans as given, but they were already trying to go ahead, and were actually getting upset at me for trying to do what the teacher had written.  Sigh.  In the end I just had to give up and let them work on their own.  The 8th graders I think actual did the work.  The 6th graders, on the other hand, for the most part chose to do their own thing.  One even brought in a video game book and would read only this.  The assistants tried too, but in the end they were just back after being sick for a few days so it really wasn’t worth getting on them until the teachers returned.

However, trying to get them to work was only part of this story.  All day many of the students had anger issues, threw thing st one another, and had to be pulled from their regular classes.  There were a couple of teachers or social workers who were in on and off trying to keep the kids in line.  Parents were called.  What a drama.  Even the class where I had only one student was a bust.  She came to school late the period before, ate her lunch for that period (she was supposed to be doing math), and continued eating it during her social studies period.  She refused to read until she was done, never mind that girls are generally good at multitasking.  Clearly she was just stalling.  Of course, when she did start reading she couldn’t concentrate thanks to other kids in the room creating problems.  If you’re confused at this, you’re not alone- it can be confusing.  Most of the day there are two classes going on at once- one by each teacher.  Additionally, there can be kids in there who cannot be in their regular classes for some reason or other (remember above where I mentioned pulling kids out of other classes).  At this time, I had social studies with 7th grade (the one student), but the other sub had math with 6th grade.  One of the 6th graders had big issues all day.

Well, tune in next time for hopefully a post with less drama.  Well at least a better day for me- drama is great for the reader .  Otherwise, I will have to work in another soap opera title.

Or rather, just over 100 boys and girls in the production of Oliver! I saw last night.  There was a boy, a former student in the 4th/5th grade class at my church who invited me to come.  His older brother, also a former student, helped out by running a spotlight.  How could I say no?  Even though they never saw me when I was in Oliver! just two years ago…  I was so disappointed then that not a single student from my church came, or at least told me they came if they did.  I advertised this to them for a few weekends, but nothing.  Oh, well.

This rather large production is apparently typical of Christian Youth Theater.  This organization started out west, but became a reality around here when someone move to my wonderful state and received permission to branch out here.  Now there are many branches just in the Chicago area, all under the CYT-Chicago umbrella.  This isn’t ordinary community theatre though.  In order to allowed to audition for a show the kids are required to take one of several theatre classes through this organization.  Obviously not a deterrent at all judging by the size of these shows, and even in the number of CYT shows some of them have been in according to the program.  The quality wasn’t bad at all.  The characters for the most part were very convincing and if there were any slipups I didn’t notice.  I did have a couple of issues with their Fagin, but of course since I played the part myself this is only natural.  I wish I could remember what those issues were now.  Anyway, the boy who I came to see, Brian, played an orphan at the beginning of the show, then appeared twice more later during chorus numbers.  During Food Glorious Food he nearly slipped up when he saw me in the audience, front and center.  Interesting spot they sold me- I guess it pays to come by yourself and get those prime spots when groups fail to completely fill up a row!

I was a bit disappointed at a couple of things though.  First off, the show was shortened quite a bit.  The running time was about 1:55, and that included a 20 minute intermission, making the actual running time 1:35.  Since the original show has a running time of well over two hour you can see a lot was not there.  I Shall Scream and Oom-Pah-Pah were two full songs that were cut, and were probably the most obvious to go considering the group.  Bill Sykes’s song, My Name, was cut in half for some reason too though the one who played him did a fine job.  Many scened were abbreviated as well.  Ones I noticed most (again having been in them before) were some scenes in Fagin’s Lair.  However, these weren’t the only places shortened.  The scene where Noah Claypole is introduced was snipped (Oliver just leaves right after Where is Love?).  The scene at the end where everything goes south for Sykes and Fagin’s gang was shortened to the point where Sykes doesn’t even get killed (Nancy still does though), and the scene at the end of Act I where Oliver goes out with Dodger to pickpocket, then gets falsely accused was missing entirely!  Well, that whole thing aside I was also disappointed that for a production so well done they for some reason chose not to have a live orchestra.  Everything was sung to recorded music.  I’m sure they must have had a reason for this, but even so this took something away from the show.  Outside of this, and I should stress that shortening the show sounded much worse in writing than it actually was, it was a very good production.  Christian Youth Theater is something that should be considered for many other areas.

In any event, if you want to know why I didn’t post yesterday this was why.   Interesting thing: according to Brian he was considered for the role of Oliver, but at 12 years old he was a little tall in comparison to their pick for the Artful Dodger.  Instead they cast an 8-year-old who did a fabulous job considering his age.  This brought my thoughts back to a certain Little Shop of Horrors production where their original pick for Orin, who later dropped out, was actually shorter than me so when considering who would play Seymour they went with someone smaller and I got stuck with being the understudy.  However, I should be happy with that because had the show not been sabotaged by a distraught producer who though he should have been director I wouldn’t have been considered at all as I was still kind of a weak actor at that point.  Did I get all of that right, O great admin who directed this show?

Just a quick third post of the day. I just read this one- kids do really stupid things in school. Here is the latest:

Student Accused Of High-Fiving Teachers With Tacks

I think I will skip giving middle-school students high-fives for awhile…

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…

Well, today I was a floater at a middle school, meaning that I would sub for different teachers throughout the day as they went to meetings.  When I arrived they gave me a list.  Four classes.  Were they serious?  I thought I had it fairly easy yesterday with five classes (in middle school six is typical, with a planning period, team meeting- subs not invited, and lunch).  In this district one period is homeroom, making a total of ten periods of which a sub usually works seven when homeroom is added in.  This meant that I had three extra periods off!  A half-day of work for a full day’s pay!  Then again, this is me we’re talking about.  I didn’t feel quite right about this so I asked at the office a few times if I was needed elsewhere during these breaks.  They didn’t have anything as was typical, so it would seem that I would get all the time off after all.  However, in the afternoon the teacher I was subbing for for 7th and 10th periods decided she could use me after all to help out while she tried to get some other work done.  I stress tried because in fact since she was in the room her students still came up to her and asked questions.  By the way, they were doing research in the LMC so I mostly babysat as I couldn’t answer a lot of the questions since I didn’t know all the expectations of the project.  Still not bad- a very easy day.

Now, some may think the title of this post applies to the above paragraph since I asked for extra work instead of just saying nothing and sitting in the lounge all day.  Well, it always pays to not get on their bad side- I already don’t take TA positions which pay about $30 less per day- and besides, I would have missed the situation I am about to write on.   Well, what happened was during one of the periods a couple of students came in who weren’t a part of the class.  Remember, this was the LMC and not a classroom.  That would be very strange if random students just came into a classroom where they were not a part of the class…  Anyway, I wasn’t aware of this at first and so questioned them when I saw they were not doing the research with the rest of the class.  They told me they were here while their class was on a field trip.  Were they being punished?  Nope.  They were seventh graders in an eighth grade math class, and all the eighth grade was on the field trip.  Now I thought I was pretty good at math being in algebra in eighth grade, but here they were, two seventh graders in the eighth grade class.  And to make matters worse, this seemed to be the top eighth grade math course, algebra 2.  That’s right, 2.  I didn’t take algebra 2 until my sophomore year (they split the two courses with geometry in the middle, which I took as a freshman).  These two seventh graders were two years ahead of where I was when I was in middle school.  They expect to be bused to high school next year for math as they apparently were bused to the middle school when they were in 5th grade…  I guess if this keeps up they will be taking calculus in their junior year instead of in college, unless they bring themselves even further ahead in the next three years.  Definitely two top engineers in the making.

One problem that comes with subbing is scheduling errors and cancellations with little to no notice. There was one day last year when I signed up to sub for a social worker only to find out when I arrived that the social worker is a position that doesn’t get a sub. Okay, you might say to yourself, “how obvious,” but in that same district earlier I had subbed for a speech/language pathologist. Obviously a sub can’t really fill in for that position either, but as it turned out there was a student teacher so they needed a sub just to have a certified person in the room so I just figured this would be the case again. Well, at least they paid me for half a day’s (non)work.

Anyway, today there was another error, only it wasn’t an error. I was called in for a full day, but when I got there the plans were only for a half day. I checked with the office and it was indeed a full day they scheduled. Fortunately they had another teacher that would need me in the afternoon so they could keep me the full day. But wait, it wasn’t over. The team partner of the one I subbed for then told me shortly after that she wouldn’t be there in the afternoon and was wondering about her sub. I had to go to the office anyway about a small problem with the arrangement to work for the afternoon teacher, so I said I would ask about her sub while I was there. Well, it turned out there was no sub arranged for her. To make a long story short (yes, I know…) apparently the original teacher had requested a full day sub to cover for the two of them and her partner either wasn’t told or forgot, so they changed the arrangement again and so I wound up actually subbing for three teachers throughout the day like a floater. As you can see, the classrooms themselves aren’t the only source of drama.