As a reader of Shyzer, you cannot bitch to me that I don’t post enough and then complain that when I do, the posts are too long. If you do, I have both the legal authority and moral obligation to kick you in the nuts.
One of the hardest things for a substitute teacher is gaining credibility and authority over the students. That’s a no-brainer that most people will agree with, especially once they think back to their younger years of terrorizing their teacher’s replacements whenever they were fortunate to have one. But the next hardest obstacle to overcome, one that is almost just as hard as the first in my opinion, is figuring out and cutting through all the red tape.
My experience in teaching is much different compared to a full time teacher. They have to deal with the same kids, problems, requirements, parents, and God knows what else for 180 days with only a short three month break before the cycle starts all over again. I’m sure it can be hard setting up a well oiled machine that both works smoothly and handles all the demands placed upon the teacher. But for me, my job is much different and at first glance, can seem almost comically easy.
I don’t have to worry about “teaching”. Making sure the students know everything that they need to know by the end of the year is nowhere near my job description. I don’t have to worry about bad parents, failing students, or office politics. In fact, for the most part, I’m a glorified babysitter. Watch over the kids, make sure they don’t get hurt, and try to keep a little order to the whole process.
That doesn’t mean it’s incredibly easy though. From the moment the kids walk in the door, I have about 5 minutes to set the tone. It doesn’t matter what age group you’re watching over, they all generally act the same in the first few minutes. Most of the students hang back, eyeing you suspiciously, while a small handful of the bolder students test the waters. It’s so painfully obvious, it’s almost funny. Yet each and every time, if you show any signs of weakness, the kids will pounce like ferocious hyenas. Don’t even let them smell blood and you’re fine. But God help you if you have a poor poker face.
But like I said, this is normal anywhere and for me it’s actually not that bad. Having used with my siblings and their friends such parental tactics as screaming outside a Baskin Robbins, “Anybody who isn’t touching my arms by the count of ten gets kicked in the balls,” I’m not one to being afraid of quickly dropping the Punishment Hammer.
No, for me, the hard part is getting through all the bullshit that most teachers have in place. I call it the Teaching Gristle. Weird punishment and reward systems, homework folders, lunch counts, planning period duties, and countless more. It’s the kind of crap that basically turns each classroom into a mini-bureaucracy of confusion and frustration for anybody who doesn’t know the system. And I hate every bit of it. For me, it slows things down to a crawl. One of the first things I do when whenever I get into a classroom is scan the lesson plans left for me and underline any unique (ie, absurd) requirements by the teacher. I understand these might be helpful tools over the course of a year, but expecting an outsider to pick them all up and execute them to perfection is downright naive and foolish.
This past week I had the pleasure of teaching the same 4th grade class for three days straight in a school where I’ve taught the majority of my time over the past year. When I ran into some of the fellow teachers I knew and told him who I subbing for, they all reacted as if they’d just smelled a violent fart and offered words of condolences. Simply put, there were a few kids in the class who were well known hellions.
The first day was certainly “fun” and typical of other days. I spent most of it listening to the kids tell me how I was doing things “wrong” and wasting time trying to figure out which basket to put which stack of papers in and which order to teach what lesson in and which kid had what weekly duty. By the end of the first day, I was ragged and the thought of doing it twice again was as appealing as a root canal. The next morning, I decided to switch things up a little and implement Goob’s Method O’ Teaching.
Out were all the little things that clutter up my day. The old method of punishment was to have some sort of weird sound level scale and then drop a marble into a can every time they were too loud, which deducted one minute off recess for the entire class per marble. The Goob Punishment Method was to simply discipline the blatant wrongdoers and to discipline them hard. The first time I shouted, “Mark, that’s five minutes off recess for making everybody over there laugh. Do it again and I’ll take off another five,” the entire class hushed up in awe and stayed that way much longer than they ever did when I dropped a marble. Likewise, the old method of rewards was to give them a monopoly dollar, which they could exchange for prizes at the end of the week. While this method wasn’t too bad in my mind, it was far too hard keeping up with what task earned what amount of dollars and thus I nixed it in addition to the antiquated “weekly helpers” method and thus the Goob Reward Method was born. Little Sarah, who always sat quietly and did her work on time, got to be the line leader. I didn’t give a care in the world that she had been it last week and that it was now Joey’s turn. When Joey’s losing 10 minutes off recess every day, I don’t see why he should get to take a turn in the weekly rotation of “fun” jobs. What’s that I hear? The students protesting loudly at the new changes? A quick threat that if the shouting doesn’t stop within 10 seconds, everybody loses a chunk of recess hushed them up quickly.
I’ll be the first to admit I run a tight ship, no matter what environment I’m in. When it comes to rules, I expect them to be followed and only once you’ve proven that you can do so will I start to give some leeway. Until then, I find it almost stupid to give away rewards for no other reason than “you haven’t had a turn yet.” Show me you deserve the turn and you’ll get one. Until then, Sarah or Billy or Drew can be the line leaders over and over and over again.
It wasn’t just the discipline and reward areas though. I shaved off the excess fat from anywhere I could. Instead of hunting for the correct basket under a mound of papers and books, I paper clipped whatever the kids turned in and left a post it note identifying the stack. Instead of going around individually checking the contents of each homework folder, I made them pull out their assignments and turn them in so that I could check them during a planning period. Those all might not seem like much, but when you’re forced to divert your attention for two or three minutes to try and figure out what the little things in a lesson plan are instructing you to do, much less do them, the kids can go from well behaved angels to blood thirsty savages.
Like I said, these are all good and well for somebody who has to lord over these kids for an entire year. But please, I implore any full time teachers out there, if you want to make sure things go smoothly while you’re gone, give your sub some leeway and slice off as much Teaching Gristle as possible.
As Friday came to a close, I realized how quickly the past two days had gone compared to the first. The fact that almost every kid in the class, even the ones I’d had to discipline over and over, were telling me that if their teacher was ever absent again, they wanted me to come back only proved that what I’d done hadn’t been a mistake. As a sub, whenever you can cut that extra crap, you’ve got extra time. If you in turn invest that time back into the students in the form of direct attention and teaching, it pays off handsomely and you’ll enjoy “teaching” much more.
There are only a small handful of songs that upon hearing them for the first time, evoked a response in me of, “Damn, I wish I had written that song.”
This is one such song.
I’m not sure why the audio and video get out of sync in that version, but it’s not like you need to watch him play in order to listen to the music. This second version is a bit longer and takes a while to get into, but it’s well worth it.
I understand only 60% of precincts have reported, but even so, the results show that Mark Foley has 48% of the vote with 65,622. I have only one question.
What the hell is wrong with you people? How is it that the Democratic challenger is only leading by 2,000 votes over an opponent who resigned from Congress a month ago for sending messages to underage boys about masturbation and being horny? Sometimes I don’t understand the American public.
EDIT 1: With reporting up to 75% of precincts, Foley has gone from trailing by 2,000 votes to leading by 900 votes. Way to go, Florida!
EDIT 2: So I just found out that Foley’s name simply couldn’t be taken off the ballot and that if he wins, some other guy will take his place. I still think it’s retarded to have Foley’s name on the ballot and “vote” for him, even if it’s just for his name in general. I liked this post a lot better when I thought the citizens of Florida were the morons instead of now where I now I’m the idiot.
Trust me, I understand that Google Adsense sometimes has trouble matching up a relevant ad to certain pages, but this one takes the cake.
The hilarious ad in question was displayed on a page linking to a map of racist hate groups categorized by states. It’s one of those maps you’d expect to see used by a politician or somebody who wanted to push a specific agenda at the sake of accurate facts or valid arguements. I’ll be the first to admit that South Carolina has its share of problems, but if you go by this map, the only states containing more hate groups are Florida and California. And I for one find that hard to believe, even without touching the fact that far too many states are listed as having zero.
It’s these kinds of graphics that are used to sway or invoke some emotion in people without putting all the relevant facts on the table. What defines a hate group? How large does it have to be to be categorized? Do they have to be active? If so, what defines “active?” Even the basic facts of population aren’t factored into the map. For instance, a quick glance shows Georgia with 40 hate groups and Alabama with 21. Yet in 2000, Georgia had a population of 8,186,453 while Alabama only had 4,447,100. Now all of a sudden both states are looking to be on equal footing in terms of hate levels per citizen. Yet I assure you that any number of political candidates could have used this map to further their cause, regardless of its accuracy or reliability.
During the past 6 months, most of us here in America have been bombarded with negative ads through every media outlet and have been greeted with “facts” every time we turn around. Politicians have somehow mastered the art of telling a truthful lie and anybody who wants to know why the majority of people are turned off by or carry an apathetic attitude towards politics should start looking for answers there.
If you haven’t watched up to the Season 3, Episode 5 of LOST, then please don’t click the “read more of this entry” link below.
I rarely ever vouch for something I have little control over. I don’t like the thought of saying something is great only to turn around later and see it’s total crap. Movies and books are one thing, for if I watch or read one and love it enough to recommend it to people, it’s rarely going to change. No matter how many years later I suggest it, the movie isn’t going to have changed nor will the book have gone through another round of editing. But then you’ve got the oh-so-fickle world of television.
When I first watched LOST, I was excited. Just the general plot was something that I’d imagined about in my brain for years, something that I’d actually begun to write about and ponder turning it into a real story. And then before I knew it, ABC was actually coming out with a show just like the one in my head and I couldn’t wait! And to be fully honest, that first season was dynamite. It was exciting, explosive, mysterious, and fun. I told everybody I knew about it. I stayed up one night in my kitchen, blowing off hanging out at the bars with my friends, to tell my brother all about what he’d missed and why it was so great. I got my dad hooked, my other two siblings, my mom. Anybody who would listen to me, I went on and on about the show.
And now I wish I could go back, tell them that what I saw that first season wasn’t the final product and that if they were smart, they’d stay far, far away from this show.
