Today I subbed for a first grade teacher (not the promised second grade teacher). The teacher left me horrendous lesson plans that seemed to presume psychic ability (sample: "read pages 28-42," without indicating the book). She also expected me to do some of her grading, do a whole bunch of her paperwork, and teach for 35 minutes based on a folio pages from Scholastic News that had maybe 100 words of text. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed that.
The kids: the kids were cute and random. One girl came up to tell me about her playdate this weekend. One boy seemed to have an anxiety disorder and must have come up to my desk 20 or 30 times to check with me about various things or report the mischief other kids were getting into. One kid had a loose tooth. One kid didn't feel well, but not bad enough to go to the nurse. One kid had a teeny tiny little paper cut that necessitated his wrapping it in several tissues and some Scotch tape. One kid wanted me to know that her mother had died of cancer, and then she skipped away. One kid wanted a star if she was good (she wasn't, especially, though she was rather charming; I told her to ask the teacher about it tomorrow).
2 comments:
This sounds like my experience in my E's 1st grade class. I work with them once a week on math, and every kid is a whirling bundle of contradictions and energy trying to focus for a few minutes on math (some with more success than others, some just enjoying the 1:1 attention).
I have the utmost respect for E's teacher; if it were my full time job, I would just go nuts...
Seriously. I'm sure this lady has things running like a top when she's there, but it was this whole elaborate system that wasn't making a lot of sense to me, and, the kids being first-graders, they freaked if I deviated in the slightest from their teacher's M.O.
Today I subbed in the high school again--the teacher had a snake in a tank in the room. It was a cute little thing with bright black eyes, and I asked each class what kind it was. They looked at me like I was nuts: "I dunno. It's a snake."
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