marathoner452 | Entries tagged with subbing

When I am a teacher the words "can't," "hate," and "stupid" will not be allowed in my classroom.

More to come when I get back from my long run.

EDIT: More to come when the internet at my house decides to start working and I have more than 1/2 an hour at the library to get online.

EDIT 2: Stupid backspace deleted my whole entry grumble grumble.

EDIT 3: I accepted a 3 day subbing job in 2nd grade at a challenging school. There was a boy in the class who was particularly challenging to work with-talking back to me, not doing his work, etc. On the second day he was acting out to the point that I sent him over to the teacher in the classroom next to mine, where she talked to him, took away his recess, all that good stuff. He was very upset when he came back. His classroom teacher had three fishbowls with popsicle sticks in them-if you messed up then you had to move a stick to yellow, then to red. He wanted to move his popsicle stick to red for the next day, and I wouldn't let him, telling him that tomorrow would be a new day. He also said that he was stupid and he would never be able to do his work. I told he was not allowed to say that, that I would help him if he was willing to try again.

Wouldn't you know, he did a much better job the next day. Now that may have also been because another student that antagonized him was absent, but I'd like to think that it was also because I showed that I believed in him. If I can make a difference in just 3 days, then imagine what I can do with my own classroom.

Rule #1: Never tell a class full of first graders that they have your permission to jump off their chairs, even if it's music class and they're supposed to be making "large movements" when the music changes style with a bang. Because they will do it and they will scream while they do it and those who don't jump off their chairs will run across the classroom and hurt themselves and it will, in fact, be your fault.

Subbing is never boring, let's put it that way. Any job working with kids never would be, I imagine.

Here's what else I've learned this week:
Turning at that evil intersection on the way home really can take 10-15 minutes. I timed it today.
Thank goodness for books on tape when what can be a 15 minute drive home turns into 45 minutes.
Marching around a 1st grade classroom to all 10 verses of "The Ants Go Marching" is a great quad and hamstring workout.
Thunderstorms out in the portables drive 3rd graders crazy.
I've still got the disaster educator bug in me-I stuck in a 5 minute lesson on tornado and lightning safety during said thunderstorm. Where would you NOT want to be in a tornado? In an elementary school portable.
It's always the loudest and most disruptive kids whose busses arrive earliest and leave last.
Music and books almost always guarantee rapt attention for at least 10 minutes.

Journaleers homework: One thing that made me smile today was hall duty outside the 1st grade suite. I subbed all day in 1st grade yesterday and I must have done a good job because there were a lot of kids that were happy to see me.

I'm learning to walk the line between having students like me and having students respect me. During yesterday afternoon's math class I had to lecture the kids-the standard "you wouldn't be acting like this if your teacher were here-we just took a bathroom break before class so why does everyone need to go now?-you know you're better than this" talk that elementary school subs learn real quick. I got the feeling that if they'd had P.E. that day and recess a little earlier they could have gotten some of that energy out of their systems. I swear, if you could harness the energy in a classroom of first graders, you could power a small city.

Last week and a half of subbing:
last Tuesday-afternoon in special ed.
last Thursday-all day in 2nd grade special ed.
last Friday-morning in 4th/5th grade special ed. classroom
Monday-all day in 3rd grade
Tuesday-all day in 1st grade
Today-afternoon in special ed.

I'm just happy to be working this much this soon after winter break. My mom's been subbing for years and she says this is one of the slowest times of the year for subs.

PRAXIS on Saturday starting at 7:30 am. Ouch. Reading, writing, math for one hour apiece. I'm excited because this is a very real step towards becoming a teacher.

Then the Carroll County Arts Center is showing An Inconvenient Truth at 2 pm and 7 pm.

I just haven't been in the mood to post lately. Not sure why but I'm okay, just not in the mood to write right now.

I subbed 3 1/2 days last week, 3 1/2 days and 2 full days. Fortunately for me, teachers take a lot of time off around the holidays:
Monday-half a day in kindergarten (morning)
Tuesday-half a day in 2nd grade (morning)
Wednesday-all day in preschool with kids who need one-on-one attention
Thursday-half a day in 3rd grade (afternoon)
Friday-all day in P.E., hockey and jumpropes

So far next week I'm working all day Monday in 3rd grade and half a day Tuesday in the support room. I'll probably end up working every day, if my experience thus far is any indication. I'm enjoying subbing because I get to do something different every day, but I do not like being sick with the 43219084 kinds of germs elementary schoolers carrry. I was supposed to go volunteer down at Arundel Habitat today but I woke up feeling yucky so I'm lying low today.

Not running much either. Not terribly worked up about that because Flying Feet will start up again after New Year's so I should have no problem getting my motivation back.

Not much else to say.

Almost Perfect- INFP

13% Extraversion, 73% Intuition, 20% Thinking, 13% Judging

So, you want to make the world a better place? Too bad it's never gonna happen.

Of all the types, you have to be one of the hardest to find fault in.
You have a selfless and caring nature. You're a good listener and
someone who wants to avoid conflict. You genuinely desire to do good.

Of course, these all add up to an incredibly overpowered conscience
which makes you feel guilty and responsible when anything goes wrong.
Of course, it MUST be your fault EVERYTIME.

Though you're constantly on a mission to find the truth, you have no
use for hard facts and logic, which is a source of great confusion for
those of us with brains. Despite this, in a losing argument, you're not
above spouting off inaccurate fact after fact in an effort to protect
your precious values.

You're most probably a perfectionist, which in this case, is a bad
thing. Any group work is destined to fail because of your incredibly
high standards.

Disregard what I said before. You're just easy to find fault in as everyone else!

Luckily, you're generally very hard on yourself, meaning I don't need
to waste my precious time insulting you. Instead, just find all your
own faults and insult yourself.

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If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

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The other personality types are as follows...

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Extraversion
You scored higher than 99% on Intuition
You scored higher than 99% on Thinking
You scored higher than 99% on Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I would be insulted by my test results, too,

steelvictory, but they're surprisingly true. I'm way too hard on myself sometimes, I hate working in groups, and I blame myself when things go wrong. Good luck trying to get me to listen to facts and reason.

I had a really bad headache this afternoon, but it's mostly gone away now that I'm not screaming to make myself heard above a class of 4th graders. They weren't all that bad, just particularly loud and a couple were whiney. Next week so far I'm in kindergarten Monday morning and Special Ed. all day Wednesday. I'm looking forward to a break from being in charge of a classroom.

Subbing schedule this week has been as follows:
Monday-5th grade
Tuesday-early dismissal so no subbing
Wednesday-music in the morning, 5th grade in the afternoon
Thursday-special needs P.E.
Friday-4th grade

...otherwise known as how to go from subbing in high school French to preschool in the space of 3 days.

We dressed Wilbur the weather cat, made necklaces out of noodles, and read Clifford's Thanksgiving. They were learning the letter "n" and A-B patterns. While I'm definitely thinking elementary education as a certification, it's always fun to work with the really little kids. Tomorrow I'll be in elementary school again, as a special ed assistant again. I'm just happy to be working, and being willing to take special ed jobs anywhere makes it easy to get jobs as not too many subs are willing to do that. After tomorrow I'll have been in 9 different elementary schools out of 22 in Carroll County. Keeps me busy, keeps me on my toes.

I ran 9 miles last night and I'll run 10 on Saturday morning. Sunday morning I'm running the Jingle Bell 5k down in Baltimore, complete with jingle bells on my shoes. Yay.

~Bethany

Current Music: WWOZ-New Orleans radio

Running:
5k last weekend in 25:27. That seems to be an unlucky time for me, as this time I was the second female finisher (out of 24 runners, so don't get too excited) after being the first for probably 2 1/2 miles, and the other time I ran that time I finished fourth in my age group by about 4 seconds and missed getting free Under Armour. Oh well.
9 miles Tuesday, late-night to boot. Kinda made me wish I liked getting up early in the morning, because running when it was so quiet and dark made me feel like I had the neighborhood to myself. And yes worrywarts, my neighborhood is very safe.
10x400 Wednesday afternoon in 1:50-1:53. Very warm and probably my last chance to wear shorts outside for awhile.
21 miles tomorrow. Supposed to be very cold, for Maryland anyway. Will probably have to wear the pants with big pockets that invariably rub a hole in my back. Will definitely get bagels or pancakes and a ginormous pastry afterwards to celebrate. Will skip church to watch NYC Marathon live updates online starting at 10 am Sunday.

Subbing:
All day Monday, Tuesday, and today in elementary school. Loads of fun. There isn't much that's cuter than a small mob of 1st graders swarming around you asking "Ms. S, Ms. S, can you help me?" Today I got to switch classes every hour because of meetings so I taught kindergarten-5th grade in the space of a few hours. Next week so far I'm doing a day of high school French and 1/2 a day of pre-k at the school I worked at today. Loads of fun. I'm really hoping to start teacher education classes in the winter/spring, probably at the community college.

I still think running 20 miles is easier than subbing in the high school. Hence the reason I spend most of my time with elementary kids.

~Bethany

When you're told that the kids in your science class yesterday told the teacher today they were dancing on the tables, that's when you take yourself OFF the sub list for the high school. I look way too young to be subbing in the high school. That and I'm entirely too nice. I'm much better with the elementary school kids, especially when I can work with a small group of them that need extra help.

So from here on out I'll sub in French to help out my high school French teacher, but that's it. I don't know how they do it.

The 4th graders on Wednesday were a lot of fun though. They were learning about static electricity. They thought it was really cool that everything is made out of atoms. "Is my shirt made out of atoms?" "Am I made out of atoms?" "Is my food made out of atoms?" Yes, everything is made out of atoms. "Are dreams made out of atoms?" No. "Are electrons made out of atoms?" No, we just talked about that. Electrons are part of atoms. So are neutrons and protons. "But Ms. S., you just said that everything was made out of atoms."

Smart aleck kids.

Kids also think you're really cool if you tell them you watch cartoons, and if you let them talk about themselves and they know your parents/siblings/friends.

So as much as I like history, I'll stick with elementary school thankyouverymuch.

~Bethany

This week as a substitute teacher I spent one day in 3rd grade, 1/2 a day in high school gym (which if you knew me in high school is pretty funny), one day in 6th grade math, and one day in kindergarten. Kindergarten kids are so cute.

Next week I'll be in high school social studies, which is more my thing than, say, gym class, given that my degree is in history and all.

Then last week I spent one day as a one-on-one elementary assistant, 1/2 a day in 5th grade, and one day as an art teacher for severely handicapped kids. We made collages out of feathers and construction paper. It was quite an eye-opening experience.

By the end of my 3 hours in 5th grade the kids were fighting with paper swords and walking sticks and we had just about given up on actually getting any work done. Yesterday in 6th grade math all I had to do was give a 2-part test, but after most of the kids in last period were done I made the mistake of telling one of them that he could make a paper airplane as long as he didn't throw it at anyone. He interpreted that literally and flew it across the room-"but I wasn't throwing it at anyone." So no more airplanes in my classroom.

Being a substitute teacher is never boring. Remember how you treated substitute teachers?

~Bethany

Mount Airy Elementary Tuesday 10/10, full day
Mechanicsville Elementary Wednesday 10/11, half day
Carroll Springs School Friday 10/13, full day
Shiloh Middle Wednesday 10/18, full day
Spring Garden Elementary Thursday 10/19, full day

This substitute teaching (or "guest teaching" as they like to call it) thing is pretty cool. So long as I'm willing to be flexible I can make pretty decent money and have off whenever I want, like a couple of months this winter to gut houses in New Orleans.

I'll post more interesting stuff when I have the energy, but I haven't been in the mood lately. The weather today-chilly, rainy, windy-couldn't have helped either. I laid on the couch all day and read Moloka'i, which as you might expect is set in Hawai'i. The heck with the 14 mile long run. I had a half marathon last weekend and I'll run 18 miles next weekend. Let me rest.

~Bethany