Sunday, June 17, 2012

A Social Studies Teacher (Summer 2012)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am once again working as a summer school teacher.  It is a credit-recovery program, for kids who failed the first time around.

The summer is broken up into two 3-week blocks; one now (June) and another in August.
This first block is turning out to be pretty easy.  I've got three students in  "World History A," and four students in "American History B."
Just like last year, though, I feel like I have way too much content to fit into a three-week block.  I have the kids for three hours a day, four days a week.  This particular school is on a trimester schedule, so all classes run in 12 week blocks, for about an hour and 15 minutes a day.  All of this means that I need to cover a week's worth of material every day.

On the plus side, a couple of the kids seem to remember SOME of what they learned the first time they took the class.  Once in a while I will get an "oooh!  I remember this!"
Not often enough, though.

End of The Year Totals...

I just did some counting.
For the 2011/2012 school year, I worked 160 of 180 possible days.
I suspect this would have been higher, if I hadn't been working another job at the start of the school year.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A "Science" Teacher

For a lot of schools in my area, this is the last week of class.  For that reason, subbing days are difficult to come by.  I didn't have any work at all yesterday, and today was very nearly the same.  That is, until a teacher called me at 7:30 this morning, asking if I could come in and work for one of her colleagues.  I agreed, but said that I might be a little late, given the very short notice.
I got there less than two minutes after the final bell.

So, the school was on an "exam schedule."  I won't go into detail, but you just need to know that the class periods weren't conducted 1-7, and some of them were longer than others.  Because of this my morning consisted of the same group of seventh graders for four hours straight.  If you follow my blog on even a semi-regular basis, then you've read about this group of seventh graders.
This could have been hell, but the kids were actually reasonably good today.  Incredibly loud, but reasonably good.  The teacher left a couple movies, which helped keep the peace.  I got to watch The Rookie and most of Remember the Titans.  Not the best movie, but a lot better than past subbing assignments where I got to watch the same 50 minutes of the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks five times in one day.

Later in the day I got to watch Remember the Titans again with a group of exceptionally well behaved Freshman, and also administer a test to the other half of that same seventh grade class.

I may get to go back to that same class again tomorrow.  If I do, it is only a half day, and also the last day of school.  It should be fun.

Monday, June 4, 2012

A Music Teacher

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while.

A couple weeks ago I subbed for a music teacher.  I had classes ranging from 4th grade all the way to high school concert band.

It was supposed to be an easy day.  Classes either consisted of videos or study hall.  The down side was that a school play was being performed right next to the band room during the class period I was supposed to show a movie.  By "right next to," what I mean is, the band room shared a wall with the stage; a removable wall designed so that it could be opened up, making the band room part of the stage.  The wall was closed, but it was by no means sound proof.  Luckily, this class was only 6 kids because the seniors had already left for the year.  We watched the movie very quietly.

The concert band study hall was a joke,  there were 60 kids and every single one of them swore up and down that they didn't have homework.

I did overhear something fun during the 7th grade band study hall.  It made me both laugh and die a little all at the same time.  If you don't know anything about the history of computers or video games, you probably won't understand why it's funny.

7th Grade Boy: Oregon Settlers was one of the first games ever made.  It was on the first computer, called the "Lisa," made by Microsoft.  At first it was all text until later they made graphics.  Eventually they put it on iPod and stuff.

And, before I forget, I've been accepted to teach summer school again this year at the same school as last year.