Was that me?!?
I know I've been gone for awhile and haven't made a real post in months. This isn't really going to be a real post either. ;-) I just have something I really want to write about. No, I'm not pregnant. ;-)
As you probably remember, I had to quit my job in Battle Creek when I got married this fall. I am back to subbing (been at it about a month now) and loving it. It's so nice to not have to take home work with me every night and do report cards and conferences. Subbing is much better for me now because I have those four years under my belt so I feel much more confident in the classroom than I did nearly five years ago when I first started subbing.
Today I was in 4th grade and there was a student teacher in the classroom. This was my first experience working with a student teacher. He was teaching the language arts and social studies, leaving me with math and writing. I felt bad from the start because I remember when I was student teaching how much it pissed me off when subs came in and got paid while I did all the work. So hopefully he didn't feel like that, but he probably did. So, anyway, I started off the day by laying down the law as I always do and they started off well. They took a math test so there wasn't really anything for me to do. I went over the answers to their review pack and I was moving quickly in order to give the intern enough time to do his lesson before recess. The class started getting noisy at the end of math and I let it go because I had 2 more minutes left and didn't care that much. However, that was probably a mistake because it gave the class the impression that they could behave like that and it wouldn't matter.
I watched Mr. R teach language arts and watched the class fool around and act up more and more as the lesson progressed. I watched him plow through anyway when though he didn't have their attention. Social studies was even worse. The kids started off bad and were horrible by the end. I listened while Mr. R sent them off to do their work without fulling explaining the directions so the kids didn't really know what they were supposed to do. When he called the class back together and went over their work, I was literally biting my lip as the class talked and talked while he was going over things and he didn't do anything about it. I was telling myself, No! Don't keep going! You need to stop the lesson and refocus the class. There's no point in doing the lesson if they're not paying attention to you. Oh my God, is this what I used to look like? Do I still look like this?!?
When I took back over for writing, I ripped into the class, going on about how I had told them when I got here what my three biggest rules are and I just watched as everyone of them got broken over and over again. I was sure not feeling like I was in a 4th grade class. I expected to see better behavior the rest of the morning and all afternoon. And whenever I was teaching, I got it.
I wanted SO badly to speak up and help the student teacher, but I felt like it wasn't really my job or place. He may be offended that I thought he wasn't doing a good job and that I thought I knew his students better than he did. I felt like I'm not his mentor teacher, he needs to learn that this is what kids are like. This is what they'll be like when he's subbing and he's going to need to figure out what he's going to do about it. Mr. R commented to me at the end of the day that he didn't know what had gotten into them; that's not usually how they behave. I told him that's how kids are when the regular teacher is away and unfortunately they don't see student teachers the same way as the classroom teacher.
In other news, the wedding was wonderful. Everything went exactly as I had dreamed it would (except for our video camera, but I won't go there). The honeymoon in Hawaii was amazing. Marriage is starting off well, except Jeff is still traveling a lot for work while he wraps things up in Boston and Corpus Cristi. This week is only his second one home with me since the honeymoon.
As you probably remember, I had to quit my job in Battle Creek when I got married this fall. I am back to subbing (been at it about a month now) and loving it. It's so nice to not have to take home work with me every night and do report cards and conferences. Subbing is much better for me now because I have those four years under my belt so I feel much more confident in the classroom than I did nearly five years ago when I first started subbing.
Today I was in 4th grade and there was a student teacher in the classroom. This was my first experience working with a student teacher. He was teaching the language arts and social studies, leaving me with math and writing. I felt bad from the start because I remember when I was student teaching how much it pissed me off when subs came in and got paid while I did all the work. So hopefully he didn't feel like that, but he probably did. So, anyway, I started off the day by laying down the law as I always do and they started off well. They took a math test so there wasn't really anything for me to do. I went over the answers to their review pack and I was moving quickly in order to give the intern enough time to do his lesson before recess. The class started getting noisy at the end of math and I let it go because I had 2 more minutes left and didn't care that much. However, that was probably a mistake because it gave the class the impression that they could behave like that and it wouldn't matter.
I watched Mr. R teach language arts and watched the class fool around and act up more and more as the lesson progressed. I watched him plow through anyway when though he didn't have their attention. Social studies was even worse. The kids started off bad and were horrible by the end. I listened while Mr. R sent them off to do their work without fulling explaining the directions so the kids didn't really know what they were supposed to do. When he called the class back together and went over their work, I was literally biting my lip as the class talked and talked while he was going over things and he didn't do anything about it. I was telling myself, No! Don't keep going! You need to stop the lesson and refocus the class. There's no point in doing the lesson if they're not paying attention to you. Oh my God, is this what I used to look like? Do I still look like this?!?
When I took back over for writing, I ripped into the class, going on about how I had told them when I got here what my three biggest rules are and I just watched as everyone of them got broken over and over again. I was sure not feeling like I was in a 4th grade class. I expected to see better behavior the rest of the morning and all afternoon. And whenever I was teaching, I got it.
I wanted SO badly to speak up and help the student teacher, but I felt like it wasn't really my job or place. He may be offended that I thought he wasn't doing a good job and that I thought I knew his students better than he did. I felt like I'm not his mentor teacher, he needs to learn that this is what kids are like. This is what they'll be like when he's subbing and he's going to need to figure out what he's going to do about it. Mr. R commented to me at the end of the day that he didn't know what had gotten into them; that's not usually how they behave. I told him that's how kids are when the regular teacher is away and unfortunately they don't see student teachers the same way as the classroom teacher.
In other news, the wedding was wonderful. Everything went exactly as I had dreamed it would (except for our video camera, but I won't go there). The honeymoon in Hawaii was amazing. Marriage is starting off well, except Jeff is still traveling a lot for work while he wraps things up in Boston and Corpus Cristi. This week is only his second one home with me since the honeymoon.