Teaching

((Bleh, 1,000 words because I missed yesterday, PS: Motivation to write is hard.))

The quiet classroom.  Ah.  I must be getting old!  The quiet of a classroom brings me a smile?  What am I? A grandpa?  Nope, last I checked I was still 29, going into my second full year of teaching.  Well, three if you count a year of subbing, and yes, I count it, because I taught something like 130 days out of the 180 possible.  Substitute teaching, man, that was an interesting year.

Woken up by the phone going off every day at 5am, an automated voice telling me about a wonderful opportunity to substitute teach for a half day kindergarten class in South Seattle.  I live in Bothell.  That's a two hour commute in the morning, for 4 hours of snot-nosed kids?  I'm a math teacher, well, at least I wanted to be a math teacher at that point.  I declined many sub jobs.

It became a kind of cat and mouse game between me and the friendly automated machine.  She'd tell me about all of these wonderful positions--I mean, who wouldn't want to work with special ed. kids in a high school self-contained classroom for the day?  Just think of the joy they would have in seeing a new face!  Or, the fear, and spit on me, hit me and try to run.  Or that.  I declined.  But I declined hoping for that perfect job to come along.  What was a perfect substitute job?  I enjoyed substituting for gym classes, that was pretty hard to screw up.  Unfortunately, my worst substitute experience came while subbing for a P.E. class.  The money in my wallet was stolen, along with my iPod.

The middle school had an on-duty police officer, which I found a little funny at first, but I was definitely thankful for the fact come lunch time.  I had sent two Hispanic kids to the locker room midway through class, and they were really the only suspects in my mind, but they seemed like good kids and I really didn't think it was them.  After a brief interrogation by the officer, the two kids said they saw a Russian kid in the teacher's office when they went back to the locker room.  The police officer called in the Russian, who denied everything, but eventually cracked and said that he took it, and gave it to a girl to hold until after school.  The girl gave me back my iPod.  Quite the operation for middle schoolers!  I was kind of impressed.

High school was fun to substitute for, because most high school teachers like to show videos when substitutes teach.  I, too, like videos.  I got in pretty good with a few high school teachers, who realized the class was still intact after a day of subbing from me, and the kids didn't completely trash me to the teacher when she got back, so it was nice to have some normalcy every so often.  I started to realize that a lot of what brought me back to a job was the student response, and I tried to make sure the students were both learning and having fun.

Another memorable substitute day came while I was in my most frequent class.  It was a high school science class, taught by a woman who I had been in my teaching certification program with the year before.  She obtained a secondary teaching certificate, and a job, while I had neither.  I could still substitute for her class, but just not teach it full time.  This particular day she was on one of her many new teacher training days, and it was a pretty normal day of worksheets and lab work.  The difference today was that a person had pulled up out front of the high school, fired a few shots into the air with his pistol, and drove off.

The school went into lock down, which had been reviewed with the teachers and students, but not with the substitutes!  The kids did a great job of locking the doors and rolling up most of the windows.  We got briefly yelled at for one of my students sticking his head out the window to see what was going on.  Nothing much seemed to be going on, and I entertained the students holed up in my room for two hours with card games and we eventually played some Mafia and heads up seven up.

Maybe that is why I like an empty classroom?  No, I like an empty classroom because it is filled with potential.  A silent classroom is boring.  As much as my students probably think to the contrary, I love a lively classroom, with debate and discovery going on.  Yes, I give tests, and yes, I make sure it is quiet, but tests aren't fun for me.  It isn't fun to sit and watch someone else take a test, believe me, I would much rather take a test than proctor one.  It could even be a Latin test.

I have a pretty good idea of who my students will be next year.  Most returners from the previous year, as I teach 6-8 math.  But there will be new 6th graders, and likely a few new 7th and 8th graders.  Limitless potential, really.  Do I like the way the class is arranged?  Do I like table groups, or would I rather make some sort of U-shape?  How do I want to do grading?  How will I get on top and stay on top of parent communication this year?  How will I challenge every student?  Does splitting the classroom up by ability make sense?

Why is it so much easier to write about my life instead of fiction?  I realize if I do ever write a good fictional story, there will be plenty of me in the book.  I will likely twist real life events and weave them into the book. I have a hard tie thinking that I will write anything besides an adolescent book.  Perhaps starting as an adolescent, but writing mostly while an adult?  I feel like one of the largest impacts on me in the past few years has been seeing how much parents affect their children.  It seems like a no-brainer, but it is quite remarkable to me how much that bond affects things.  Not always, but I think Dennis Rodman's dad is a good example if you don't believe me.  Look him up.