The class was back under control by the time the other teachers showed up. I did not ask the teachers to help with the assignment. They tried helping the students, but could not understand how to read or draw the graphs. They asked me if I understood and I tried to help them understand.
I think Two and a Half Inches of Fun would be getting a lot more positive and cheerful responses if he wasn’t so unpopular around here. I reckon most other people would be getting responses along the line like “subbing sure is tough,” or “wow sounds like you had a rough day.” Instead people are lined up to pick nits and preen feathers. This isn’t even in the Pit for crying out loud.
As for the content of the OP, I do think you’re overreacting, but I agree with your general point. Teachers should be expected to have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of education. I dont know about Flannery O’Connor, but basic graphs? Cmon. I even have a cite. From Horace Mann’s “On the Art of Teaching:”
I dunno about the Flannery O’Connor thing. I’ve never read any of her stuff, but I know who she is, at least, and I got my BA at a Korean univeristy, where the English literature program is a laugh.
(Actually, upon reflection I think I’ve read a chapter from A Good Man is Hard to Find.)
I am unpopular?
Why did they come in then? If they could see the class was under control, surely they had other things to do with their time? It seems like there might be more to this story, somehow.
It was because the class had already gotten out hand twice and the vice-principal wanted somebody in the classroom who would actually write detentions.
I doubt it. People here have been cranky, snippy and snarky for a while now. It’s true that TaaHIoF has baggage but I don’t think that’s solely responsible for the type of response he’s receiving.
As for the teachers, I feel that elementary school teachers should be able to read a graph. This leads me to believe that there is something other than idiocy that gave our frustrated OP the idea that they couldn’t. I suspect pure distraction.
Sheesh. I’m about to go back into subbing, and I’m now remembering the days that made me glad to be well shut of it. Many regular teachers are not very well educated, but have excellent discipline abilities or rapport to make up for it.
Two and Half Inches, I feel for you, I remember days like that, you get nothing but guff from the kids, the other teachers are all “why can’t you control the class?” and admin treats you like the most expendable thing since the paper condom.
I can read a graph, and I know who Flannery O’Conner is. “My Life at the P.O.”, Grandpa looking riduculous in the kimono, Liberal affluent guilt leading to death by brucellus. Good stuff.
As for sub-prep, you’re at the mercy of the absentee teacher and whatever prevailing policies exist at the school. Your prep is minimal at best, since the allocation process is ad hoc - even with excellent materials, the time required to absorb the material is minimal.
Teachers tend to aggregate into interest areas at work, and while there are many cases of liberal arts - literate teachers of science and mathematics, there is at best a minimum of the reverse. And there is a culturally accepted attitude of hostile innumeracy, even among teachers. It can be difficult to get non-mathematically inclined teachers to teach mathematics, even at the monkeys-throwing-shit-at-things-level employed in US schools.
And for certain student segments, there is a matter of containment rather than teaching, with teachers in play more as Corrections Officer than as teachers. I imagine that there is a certain level of contempt and disdain on the part of teachers towards paraprofessionals and subs.
Did you mean “Why I Live at the P.O.”? That was Eudora Welty.
Wow. I was going to post the same thing. Her house is a museum here, now. I keep meaning to go downtown and tour it but haven’t yet.
This came up the very first day I subbed. The teacher had left a worksheet for the students, and my instructions were to “have the students complete the worksheet and go over it in class; if time remains, they can work on homework from other classes or read quietly.”
In a 90 minute class period, the students finished the worksheets in about 20 minutes. After discussion of the six problem worksheet, we had about an hour to kill. Rather than have them sit silently and bore themselves to tears, I asked what the teacher had been teaching for the past few weeks, and if they had any questions. Some did, and I tried to help them out in the class.
The next day, I got an angry e-mail from the teacher. She was upset that I had tried to actually teach the kids something, and scolded me for “deviating from her lesson plans.” :rolleyes:
Not that I’m suggesting having some backup material is a bad idea, but she wasn’t the first teacher I’ve known who pitched a fit when things weren’t run exactly as she had asked. It’s harder for a sub who has a real, outside job to spend time coming up with things to do for people he or she won’t know until 9am, and then only for 90 minutes at the most.
But I’m sidetracking. I was merely objecting to your calling 2.5 out on “not being prepared,” when it’s hard to ever prepare for a day of subbing. But I think you got it, so we can move on. 
Dude. Really, now?
I saw it when she lived there, she babysat me a time or two when I was a tiny girl - I was mostly raised by my great great aunt, who lived there in Jackson, and my great aunt who lives quite literally around the corner there on St. Ann in Belhaven. My great great aunt went to school with Miss Eudora, and to the same church and they were friends for…um…ever. About 60 years, at least. She always had candy, and I liked Miss Eudora very much.
It wasn’t until I was in HS that I put together the fact that my great great aunt’s friend Miss Eudora was sorta famous. And she came to chat with my HS English class once because I asked her to, when we were reading “Why I Live at the P.O.” and “The Ponder Heart”.
She did tell great stories, though. The library in Jackson is named after her, and then one in Terry is named after my great grandmother. My great aunt has some of her photographs that Miss Eudora gave her, and Miss Eudora once took me to see the alligators on the Standard Life building (is that still even there? It’s been so long ago…)
Now I have to read “One Writer’s Beginnings” again. It’s good, because it’s like talking to her, she spoke that way, and it makes me feel like a little girl in patent leather shoes going off to church again, when I still had my aunts and my grandmother. sniffle
/hijack
Cheers,
G
:smack:
Sometimes I don’t know Y-axis I even bother.
I think the OP would have had a much better response, popularity aside, if this was posted in the pit
2.5" might have not even had kids who were marked as behavioral problems kids, at least not entire classes made up of them for the entire day. There are just plenty of kids, esp at the middle school level, who become complete assholes the minute their regular teacher is not in the room. Now, 2.5 might not have the best classroom disciplinary skills (and believe me guy, that’s not a knock-- I’ve been there, I need better skills, and I know that a lot of it comes from a lack of admin support), but sometimes there is literally nothing you can do. NOTHING. I’ve had kids flat out refuse to my face to stop talking, change their seats away from their friends, go to the principal’s office. I’ve had kids tear up detention slips that I gave them.
When the administration is trying to get fewer kids sent to the office so that it looks better on whatever report these things go on, and the kids’ parents don’t give a fuck about whether or not their kid fails 6th grade, gets detentions, whatever, you’ve pretty much lost the battle before you set foot in the classroom. There may be some miracle teachers who can figure out how to reach these kids and turn their lives around, but I guarantee you that even those teachers need more than a 60-minute class to do it in.
So let’s all just back the hell off 2.5", at the very least in terms of things that aren’t related to whether or not other teachers should have the knowledge to read a graph if they aren’t math teachers. And for the record, I agree 100%. Maybe if some of the tenured retards were ousted from the schools, it would be harder to get a teaching job, and they might even decide to start paying teachers something more reasonable.
OK, rant over. And before you ask, yeah-- I still want to teach for a living. Just not sub for one.
Yeah, its wrong to think any one day sub is going to not only get control of a class of hooligans, but also get them to learn something. 2.5, I would have just said fuck it after 15 minutes of trying and not even bothered with the lesson. But way back when I was in school, the behaviorally challenged students stayed with the same teacher all day except for PE and shop, which I think is a better idea.
And even if you love kids and love teaching, getting classes like the one in the OP will change your mindset pretty quick.
This is why I love Cameroon. When my class gets out of control I can tell them all to go home and grab a beer with admin instead (not that I do that…).
Anyway, I can read a graph, but the assignment was a bit comfusing to me anyway, though I figured it out pretty quickly. The connection between “graph” and “story” is something older people might not be used to making.
Yep, still the 4th tallest building in Jackson as well.
Do you remember the Jitney Jungle grocery store that Miss Eudora used to go to? It’s still there too, only the McDades own it now. It still looks the same though!
That’s a neat story, Gleena. Small world and all that!
OK, I feel a slight bit better about confusing Eudora Welty and Flannery O’ Connor, seeing that it provided opportunity for this nice warm fuzzy nostalgic hijack in what was supposed to be TAAHIOF’s rant on the educational system.