I’m sick. I refused to get sick, but it insisted. Bless the little children, for they have no sense of personal hygiene and sneeze on their hands just before handing me something or touching something that belongs to me, thereby spreading their own personal hell to yet another person.
I did nothing on Saturday, even less on Sunday, and today woke up with severe chest congestion on top of the head congestion that was already going on. But my throat doesn’t hurt anymore, so that’s progress – of a sort. I haven’t been running any kind of fever, so this is just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill cold. The only difference is that you get to feel like death warmed over without the chills and hot flashes.
So, in honor of the little darlings that gave me this virus, I ignored the phone this morning and refused to consider going in to sub. I had to work at Lee College tonight, anyway, so it wasn’t like I was really getting the day off. And whadda know? Newport Elementary calls me around lunchtime to see if I can sub tomorrow from noon to 4. It’s a 3rd grade math/science class, so that should actually be fun. Third graders are easily intimidated (usually), but not completely clueless about how they should behave in school. And I should have the same set of kids all afternoon, so I shouldn’t have to worry too much about schedules to switch classes and whatnot. Just tell me when I need to take them to the bathroom.
I’ve been taking meds to help with the symptoms (since that’s all you can really do for a cold anyway), as well as several immune boosting supplements. Right now, I’m on Tylenol for the sinus headache, antihistamine for the nasal drip, decongestant for the congestion (duh!) in my nose, and Mucinex for the congestion in my chest. All of those, with the exception of the Tylenol, make me incredibly sleepy. So, when I’m not feeling like crap from my symptoms, I’m staring at the walls, drooling from the drugs. To help my body fight the good fight, I’m also taking a multivitamin, vitamin C, echinacea, golden seal, grapeseed extract, and Airborne (r). I just got the Airborne (r) today, so I don’t know yet how well it works. If I’m better by the end of this week, I’ll call it a success and will continue to take it on a regular basis until my immune system gets used to being in close contact with nasty, germ-ridden children – God love ‘em.
So, today was a no-go on the subbing, but I did attend calc class as an SI. We didn’t hold a study session because there was no way to give anyone prior notice and, really, there’s nothing to go over yet. We’ll have our first study session on Wednesday after class, and I am positive that I will not be the only person there. I actually had a couple of students stop me after class to confirm that we would be meeting Wednesday. Earlier today, I made several phone calls to departmental secretaries, trying to find the one who could reserve a classroom for me for the rest of the semester. The lady that ended up taking care of it had never had an SI request a classroom before. She must’ve thought I was losing my mind because, according to her, the past SIs for the math department have just used the tables lining the halls for their group sessions. Ah, no. I want a classroom with a chalkboard or whiteboard, and a computer. Someplace out of the way of traffic in the halls so we can work without being disturbed. Right before class began, I got the call with a room confirmation, so I am officially official! Well, I am for Mondays and Wednesdays. I’m supposed to hold three sessions per week, and finding a third day is proving a little difficult. I wanted to have a third session on Friday evenings, but the buildings on campus close at 12:30 on Fridays. If you’re already in the building, they don’t care. They just won’t let anyone new come in after that time. My problem is that I will most likely be called to sub on Fridays. I have been called the last two, even though (for different reasons) I chose not to take the jobs. Even though there is a chance I won’t be called to sub, I can’t count on that and have to plan on not getting to campus until 4:30, which is four hours after the buildings have closed and two hours after the library has closed. I’m at a loss. To complicate things even more, there is a computer program on all of the campus computers that is used by staff to clock in and out. I had thought about moving the Friday meetings to an off-campus location, but how would I clock in?
I meet with the SI coordinator Wednesday before class and I will definitely have to bring this up to her. I’ll also talk to the students who come to class and to the study session on Wednesday to see what they think and if they have any suggestions for that third meeting. Somehow, it will work out.
Okay, so I haven’t really talked about my week of subbing last week. And, really, it was only three days, so it wasn’t a full week – but it SURE felt like it! Tuesday, I was called to sub in the morning and when I was signing back out, was asked to stay for the rest of the day for a different teacher. Little did I know that this second teacher would introduce me to the pod of students I would be working with for the rest of the week. The teacher on Tuesday afternoon was a 6th grade reading teacher, and the kids were generally okay. Talkative, but nice. Wednesday afternoon, I subbed for the same pod of students, but this time for the science teacher. That day was really cool, or so I thought, because I actually got to speak with the teacher I was subbing for before I took over her classes. Actually, that part of Wednesday was really cool. It was the students that got under my skin. I started off with the teacher’s homeroom, but they were only there for about 20 minutes before they changed classes. The next group of kids…they are well-known as being the “worst students in the 6th grade”. Within the first five minutes of this second group coming into class, one of the students proudly informed me that he was supposed to be in 9th grade, that he thinks school sucks, and that he has no use for education. According to him, he has better ways of making money and the cops will never catch him. I fear for this child and would like to throttle his parents. He was so disruptive that I had to move him behind the teacher’s desk, sitting on the floor, facing the wall. He still managed to disrupt the class to the point that they got nothing done. I was partly at fault here. I should have known where my line in the sand was drawn. Up to that point, I had no line. I was so focused on not being the sub that sends tons of kids to the office that I never even considered writing up a discipline referral on him. The class was constantly on the verge of being out of control, and all I did the entire hour I had them was yell and correct behavior.
And then the last group came in. By this point, I was simply exhausted and had very little reserves of patience or tolerance left. I was short with them. Sarcastic. Inflexible. And they repaid me by completely tuning me out. They managed to get through half of the work their teacher left for them, and then they took over the class. The last class is always the hardest to keep control of anyway. Everyone’s tired, they’ve spent their entire day in a desk being told to be still and be quiet. It’s very unnatural for a child to do this for seven hours a day! And I was at the end of my resources. The last ten minutes were the worst. The kids were out of their desks, walking around, and the noise level was ridiculous. We never even heard the announcements that released students who walked, rode their bike, or had a parent pick them up! I tried turning the lights off and on with absolutely no response and no decrease in the noise. I tried yelling, but 25 sixth graders make far more noise than I can. I tried standing quietly at the front of the room, waiting for them to quiet back down. They acted like I wasn’t there. It was simply ridiculous. I had truly lost control of the class for a few minutes. It wasn’t until kids started realizing that announcements for dismissal were being made that they started to quiet down. And that, only because I was standing at the door and informed them that they were not going to leave until they got quiet and took their seats, even if it meant they missed their bus.
I couldn’t get out of the building fast enough that day. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t go home! It was the first day of class for LC, and I had to be there. Even worse, I had to do a presentation. By the time I got home that night, I was completely spent emotionally, physically, mentally. I was doing a lot of praying at that point. I knew that the problem wasn’t the kids. It was me and how I was handling things. While I was praying, the thought came to me that I was ignoring the more important things that I was taught in school. Oh, sure, the techniques of turning the lights off or standing quietly at the front of the room are things that were suggested for getting a class to settle down, but those things didn’t address the root of the problem: discipline from the beginning.
The first thing I realized is that kids know that they’re many and I am but one. I needed a tool to help me get their attention when their volume began to increase beyond what I could top. Besides, I had begun to notice that once I started yelling to get the kids to quiet down, the next time I had to yell louder, and then louder, ad nauseum. Did I want to spend my days yelling? Of course not! So, what could I use to get the kids’ attention that would be easy to carry with me, yet louder than them? A whistle! And not just any whistle, either. I got the official whistle used by the NFL, NHL, and NBA. That sucker is LOUD! In a small, enclosed area, or in close proximity, you lose a little of your hearing when I blow it. It’s temporary, but there’s a definite muting of sound.
So, now I had a way to get the kids’ attention. But what about before I ever had to use it? I noticed that, as the days wore on, I would start to lose track of which students I’d had to discipline more, which kids constantly asked to go to the restroom, and so on. So, I started a volunteer list on the board. Before the kids ever got to the classroom, I sectioned off a part of the whiteboard and labeled it “Volunteers for Office Referral”. As each class of kids entered the room, I began by telling them that their teacher had left very specific instructions to take names and send people to the office as necessary (she really had), but that I hated sending kids to the office and didn’t even like having to take names. So, if they had to be corrected, they were volunteering for this particular duty. As kids acted up during class, I didn’t even need to know their name. I simply pointed at them and said, “You’re my next volunteer. Go put your name on the board.” The trick, though, was that I gave them a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. The first strike was putting your name on the board, the second two strikes were check marks after your name. If you still were misbehaving after the second check mark, you’d get an office/discipline referral. Kids could work to get their name off the list, as well. Once their name was on the board, if they would start acting right, after a few minutes I would let them come up and erase their name. The first time a kid got to erase their name, it was like the whole classroom culture changed! The kids knew then that I could be trusted to hold to my word, and we all had a visual reminder of where you stood, conduct-wise. I had just one kid get to two check marks. No one needed an office referral.
The last thing I implemented was free time, or as Dr. Fred Jones calls it, “Preferred Activity Time” which is also known as PAT. Each class was told that they would be allowed 10 minutes at the end of the period to play games, read a book, whisper to their friend, listen to music, etc. So long as they stayed seated and the noise volume stayed reasonable, I was for it. On the board, I listed the numbers 1 through 10, descending. Each time I had to quiet the whole class, or if I had to blow the whistle to get their attention, they would lose a minute. Any minutes lost on PAT was time they would need to continue working on school work. This, in concert with the “volunteer” list, worked wonders. The kids really got that I was trying to give them a break and that I was trying to be as fair as possible under the circumstances. Again, the PAT list was a visual clue of where the class stood with their behavior, and it gave them an incentive to move quickly to get things done. Three classes lost 2 minutes and one lost 3 minutes. I had to blow the whistle twice in each class. Each time I had blown it the first time, all it took was for me to put it in my mouth for the students to start trying to quiet each other down.
On Wednesday, when students were leaving my classroom, I could hear them grumbling about me being their sub. They’d be glad when I told them to pack up and get ready to change classes. None of them wanted to see me again. Thursday, I could see on their faces when they walked into their class that they were dreading another day with me, even if it was in a different classroom. The two classes I’d had so much trouble with on Wednesday, I took the time to point out that we had had a difficult day the day before, and that I was going to do my best to make sure it wasn’t repeated. By the time the kids left my room on Thursday, I was “Mrs. A,” and the kids were happy and excited to be there. They would have gladly had me back the next day.
Of course, teenagers and pre-teens have a tendency to be a bit schizo, so I take their happiness on Thursday with a grain of salt. But I cannot deny the impact that the volunteer list and PAT list made. The whistle was secondary, and only necessary to keep me from yelling. It was the visual reminders that made the biggest difference.
I know that the techniques I used last Thursday will work for kids from the fifth grade on up to seniors in high school. I’m not so sure about fourth grade and lower, though. Being in a third grade class tomorrow…there’s a whole new set of rules that I’ll need to learn, so I need to make sure I’m on my toes. And I need to remind myself that third graders are still very small children (but don’t tell them that), and it is very easy to wound them. I’ll bring my whistle – it’s effective as an attention-grabber - but I’m not so sure about the volunteer and PAT lists. I may need to just re-name them and write the kids’ names on the board myself instead of having the kids do it. There’s something very tangible about a student writing their own name on the list of people who have been causing trouble. That whole trip to the front of the class with everyone watching (even if it’s out of the corner of their eyes), and putting your name up there for everyone to see really makes a visceral impact. But for smaller kids, perhaps just seeing their name up there will work. We’ll see. Third graders know how to write their names, so maybe it’ll work after all.
Final thought: Even though I’m subbing tomorrow, I still don’t have to get up really early because I don’t need to be there until 11:30am. Whoopee!
My feet. They are throbbing. And my knees have stabbing pains in them. And I am happy. HAPPY, I tell you!
Have fifth graders shrunk? Because the ones I subbed for today were tiny, tiny creatures.
Well, I visited all but one of the district campuses today and distributed my homemade advertisement card to all of them, except the high school. The lady (and I use that term loosely) didn’t want one because I was already “on the list”. I didn’t go to the kindergarten campus either, because I just can’t take the thought of subbing for a kinder class. Ew! I have a lot of respect for those who like teaching kinder, but it’s really not for me. I’m not sure if I liked my own kid when he was that age. Loved him? Absolutely, without a doubt. 
