I.T. to Teacher

I'm still subbing regularly, averaging one day off per week, but not much of interest has been happening so I'll take some of the things I've been meaning to post and put them here in one big ADD-esque entry.

Yesterday I was having kids take notes on a website during class. One girl was not being quiet nor doing the work. I went and asked her if she was done with the assignment. Of course, she wasn't. She complained that this was just busy work. I reminded her that the notes were due the next day and commented, "If it's busy work, then you should be busy... and therefore, quiet." She didn't give me much trouble the rest of class.

In my post about money I failed to mention that even though this wasn't the best idea, or the most well planned idea, financially; it has already shown benefits. I am much happier now than I have been in a long time even though I enjoyed computers for much of my IT career. I still like them, but it's definitely in a different way now. I recently subbed in the AP Computer Science class, and after they were done with the assignment I talked with them a little about different programming languages and the relative merits of such. They were amazed that I taught myself Java since they're learning it in class. I enjoyed talking about this, but I still don't want to be a programmer again.

It's been very important during this time of career change to have the support of family. My wife has had to shoulder the burden of being the breadwinner of the family. She has been very supportive of what I'm doing even though it's tough for her to be so far away and working so hard while I'm spending much of my time with her family. My parents-in-law have been great by letting me stay in their home while I work in the position my mother-in-law helped me get. My sister-in-law and family have been keeping me entertained and full of ice cream. My brother has offered to let me stay at his house if I need to be in the DFW area. My parents have been very supportive, too; even from half a country away. I imagine it's tough for them to not be able to do as much as they would like. My mom tried to get me a long term sub job at her school. I just got some ties from them in the mail today that will be good for wearing at school. I'm still working on making my wardrobe more teaching friendly; fewer polo shirts with computer company logos, more button downs and ties. So while I could probably have done this on my own it would have been much more painful without everyone's help. I know I couldn't have done this without my wife's support.

I ran my first 10k race this weekend. I've done innumerable 5k's and 2 marathons, but this was my first 10k. I clocked in at 48:12 averaging 7:45 per mile and negative splitting the 5k's by about a minute. This while running in the rain.

It's difficult in the classroom sometimes to keep a straight face and tell a kid to be quiet when they've just cracked a very funny joke. Ah, the trials of teaching.

I hope you were able to follow all that. You never know where my quick mind will tu...

Look, a shiny!

Edit: Changed the title.

I sent in my application for the ITeachTexas alternative certification program. This isn't the one I was originally looking at. The benefit to this one is that it is all online so it doesn't matter if I'm in Houston or Chicago or wherever. Once I hear I'm accepted into the program I can start applying for a job next year at any school in Texas.

I'm still getting a lot of sub work at the only school I'm signed up at. I've only had 2 days off since I've been in Houston. I've subbed for just about everything except computers, oddly enough. I have a friend at a nearby public school who is going to help me get on the sub list there so I can get a taste of the public schools as well.

In study hall today (actual study hall class, not just a class with nothing to do) a kid made a comment I didn't hear to a girl he'd been bantering back and forth with. The rest of the class took what he said to be calling this girl (a cheerleader) fat. The girl didn't seem to care; it was just more banter. Coincidentally, this girl's turn to go to the bathroom came up so she left the room. Now everyone is thinking that she left the room crying because the boy called her fat. He protests saying that he made sure to qualify the comment so he wasn't calling her fat. I told him that once a girl thinks you've called her fat there's no amount of qualifying that will fix it. He responded, "Well she just needs to stop being so damn arrogant." Yeah, comments like that will help your cause. Keep digging.

I've just finished reading my first teacher book. I'm sure I'll be getting more recommendations for teacher books I should read so I'll post a brief review of the ones I read. Consider it my public service a la "The Soup"... I read them so you don't have to.

I was recommended the book "Teacher Man," a memoir by Frank McCourt. He's a guy who taught English in New York City for 30 years. With all that experience I expected more from him in the way of insight into teaching difficult students. He spends a lot of time talking about various difficult students and difficult classes. Through it all he basically espouses a teaching philosophy that places the most import on keeping the kids quiet and entertained. Not bad goals, but I don't like the way he goes about it. His kids pretty much control his classes. He spends a lot of class time telling stories about his childhood and letting his kids tell stories about their lives. He doesn't seem to get much teaching done. He recognizes this and doesn't seem to care or think it's important. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe teaching English is different than teaching math or science. Maybe I don't get it yet.

I had a teacher in college I imagine being much like McCort. He taught computer science and spent much of the class telling stories. Everyone knew it, and everyone enjoyed it until the end of the semester. We had to do the last half of the syllabus in the week and a half before the final. We also had 3 labs combined into one big one due before the final. When it came down to that we lamented having our time and money wasted by this instructor.

I didn't get much besides entertainment out of this book until page 255 (out of 258). There he describes some advice he once gave a substitute teacher. He said you need to find what you love and do it. You need to make yourself comfortable in the classroom and hang on until you learn the tricks. It's not much advice, but it's all I found to be worth taking from this book.

Towards the end of lunch the power went out. I was watching a club meeting for a teacher, who had a meeting of her own during lunch, when the lights went out. Everyone waited for a moment for them to come back on, but that wasn't happening. We were told to keep the kids where they were (most of them were in the cafeteria) and waited. About 20 minutes after lunch had ended we were told to go to our classrooms and wait for the kids. When they arrived we moved everyone to classrooms with windows. So now I have a dozen juniors and seniors on the top floor (hot) of a building without power trying to make them do a worksheet. Right. I decide that, under the circumstances, I'd be doing well to just keep them fairly quiet until the power comes back. They can do the worksheet for homework since it's not due until tomorrow.

The period ends with no power. No one really knows what is going on. One teacher is dismissing her students to go to their next class so I follow suit. While my kids are walking down the dark hallway another teacher comes out of her classroom and tells them to go back to their previous class. Now there's 3 teachers (well, 2.5 since I'm there) in the hallway; one telling the kids to go to their next class, one telling them to go back to their previous class, and me without a clue. The teachers discuss (one of them almost heatedly) and find that the administration has told them different things. We let the kids go.

So now it's the last period of the day and there's still no power. I mostly succeed in keeping things to a dull roar just waiting for my watch to say it's time to go. Wouldn't you know it, 5 minutes before dismissal the power comes back on. The kids were a bit disappointed since they were hoping for no school tomorrow.

I blame a backhoe.

I've been surprised at how quickly I've gotten used to subbing. I'm not a person who enjoys standing up and talking in front of people. In fact, in college I transferred out of speech class because I dreaded going to class. Instead I took 3 semesters of Spanish to make up for that 1 semester of speech. The first several days of subbing I was nervous as classtime approached, but now I find that it's not that big a deal to me. I think there are several things that contribute to that. I recognize the kids now, and they recognize me so I'm not totally new. I'm speaking to kids rather than my peers. I don't know, maybe I'm just cut out for this.

Another indication that I just might be able to do this is that I'm looking forward to doing more than subbing. Subbing is definitely a good way to get an intro to teaching, but I'm ready to actually do some teaching. I'm nervous about the day I start teaching, but I'm looking forward to it.

So my wife and I recently analyzed our finances and found that we'll be having to absorb a bit of a shortfall between what we make and what we spend. That is something that we considered before I quit my IT job, but I don't think either of us thought about just how far away my first regular paycheck would be. At least I'm working every day this week.

Like the title? Sounds like I have something profound to say, right? No such luck. Read on.

Last week I ended up working 4 days. Not bad for my first week. I've already told you about my first day in painstaking detail so I'll hit the highlights of the rest of the week.

I took several periods of a physics class where they were supposed to be working on a lab. Well, they had done the lab the previous day and most of them were already finished. Ok, study hall it is. I had to tell one kid to put away the iPod he was listening to, to which he responded "Huh?" Exactly. One class ended up separated into several groups and it was interesting to listen to the different conversations in the different groups. The jocks were, of course, talking sports. The ones who would have been the "rich kids" at my school (I think most of the kids at this school fall into this category, though.) were talking about cars and cell phones. The third group were the "smart kids". They were talking about the nature of God, the origins of religion, free will vs. predestination, etc. That group was the most interesting to listen to.

The "rich kids" were using terms such as "boss" and "tight" to describe cars and phones. I may be wrong, but I don't think those terms have been in common use since the 70's. Could slang terms exist in a periodic cycle on the order of 30 years? Should I be a trendsetter and start saying "rad" again? That would be so bad. (Remember, bad as in good?)

In one class a girl was reading "Shopaholic and Sister" and was showing off the "bad words" to her friends. They compared it to "Catcher in the Rye" because that book has "bad words" in it also. That would be a heck of an English assignment "Compare and contrast the use of bad words in 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'Shopaholic and Sister.'" A guy in the group she was talking with read the back of the book summary and disbelievingly asked, "So this book is about shopping?"

One class tried to pull the "our teacher lets us listen to iPods" on me. Except that the teacher left instructions that said NO IPODS. Not gonna happen, kid.

I did make a couple of mistakes. I was giving several classes a test that helps determine placement in a particular honors class for the next year. They weren't supposed to use calculators. I let one class use calculators before I found that out. Turns out it wasn't a big deal since there's really only one problem where they would benefit from using a calculator (multiplying decimals... real tough) and they had to show their work anyway.

My other mistake was when I mis-helped several classes doing a lab on the computer. I told them to use one tool to select an area rather than the tool the directions said they were to use. This after telling them several times to read the directions carefully. Did I read the directions carefully. Of course not. Not until the last class of the day. So, the ones who did read carefully probably got the right answers, while the ones who did what I said to do go the wrong answer. At least they'll all be wrong the same way and the same amount so it shouldn't be too hard to tell if they did the process right.

Friday was a long day. I tell you, this working 4 days a week is killer. I was ready for the weekend. (I bet I can hear my wife's exclamation all the way from Chicago as she reads that) I didn't do much on Friday. I gave that placement test I mentioned and watched kids do labs so it wasn't hard; I was just tired.

I have to say, I don't remember people at my high school, which was pretty well off, having all these expensive things. I saw lots of iPods, expensive phones, and Louis Vuitton bags and wallets. I know, you're probably wondering how I would know Louis Vuitton from a plastic bag. Well, I was seeing a lot of these bags and wallets with the same design on them so I snuck a closer look and saw a stylized "LV" and figured that's what it had to be since it looked like it was something trendy among girls. Anyway, back to the rant. I know my parents wouldn't have bought me any $300+ gadget or $700 backpack for me to take to school. I think it's indicative of the school I'm at. Hmmm, I wonder if they give presents to subs they like? I'd like a vehicle navigation system and an XBox 360, please.

A couple of the students I had multiple days in multiple classes commented to their friends who hadn't had me before that I was a good sub and that they liked me. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I haven't been so nice to the kids that I let them do anything they want, and I'm not trying to be friends with them, but, on the other hand, I'm not being a harsh disciplinarian since they haven't had much to do. If they have work to do I make them do the work, but if it's study hall I allow them more freedom. It seems to be working; I just wonder if having the students like me so soon is a good thing or not. I'll have remember this for when I get my first teaching job so I can adjust accordingly based on how things go from here.

The Bio teacher who helped me out while I was teaching Bio 3 of the days last week commented that things went much smoother than usual while I was subbing. She said that usually subs are in her classroom every period asking her questions. She thinks it helped that I have a science background. Whatever it is, it was good to hear that I'm doing something right.

I'm already scheduled for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week so check back for more.

My roadwarrior passenger during our drive from Chicago to Houston.

I finally subbed for the first time!

I got to the school at 7:30am and found my mother-in-law (for whom I was teaching 3 periods while she was on a field trip) who showed me her Biology classroom and the classroom of the Health teacher I was subbing 2 periods for. Afterwards, we went to the office and she introduced me to the person in charge of subs where I got the info I needed for Health class (I already had my info for Bio).

1st Period: Biology - I handed out the tests and answer sheets, told them not to write on the tests, and let them get to work. Very quickly they discover that one of the questions has them labeling a picture that isn't there. This could be a problem. I end up telling them to do the best they can to show their teacher that they know the answer, and that I'd be sure to tell their teacher about this. After a couple of them come up to me with this problem I make a general announcement to the class about the problem and what to do about it. Even after this announcement I bet over half of the kids came up to me informing me of the problem and asking what to do about it. (How many times do you need to answer a question you have already told everyone the answer to? One more time.) I start getting tests turned in and see that some of them have written on the tests. Ugh, I need to make these last all day so I erase the ones that were written on in pencil and put them back in circulation. (How many times do you need to tell freshmen not to write on the tests? One more time.) I also see that some of them didn't write their test number next to their name as I had instructed them to do. (Ok, let's generalize... How many times do you need to tell freshmen anything? One more time.) The period ended, I straightened up the tests and answers, put them in a drawer, and headed to Health on a different floor.

2nd Period: Health - Jeez, those five minute passing periods seemed a lot longer when I was in high school. I get to the room just after the bell rings and find everyone waiting outside. The door is locked. I was told it would be unlocked by the time I got there. A nearby teacher was nice enough to unlock it for me. We get inside and there are no markers to write their assignment on the board with. All the drawers and cabinets are locked. Real helpful. I tell the roomful of seniors to write down the assignment as I tell it to them. It's just some questions out of the book. I was told the books are communal, and the students know which cabinet they are in. Of course, that is locked too. Great. I walk down to the office and ask them if I was left any keys. Nope, but they'll send someone up to unlock the cabinet for me. I hurry back up to the classroom hoping it hasn't been destroyed or that another teacher is there complaining about rowdy kids (I remember being a senior, and I remember being in health... not a good combination), but everything is fine.

Everything gets unlocked and the kids get their books... and blowpops. Some genius decided to put an open box of blowpops next to the textbooks. So now they all have blowpops. The assignment that was given only took the kids about 15 minutes to do so it's basically a study hall class. That's fine. I just make sure they're not too loud, and they do whatever they want. Works for everyone.

5th Period: Health - Back to Health. During the 2 period break I got a marker from the Bio room and wrote the assignment on the board. They got their books and blowpops and sort-of worked on the assignment. This group was smart enough to ask ahead of time if I was going to be collecting the assignment. When I said I wasn't they knew it was pretty much just a ruse to occupy their time. On to lunchtime.

Lunch - I also am subbing for lunch duty which basically means I eat in the cafeteria with a couple of other teachers and make sure nothing bad happens. I end up eating with two teachers who taught my wife when she was in high school.

6th Period: Biology - This is my second period giving the Bio test so I amend my intro to the test to include everything we learned with the first group. I may as well have passed the test out and not said anything because they still asked the same questions and still wrote on the tests. As I'm getting the tests back and seeing how many were written on I was starting to get a little concerned because I had fewer clean tests than students in the next period. I start thinking of how they could share test papers or how I could find time to make a few photocopies during the lightning fast passing period.

7th Period: Biology - Whew! Two students are absent so I have enough clean tests. Again with the intro speech. Again with the questions. Fewer of this group wrote on their tests. Perhaps it's because it doesn't matter at this point since this is the last class. Perhaps it's because I harped on them to not write on the tests (which they of course followed up with questions about which papers they could and couldn't write on). Probably the former. Everyone finishes and it's time to go home.

Lessons Learned

• Freshmen do not listen; even when they're looking at you while you're talking.
• Freshmen have no short term memory.
• Make sure doors and cabinets are unlocked.
• Passing periods are shorter than you expect.
• Fluid management is important. Drink too much at lunch and you'll be uncomfortable later.
• High school guys emulate Ashton Kutcher and Napoleon Dynamite in the hair department. I don't know why.
  

File this under "You've Got To Be Kidding Me!" The day I am leaving for Houston, nay!, hours before I leave for Houston, ... minutes even, I get two, count them, TWO calls to sub.

Houston or Bust (with a stop in McKinney)!