Eeiny, Meeiny, Miney, Mo

Being absent from work requires teachers to turn over their classes to a substitute. You remember them, and how you used to try to have as much fun with them as you could. You had an advantage: you knew everything about the way that class was run, and the poor sub didn't, and you used this knowlede to try to pull something over on the sub. Don't you remember saying, "Mrs. Smith lets us…"

That's one reason I don't take much time off from work, even when I'm arguably sick enough to stay home. But another of the main reasons is that calling a sub from the pool of labor is a crap-shoot: you really don't know what you're going to get. In my experience, there are three general types of people who wind up working as subsitute teachers:

1. college kids who are earning a teaching credential, or a contract of their own, and are entering the profession.


2. retirees, either from teaching or from the private sector, supplementing their income in their platinum years.


3. people who have been able to earn a Bachelor's degree and pass the CBEST test, but who are, as a group, unemployable in the private sector for some reason or another. In short, misfits. Substitute teaching offers them one-day shots of filling a space, and then the opportunity of moving on: no responsibility, no accountability.

The system doesn't promote watching these people closely. The school is thankful to get someone, anyone "qualified," into that empty class. After that, their problem is solved. If the sub is a disaster, the teacher might fill out the form that exists for rating subs, but it's just filed away. I don't know of any case in which a sub's employment has been terminated for poor performance. We all know there are "background checks," but that's simply a search of legal records, not a personality/skills evaluation.

So if the sub cannot control a class of young people, or complete the lesson, or engages in inappropriate conversations with students, there's little in the system to catch it and screen them out. And there's little motivation to do it, anyway.

Again, it's only that one class of substitutes that I have a problem with. The first class, the young ones entering the profession, often have difficulty with classroom management as well. I know I did for a short while. So I understand that. And those in the second class usually make the best substitutes.

But the end result is the same: I try to find out who a good sub is, and request that person. That's no promise that I'll get her, but at least they will call her. But I still have to write a simple, explicit lesson plan that gets something accomplished and that just about anyone can apply, and that requires skill. And that's why it's work to take a day or two away from my class.

Bueller, Anyone?

Once in a great while (like once every other year, maybe) I'll take a day off from work.

I call it a "Mental Health Day." I can usually feel the need coming for a long time, and it usually happens in the second semester. Well, today is the day. It's been about a year since I took even a sick day, and I don't take many of those; about one sickness a year, and then it's one, maybe two days off. There are reasons to keep it brief: it's an expected professional courtesy to always leave a lesson plan for the substitute teacher, and it takes effort to write a good one (I'm not a "pop in the video tape" kind of guy: school is school, and they'll do something productive, thank you very much). And you never know who you're going to get as a sub or what mayhem will ensue while you're gone. The lesson has to be well-written (idiot-proof is literally the correct term here), complete with six or eight notes about individual students and contingency instructions for their behavior. So it takes quite a bit of effort in my profession to lie on the couch doped up on Day-Quil with Kleenez stuffed up one's nose. I keep an abundant supply of Alka-Seltzer Plus in my desk, and the coffemaker, my true friend, is always ready. Between the decongestant, analgesic, and caffeine, I can be pretty sick and still be at work & running things for myself, even if that means I'm behind my desk and they're doing bookwork and coming to me with questions. That can be infinitely easier than gambling on a sub & student behavior, and losing. Maybe more about substitute teachers later…

My students tell me "You're never absent." Maybe their other teachers are more sickly than I am.

I will use a sick day when I'm "no good to anyone, should be in bed" sick, and I'm grateful for the sick days that are provided in our contract, but I'm not sick today. I'm using a category in our contract known as "Personal Necessity." Three PN days are allowed every year, and the first two times it's invoked, the teacher doesn't need to give a reason for its use. I told my principal this morning that I was using a PN day. So I'm within the letter, and the spirit, of my contract. I don't feel any ethical conflict, because I'm not ethically compromised. The contract is clearly protecting the privacy of the teacher here, and "personal necessity" can have a broad definition, applied by the user.

I know some teachers who have all their sick days planned out. Obviously, they can't tell when they're going to be sick, so they're cheatng the system. With PN days available, I don't have to do that, so my conscience is at ease.

I left a lesson plan for the substitute teacher, and I know my students are fully capable of living without me, so I don't feel guilty about not being there, as I used to when I was a less-experienced teacher.

I'm sitting at home, doing some research online, relaxing, re-energizing. Funny how I just had a relatively slow weekend, but now that I'm taking a workday off, I feel immediately better. The psychological impact of getting out of the usual loop is strong.

Or maybe it's just the pleasure that comes from play hookey… : )

Relax, Observe & Let the Muse Whisper in Your Ear

When I was a new teacher, some days I'd be driving to work thinking, "What am I going to do today?!" in a semi-panic. Now, sometimes I think to myself, "Hmm, I wonder what I'm going to do today," deep in contemplation. That's what experience does for you.

Today, I needed a quick writing lesson. And since it's Friday, it needed to be something they could accomplish in one class hour, then clean up over the weekend. So I came in early this morning to think something up.

So what rabbit did I pull out of my hat? I took them out to the quad with pencil & paper, and told them to find something to describe in detail. It could be anything: a tree, a trash can, the vending machine. The ants crawling along the crack in the concrete. Whatever. Just get down to minute descriptions, and stay with one subject. Beat it to death with adjectives, similies, & sensory detail.

Kids really got into it. I had to separate a few kids who were tempted to talk instead of observe and write, but after I played the bowling ball to their pins, everything went swimmingly (I've always wanted to use that adverb do describe something. It probaby has a broader range of usefulness in British English; here, it's better saved for sarcasm, I think).

Well, one must experiment. This time, it worked.

Please Remove Your (Tinfoil) Hat

The first half of my fifth period class coincides with the middle school lunch, and it gets noisy enough outside that I typically close the door so I can lower my voice and we can hear each other.

A very sweet girl in that class is known to be a bit of a "ditz."

Halfway though this class, the bell rings that ends the middle-schoolers' lunch period, and three minutes after that, the it's pretty quiet again outside. Well, a couple of minutes after this is happens, the girl begins to roll her eyes up and to the sides, an expression of concentration on her face. Then she blurts out "Do you hear those voices?"

Maybe there still were voices outside, but I didn't hear any voices, and none of the other students heard any voices. She heard voices, though.

I just couldn't resist. I said, "No: what are the voices telling you to do?"

She scowled at me. Other kids laughed. She looked into the corners of the room again, and satisfied that the voices had gone, turned her attention to her work.

Precious.

Quote of the Week

Last week I'm teaching Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse." I'm helping a group of kids in the back of the room understand a question I wrote, and it's a bit noisy while pairs of students discuss and answer their questions, and sneak in some socializing.

So a girl asks me why the poem is so difficult to understand, and I say something like "The poet wrote this about two hundred years ago."

She looks at me in surprise and exclaims, "The Pope wrote this?"

Of course everyone around her laughed, including myself.

I'm Ready For My Close-up, Mr. Demille

"Are we going to watch the movie?"

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard this in class whenever I've introduced a new novel. It usually takes this pattern:
"Is there a movie of this?"
"Are we going to watch the movie?"
"Hey, everyone: we're going to watch a movie!"

It takes about eight seconds for this conversation to morph away from the book in their hands and toward the idea of watching a movie in class. Now that's education.

Well, I got tired of it, so I decided to do something different.

After reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, I told the class that we wouldn't be watching the movie. We'd be studying the movie. This statement was greeted with expressions of excitement layered with suspicion. So I passed out the three-page worksheet, explained the basics of storytelling using the genre of film vs. literature, and we were off.

Well, not really. They complained. They didn't like the idea that their pure, unadulterated pleasure of movie-watching was going to be interrupted by work. I was ruining the pinnacle of student existence: two or more days without any work to do, watching a movie. And it rarely depends on how horrible the movie is; the mere fact that it's a movie makes them deem it good. You would have thought I had torn up the Constitution right in front of their eyes. They didn't like this idea one bit, no Sir. I was actually going to require that they think as they watched the movie.

And the questions! Not just "How was the movie different?" but "Why did the film maker choose to eliminate this scene, or add that, or use this particular camera angle?" "How does the actor's interpretation of the character bring out personality traits that we know are essential to the telling of this story?" Like that.

The first day I paused the tape frequently, showing elements of camera work: the establishing shot, the high angle, the close-up, the pan. Editing techniques like cross-cutting & justaposition of elements. They were irritated because they wanted to watch a movie & I kept stopping to ask them to actually look at the art of film making. But by the end of the first day, they were watching the film critically, with an eye to the storytelling skill of the screenwriter, director, editors, score writers, and actors. They answered my questions, and took their own notes in the margin. They were given permission to think for themselves, to apply knowledge they already had to evaluate the same story and themes presented in a different medium.

On the second day they started making comments about how the music was key to establishing mood. I asked why music is important to film. They said "Because it's about emotions." I smiled and let the tape roll.

Two and a half days is a significant chunk of class time, considering everything I officially have to accomplish before the state testing (not to mention June). But I think this was time well-spent.

No News is Good News

I've been without the TV for nearly a month, and I'm still alive. Sleeping well. More work done in the evenings. More alert at work. All is good.

Psychologically, I'm okay (some people might disagree, but I'm just talking about the television here). Sometimes I think of shows I miss, mostly when students who are around me talk about television. But it's pretty easy to forget, actually.

You wanted me to go through withdrawls, didn't you? You wanted me to moan and groan about what was happening on Lost, or 24. But I really don't care.

You really wanted me to break down and have the set repaired, or better yet, to replace it with a big screen, flat panel vondermachine, so that you could justify your addiction by seeing me cave in.

Well, think again. I'm made of sterner stuff.