A quick update on Last week

You see, this week started out ok, the same old kind of days in a row. Aside from waking up late everyday, everything went well. I subbed and went to class; I even had a test postponed until later next week. My homework was pushed back to next week and my professor in physics is a really nice guy. The only bad part of the week was sitting through the same class twice.

I will explain. You see, education classes consist of the same kind of information just presented in a different manner within each class. Most classes cover identical material but have their own homily to go on about, in my case, specifically special education referrals and Individual Education Plans (IEP’s). The two education courses I am taking right now are both instruction type courses, so in both we had to go over how to refer and plan for students with special needs. However, as you would expect and as I, in fact, expected, the two teachers would come at the issue in two separate ways. They, being the original thinkers presented the exact same lecture with the exact same handouts. So the second lecture made for the most excruciating night ever when combined with the fact that it is my only class on Mondays and it is at 7pm. That’s right, I drove into Chestnut Hill for a night class full of everything I’ve already learned. I couldn’t believe it.

Aside from all the, what we’ll call “double learning” I did, my week was full of a whole lot of nothing. I subbed a couple of days as usual. The kids were good, and I had very little to do. I had a few kids that need to learn when to shut their mouths though. Man, I tell ya, there are some kids that just keep talking and keep talking and keep talking. They know they should stop; you know they know because they stop when you look at them, or move your eyes toward them they stop and look down like dog that peed on the carpet. I think the best thing any teaching professor told me about classroom management for students who talk too much was to just stay close to the ones that need it. However, in this case, the student only talked more when I was around. The only thing I could do to stop him was to be me. Every time he asked a stupid question, I didn’t say, “don’t you have work to do” or “you are senior aren’t you?” as his teacher did. I did however answer with an equally stupid answer and it seemed to shut him up. And you want to know the funny about it is that kids respond to that. They don’t want you to just push away their attempts to be distracting to you; they see that as a challenge. What I did, that got him to do the work his teacher couldn’t, was to just give him a little back and shut him up with his own humor.

I think if I can get away with being me, I could be a good teacher. I just have to deal with parents of those few children who want to throw out smart ass remarks and not get any back. Once I get through the parents, I think I can do ok with management of my classes.

After the whole week of school I needed a break and a trip to Rhode Island was exactly what I was looking for. So here I sit in Rhode Island and relaxing after a long week. I will write about yesterday’s trip to New York some other time.

Until then….