Law of Gravity

The girl was sort of watching a video. Her computer sat on a nearby desk. She leaned over, watched something, paused the video, and then sketched something on her paper. Upon closer examination, I saw the video was instructions for how to draw a gun. And that's what she was drawing on her paper. I moved on. The boy was watching an episode of Ellen . I caught a glimpse of the show topic. I moved on. A second boy was watching a basketball game. Me: "What should you be doing right now...?" Seventh grade English. Their end of year projects were to create a slide presentation (as a group) and a "creative component" (as individuals) on a topic about protest and activism. The first girl's topic was Black Lives Matter. The first boy was watching an interview with the Parkland survivors. Other topics included #MeToo, women's rights, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and human trafficking. Clearly the second boy had been goofing off. Having computers in class for resear...

First and second periods were ELD (English language development; read: English language learners). The teacher left me a page's worth of lesson plans for them. Third through fifth periods were freshman English. Ms. B, the teacher, left me two lines of instructions: You have a co-teacher, Ms. K. She will run the class. Pass back papers. Update portfolios.  I was not concerned. Ms. K knows her stuff.  During second period, Ms. K rushed in. She needed to get the computer set up for the rest of the day, but she only had a short time as she was on her way out to see her son get an award at his school.  Second period was her prep. She intended to get back in time for third period.  Of course, there was a technical glitch and Ms. K couldn't find the program she needed on Ms. B's computer. As I am in many different classrooms, I have learned to find most of the commonly used programs in several different computer configurations. I told Ms. K I'd find it so she could go. (It ...

Subs have been in very short supply lately. Things have gotten so bad that nowadays when I'm told there's a co-teacher, I don't expect them. (If there are normally two teachers in the room, the office is sure to pull the sub to cover for a class with one teacher who is out. If both teachers are out, they'll replace with one sub.) So, even though the eighth grade English class was co-taught, I was expecting to be the lone adult in the room all day. Another sub arrived before school. However, first period wasn't co-taught. She explained she was only covering first period for the co-teacher. I had a brief flash of optimism. Would they period sub the co-teacher? But then I realized they had to cover her first period as she taught that class on her own. Second period was the teacher's prep (and I was sent elsewhere). I was surprised when a neighbor teacher showed up for the next class. (The sub shortage is so bad most full time teachers are covering a class on their ...

For Tuesday through Thursday of last week, I covered for a special ed teacher who had a rather complex schedule. He was not in the same room two periods in a row. (Well, he did have one class that was the same for two periods, but those classes were split by lunch.) He did all the travelling because he co-taught for three periods. And his co-teachers were present for all three days. Fifth and sixth periods were integrated math 1 (read: 9th grade math or algebra 1).  On Wednesday the topic was joint and relative frequencies on two-way tables.   Ms. V would go over a bit, then she'd have them do a couple problems on their own before going over what they should have gotten. When they were trying the problems, I actually had something to do. I'd walk the room and help those with questions.  They were dividing numbers, and their answers were decimals. Ms. V had told them to round their answers. And that's where most of the questions came from. They weren't sure how to rou...

For Tuesday through Thursday of last week, I covered for a special ed teacher who had a rather complex schedule. He was not in the same room two periods in a row. (Well, he did have one class that was the same for two periods, but those classes were split by lunch.) He did all the travelling because he co-taught for three periods. And his co-teachers were present for all three days. Third period was integrated math 2 (read: 10th grade math or geometry). On Wednesday the lesson was about triangles, the triangle midsegment theorem, and such. Mr. R did his lecture as the class took notes. There wasn't much for me to do but sit and watch. And sitting and watching can get boring, especially when I wasn't learning anything new. I was really wishing I could take a nap. Then, at a break in the lecture, when the students were busily copying down the notes and working a problem on their own, Mr. R stopped to talk to me. He told me that he was a bit wiped out as he had been out late the n...

Seventh grade math. The lesson plan warned that the classes had been difficult (this was accompanied by an apology), but I was to have a co-teacher. Of course, not thirty seconds after reading that, the phone rang. It was the office informing me that my co-teacher was also out sick, and a sub for that co-teacher had not been ordered. I begged the secretary for help. I knew I was going to need it. She said she'd see what she could do. First period I wasn't to have a co-teacher. I muddled through, but it was as bad as advertised. Second period was the teacher's prep (and I went elsewhere to cover an extra period). Third period I returned, expecting more of what I had had in first period. The bell rang, and I fought for attention. That's when another sub showed up. via GIPHY She was so helpful. I went over what they were to do, and Ms. F clamped down on them. The kiddos were working. They were even nearly silent. All was well. Until the phone rang... On the way over, Ms. F...