I had a substitute teacher on Monday and Tuesday. Not only is two days a lot of work in preparation for a sub, it’s a lot of work catching up with the work done while I was gone. Ah, what’s a little work?
This week we had to collect all the work that we did for three students—a high, medium, and low academically achieving—and grade it, mark it with the appropriate labels, and turn it in by Monday. Well, at first glance I didn’t think that would be a big deal. Heck, I collect nearly everything they do anyway. I don’t, however, grade everything. Homework and classwork is often just checked for completion and whether or not the concept was learned. I don’t always give it a grade, per se. Fortunately I would only have to grade three students’ work and not twenty!
It was poor timing, though. Monday and Tuesday I was not here, so I wasn’t able to make sure that the kids that I had chosen to collect work from finished everything. When it came to Thursday, there were some gaps in the kids’ work. So, today was Freaky Friday. All the kids who had their work from this entire week completed and turned in would get to have some free time. The kids who still had work to complete would finish it.
The unfortunate thing about collecting the work from the low-achieving student is that they rarely finish anything, much less turn in homework! Everything had to be accounted for. My lowest student never does anything, so I couldn’t collect his work. Although blank pages would be indicative of his work, it would not provide evidence of his skills. My second lowest achiever is much the same way; she never turns in homework and she rarely finishes classwork. My third lowest-achiever was absent a day or two, so he didn’t have the work. So, I had to gather work from my fourth lowest-achiever. Heh. The high-achiever was a given. He gets all his work done. It’s done well, except for a little sloppiness here and there. My middle-achiever was hard to choose. I ended up choosing someone who I know finishes all her work and does a great job. Her skills are low-average, but she sure does try hard!
Now that I have all the work gathered, I get to take it home this weekend and sort through it, grade it, and mark it with the appropriate labels. Yay for me. What an exciting weekend I’m going to have. Heh.
This whole process is for something that I’m not quite sure of, to tell you the truth. It’s been explained to me, but I must have had something else on my mind at the time. I know that it has something to do with Title-One and funding. That’s all I can remember. It was a hassle, but I’ll do whatever I have to do for the betterment of our school.
On another note regarding the substitute on Tuesday and Wednesday . . .
As I’ve stated before, I have five SED (Severely Emotionally Disabled) students who come into my classroom throughout the day. Lately they haven’t been coming as much, with the exception of one who has wanted to come in lately. Well, they decided to all come in while my sub was there. The SED teacher had completely forgotten that I had a sub, but that’s okay. I had written in my “Sub Info” page that they might come in. Fortunately, there is always at least one aide with them, if not two plus seventh-grade tutors.
Well, one of the aides is working on her teaching degree, and she’s been in our school for a long time—longer than I have been. She was our instructional aide until she took the position as the SED aide. She knows the kids, and she takes little guff from them. Well, she caught several of the boys completely acting out for the sub. They were unruly and purposely disruptive. They were the stereotypical students sitting in with a substitute teacher. Shame on them! Well, they got busted when I returned. After hearing what they did from Susan, I talked to the group of them and told them how disappointed I was that they weren’t on their best behavior while I was gone. I also talked to them about how they let not only me down, but also themselves. Several of them agree and were very sorry. Several couldn’t have cared less if they were busted or not. The others just acted like they had no idea why they would get in trouble for such a thing. I had them write out behavior essays that went home to get signed by their parents.
Guess who one of the students was! The son of the parents from Hell. Imagine that! I must admit that I was a little nervous sending home that behavior essay, knowing that it could come back to bite me in the butt. Fortunately the boy is pretty honest and most likely told his mom and dad exactly what he did. He’s been punished for silly and rude behavior before, and his dad thanked me, so I imagine that’s okay in their eyes. Now if only they would find favor in what I teach! Heh.
Considering the kids had a substitute who had never subbed in elementary grades before, they all did pretty well, including the sub! It’s never easy giving over control to a stranger, but it’s what we must do.
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