friday ...oy, i made it...kinda

My tummy hurts. I feel as if I am the picture you see in the dictionary if you turn to the page "stress". My brain is a twisted knot and I have to remind myself to breathe.

Five days subbing in a K/1 split, volunteering a little, and then my son's 12th birthday.  On one bookend of the week his real birthday with family presents and home made cake and on the other bookend, his party with 5 buddies for a sleepover. Fortunately my husband understood my overload and agreed to take them to the movie so I didn't have to sit through the action-packed gore and sweat.

I recognize that this was a particularly hard class to sub in, but the fact remains that it was not even a full class (only 15 students), and I am pretty competent, patient, and a multitasking kind of person...what is the district and the world thinking! First graders and Kindergartners are not developmentally or academically on the same plain.

To expect Kindergartners to do independent academics is ridiculous- centers maybe, but even then only with a lot of individual explanation of the activity. And in some wacky, administrative standards- based universe, they think introducing 1st graders to fractions at the end of the year is a good use of time.  It is impossible not to question the rationality of these people. Many of my first graders could not even trace the pattern blocks to determine what fraction of the shape they took up.

A friend who is involved with training and preparing new teachers says that in her program they discourage people from subbing, because it turns so many folks off from the profession. I can truly understand why that is true. You have all the challenges of the classroom teacher, enough time to reflect on what you would change on a given day, and maybe another day to try to restructure an effective lesson, but not  time enough to see what works with each student day after day- all the work and little of the reward. And you still kinda fall in love with a few of the kids taboot.

I am told that it is easier when you get your own classroom, but I am not sure I can entirely believe that. I can see that there is more ability to control the environment, build rapport, and communicate with families about how best to support a child at home or after school.  But some of the problems I faced would not have been vastly different if it had been my classroom and I had developed the routines with the kids.

At the end of the day I tried to evaluate how much time I spent teaching and it made me sad to think it was probably less than two hours out of a six hour day. Between attendance, calendar time (in the younger grades),  English Language Development time (which is critical), and SSR (sustained silent reading which is also critical), lunch, recess, and bathroom breaks you are left with only a couple of solid blocks of time. A mini lesson in math or language arts might take 15 minutes each, and then modeling an activity to reinforce that lesson, and then setting up the groups and getting folks started...and then having 15 people at once say "I need help Ms. Leishman", "I don't know how to start Ms. Leishman", and you realize maybe, maybe, four people know what you expect, have some grasp of how to do it, and are capable, willing,  and engaged enough to begin the activity on their own, unaided.

I do not remember school the way I experience it from the other end now. I would never have socialized nonstop in class, or gotten out of my seat without asking, or ignored the teacher when they were talking to me- I may have been a bit of a goody two shoes, but I don't think even the kids who got in trouble were as clueless and checked out or disrespectful as the kids I am seeing now...WHY IS THAT?