Freelance Educating

Hello! Long time, no you-read-what-I-write! That's my bad. I haven't written anything in quite some time. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, I recently became a substitute teacher. In fact, I've been a substitute teacher for about a month and a half now, which means I am an expert freelance educator and can pass on my wisdom. I've taught every level from preschool to fourth grade, which, admittedly, are not exactly opposite ends of the possible teaching spectrum. This is a brief breakdown of what teaching at each grade level is like, based on my in-class experience.

Preschool:
Okay, I've only technically subbed as an assistant teacher in preschool, so I may not be an expert here. Subbing as an assistant preschool teacher basically means you're going to clean the tables and do the art project. I'm not sure if you know this about me, but art is not a strength of mine. If there was some contest between teachers for best art project, and there were two captains that got to pick teams, I would be picked last. I'm not afraid to play the gender stereotype card and say that might be because odds are that I would be the only guy teacher and, stereotypically, guys are worse at art than girls. You know, unless you count, like, Michelangelo, Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and many other very famous, successful, male painters/sculptors as "art-doers." My own mother did not display my art from school, and I don't blame her because it was awful. I guess you could say I'm not even an expert at being an assistant preschool teacher, but I fit in the chair and am a great supervisor, so I get a pass.

Kindergarten:
No experience; please give me a job.

1st Grade:
I think I've only had half a day as a 1st grade sub, but that was more than enough of a sample size for me. I'm not sure if you're aware, but 1st graders are only one year removed from kindergarten, which is only one year passed preschool. These are some young folks. Tattling is very much a big part of first graders' lives as well as a lack of knowledge of how to get someone to stop something. Here's an example based on a true story:
1st grader: Mr....
Me: Russell.
1G: Mr. Russell!
Me: *Stares at 1st grader*
1G: *Stares back*
Me: ....Yes?
1G: Um, [other 1st grade student] keeps putting [his/her] hand on my desk!
Me: Did you ask [other 1st grade student] to stop doing that, or say that you didn't like it?
1G: No...
Me: Let's go do that together...
*Problem is solved*
I had to ask the, "Did you ask [other 1st grade student] to stop?" question many times in just half a day. One nice thing about 1st graders, though, is that recess is the ultimate bargaining chip. For example, the class was quite disruptive (I was later informed by the classroom teacher that's just the way the class is). I told them, as they were all lined up and dressed for recess, that I needed a minute of absolute silence with no talking, laughing, stomping, clapping, and no touching, and that I would start the minute of silence over if it was disruptive. It took one minute and I was pleased. And they were, too, because they actually got to go to recess a couple minutes early - I had budgeted for two start overs.

2nd Grade:
There, surprisingly, is not much to report about 2nd grade. Off the top of my head, I have somewhere between one and two days of 2nd grade experience. Reading quietly to oneself is not an area in which 2nd graders excel, I do know that. Even if you were to take out either "quietly" or "to oneself," it'd still be a little questionable.

3rd Grade:
This is where the kiddos start to get a little sly. Perhaps you remember the old, "This sub has no idea about anything; I'm going to keep asking to go to the bathroom because s/he'll keep saying yes"? Well, this is now obsolete. The new, "I have to go to the bathroom," is "I need to go to the nurse." Apparently, these schools are giving acting classes, too, because almost all of these requests have come with tears. I let one kid go, skeptically, and peeked into the hall to see her dancing and singing down to the office. I've had to bring so many ice packs down to the office at the end of the day from "headaches."

Also, let me just tell you about my first day subbing, which was in third grade:
I had recently sent in my application to be a substitute teacher in the local school district and had not heard back. I had the day off from work, so I was lounging around my apartment in my robe, sipping coffee, when my phone rang. "Ah! The district office saying I've been approved to sub!" I thought. Nope. It was a local elementary school.
"We need an all-day 3rd grade sub today."
"...Uh, okay..."
"Have you not been told you've been approved to sub yet?"
"Um, no."
"Oh! Well, you're approved! Can you come in today?"
"Uh, sure! Yeah, I can do that!"
So that was exciting. I got in about 10 minutes before the kids did and was shown around the school by a neighboring teacher. The day was going well and I made it to the point in the day where the kids went to specials. The paraprofessional that was in the room came up to me and mentioned that one kid has anger issues. "Oh, okay," I said, kind of brushing it off.
"No, I mean like, we've had to evacuate the room for the rest of the kids' safety, he's hit a teacher a few times..."
"Oh!"
She then went on to tell me that he'll probably have a tough time with a transition occurring later in the day and, when that happens, to lock the door and open the closet door so that the window is covered, and don't let anyone leave. Well, sure enough, the transition came and little buddy was not pleased. They got him out of the room without much problem, though, so I just passed out the Scholastic Kids magazine and jumped in. A few minutes in, I hear the door shut, and I see the little guy in the window and he is not happy. Another kid jumps up and opens the closet door. This, apparently, is a much more common thing than I thought. The kids, though, kept getting up to see if he was still at the door. He was. Every time. This made Scholastic Kids time go longer than it was supposed to go. At the end of the Scholastic Kids time was a scheduled bathroom break, but since we were not allowed out of the room, the bathroom break was put on hold. I was trying to draw out the Scholastic Kids because I didn't want to interrupt the next thing with a bathroom break. Kids would come up to me as I was reading asking to go to the bathroom. "No, we can't go because [kid] is in the hallway." This was not the desired answer, but my logic was sound. However, kids kept coming up and asking. About half the class had asked to go to the bathroom, when one kid all of a sudden realizes someone is missing, and not the angry fella.
"Wait! Where's [kid]?!"
"Hmmm...that's a good question. Anyone know?"
"You said he could go to the bathroom before we started the Scholastic News!"
Uh oh. There's a kid out there in an apparent war zone and he has no idea what's going on. I'm uncomfortable and nervous, just like the kids with full bladders, but for a different reason. Thankfully, the lost kid made it back, which prompted everyone swarming him asking if he was okay and where the angry child is. Despite how much time we spent on the Scholastic Kids, we did not cover much. Since the hallway was apparently safe, though, we had our bathroom break. I had never seen a stampede of kids with that much excitement that was not for recess or the end of school. Poor kids.
At the end of the day, the neighboring teacher came over and said she was impressed because this was easily the toughest 3rd grade class in the school, which made me feel better about my subbing skills.

4th Grade
I have a day and a half of 4th grade experience and they were my favorite so far. I got to do actual writing stuff with discussion, which was awesome, and the kids learned a bunch. However, I also had to do division. I'm good at division, but only at one way. This was the intro to division, so I had to teach three methods. It did not go well. I apologized many times and asked, "Does that make any sense?" a lot. I blame the teacher's manual. On the half day, I didn't have to teach anything. It was pretty great. We had indoor recess, though, which was not great. I was supposed to have the room where kids did missed assignments while a neighboring teacher took the kids outside. Well, with inside recess, you don't go outside. I didn't know what to do in that scenario, because 1.75 classes seemed like a lot of kids to leave in one room. I was going to ask the other teacher what to do, because she'd probably know, but she had a sub, too. We ended up doing the 1.75 classes in the other classroom, and I got the quiet, .25 classes doing homework. I was okay with this compromise.

And there you have a brief synopsis of my subbing career, because I know you were very interested.

You're welcome.

What I Learned in Preschool

Today was the last day of preschool and I am in a glass case of emotion right now. Okay, I'm not, but I will cry myself to sleep tonight. Okay, I won't, but I'm just really sad about it. Granted, I am completely neglecting the memories of stressful nights completing children's portfolios, 12 hour days in the preschool, and all of the times we had a behavior issue in the classroom...

I started out this semester of preschool with much trepidation, frustration, and doubt; I didn't want to be a preschool teacher, so what's the point of me student teaching preschool? I had just done my practicum in a second grade classroom and I loved it; I wanted to be a second grade teacher. I didn't know how to handle 4-5 year olds.

I am ending this semester, however, with fond memories and a full heart. Here are 15 things that I learned from a semester of teaching preschool:

1. "Getting sprayed" in Chicago is different than "getting sprayed" in South Dakota.
Our mentor teacher lived in Chicago before living in South Dakota. One day she told a story of a time when a kid rode up to the school her husband worked at, pulled out a gun, and "started spraying." One of the student teachers didn't know what this meant, and assumed that it meant the kid pulled out a water gun and was spraying everyone with water.

2. If I ever have a daughter, she will be the most spoiled child in the world.
There were some adorable kids in my preschool class. Most of them were girls, and most of them would melt my heart on the daily. They wouldn't even do excessively adorable things. It'd be something like saying hi to me and I'd just melt. Now imagine what will happen if I ever have a daughter...

3. Daily reflections should be done daily, not weekly.
We had daily reflections that were due at the end of each week. Consequently, I would wait until the end of the week to do all of the reflections. Sometimes (most times), I would forget what happened on Monday (and Tuesday (and Wednesday)), and it was a struggle.

4. Snack is the most important meal of the day.
When you have to be at preschool by noon and don't wake up until 10, you don't really have time for breakfast and lunch. Consequently, I would eat at around 10:30 or 11:00 each day. By the time 2:15 rolled around (which is snack time) I would be starving. Unfortunately, on many days, I didn't get to finish my snack (sometimes I didn't get any snack (like one day when we had english muffin pizzas and I had to take a kid out into the hallway because of a behavior issue. English muffin pizzas are a top-three preschool snack, behind only sweet potato fries and fruit pizza. I was upset)). This made for a very hungry and very sad Teacher Joe.

5. Literally anything is capable of being made into a mess.
I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory...

6. If you sing songs from the movie Frozen, kids will love you.
One day, we played the Frozen soundtrack during centers time. The kids skipped my favorite song, which is "Reindeer(s) are Better Than People." I did not stand for this, and decided to just sing it if they weren't going to play it. I was interrupted by my favorite kid leaping into my arms to hug me.

7. Teachers have favorites.
Well, I have favorites. I felt bad about it, but then I realized that I was never told, in any of my classes, that teachers are not allowed to have favorites. It might be because it's common sense, but then again it might not be. I'm pretty sure there isn't any legislation stating teachers can't have favorites. And it's not like I treated them differently. I just liked them more. ...I'm a horrible teacher.

8. Kids are smart.
I realize that it's concerning that I just learned that kids are smart, but it's true. I mean, like, they're really really smart. Some of the things my preschoolers said were very insightful, and I couldn't have been more proud.

9. If you have crayons and paper, you're gonna have a good time.
Honestly, for most of my small groups, I just gave my kids crayons and paper and let them draw. They loved it. And I could pull out helpful information from them, too, such as what they wanted to learn, what their interests were, and what a monster needs to scare the freaks out of somebody.

10. Kids say the darndest things.
In conjunction with the insightful things that children said would be some pretty bizarre and/or hilarious things. For example, one time a kid told me that he thought I was turning into a monkey because I'm so hairy.

11. Small chairs are inconvenient for me.
All of the chairs in the classroom are itty-bitty. During snack time, it was a struggle to sit. Consequently, snack time was really the only time I'd sit in a chair, except for teacher meetings at the end of the day because I could lean back in them.

12. If I get a job as a preschool teacher, it won't be so bad.
My outlook on teaching preschool has drastically changed over this semester. I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with these children and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

13. Teaching is a lot easier when there are 5 other teachers.
To my co-teaching ladies, thank you and stay awesome. I would have lost what little sanity I have long ago if it weren't for you guys. This goes to all the teachers, not just the teachers in my class (but to them, especially).

14. I make a difference.
This semester made me realize just how much of a difference I can make in the life of a child. One child in particular comes to mind for me. This child has made tremendous strides in development and absolutely adored me. Even kids that I didn't interact with as much as I did with others would surprise me on a daily basis in various ways. I'm not sure how, but I am confident that I have impacted every child in that classroom in some way.

15. Kids make a difference.
Whether it be by a smile, a "hello," a hug, or just something I overheard them say, these kids could instantly make my day better. I don't know how successful I'll be as a teacher, but I know I'll get some enjoyment out of every single day.