New School Year
I am so excited to be called in to substitute teach this morning!
I really love going in to see the children at Whitaker, most are such lovely children and want to learn.
All are so unique, I could spend the rest of my life making character studies of them, and not run out of material. As I sat in the office for a few minutes today, waiting as my class was taking P.E., I listened while several teachers helped individuals deal with issues of:
jammed fingers(ice, and taped them together)
scraped knee(ice)
basketball on the head(ice)
bee bite(ice)
twisted ankle(ice and comforting)
toothache(call home/ Mom said they had been at the dentist and tooth was growing in)
thrown rock(talk and referral)
Band-aid for scraped ankle
Band-aid for bloody arm
I'm sure there were more visits to the office. So much ice was handed out that we were concerned that the ice might run out. The care and concern of the patient office personnel was incredible.
The morning started in room 106, the hottest room in the school. The teacher had six fans running, and opened all the windows. My body heat began to rise almost immediately, and during this day I sweat so heavy that students would come up to me and ask,
"Are you all right?"
"Yes," I would answer, "Mrs. Berns is just burning up!"
There were some assignments left by the regular teacher that we were able to complete and students could work through independently. Other assignments ended up unfinished, and I felt dissatisfied with the end product. I just wonder how much the constant sips of water, the intense heat, the humidity and the steam hut where we were confined effect the quality of the work done in that classroom. Note that the work we completed was best in the early morning, and slowly lost quality, students became more restless, as they were less able to complete work or ask questions about their work.
As water pours off my face and brow, I ask students to work on social studies, the exploration of North America by the Spanish, the French and the English. Students are moving around, taking drinks of water, and the progress I would like to see is just not happening. We are stewing in our own broth.
The steam rises as we work through a crossword that is using vocabulary words with the prefix, "dis", but the words are not listed anywhere- so I have to work with the students to get it to fit. MOST students do not listen, and end up spelling DISBELIEF, "disbelive", and after we have spelled it several times, so I have the rest of them "LOOK IT UP!". That is probably why we have a lot of word searches. Words are right there, and all the student has to do, it high light the words chosen.
There are several math worksheets with code substitutions of letters for numbers, which make no sense, and we lose time trying to make sense of the whole thing. If the problems would work from top to bottom, right to left, left to right, or have a logic to them, I could follow them. One section goes one way, another goes middle to top, then down to the bottom; each time you do a work sheet the order changes. I would have preferred a sheet of addition, a sheet of multiplication, or some straight forward word problems. Our time would have been spent on the actual MATH involved instead of the search for what the directions mean.
At the lunch break I have a short talk with Mrs. Green.
"The hallway is cool with a breeze flowing through, and then the temperature raises by twenty degrees when you step through the doorway into the classroom."
"School used to start after Labor Day, we only had a few hot days, and they did not have as many as now when we start the middle of August."
"I think it is just hotter nowadays!"
"I tell the students to wait until they have hot flashes- I'm fanning myself with the worksheets, and I turn red, but wait a few minutes, and I'm over it!"
A student interrupts us, "What is the enter key on this phone?" She is trying to use a regular office phone. no "enter".
"Dial 9 to get an outside line," says Mrs. Green. "They would not know what to do with a dial phone!"
She is still struggling...."Can you help me?"
Mrs. Green shows her how to use a phone, comes back and says, "She was keying in the numbers, then pushing the star. If they only know how to use cell phones these office phones confuse them."
Returning to class, I work with the students that do not want to sit in their seats and write on the worksheets. It seems that when I read with them and point to the words, they can do the work. Why is that? But then there are fifteen in a class and you cannot ignore the others in the class, so that is not how a classroom works in the long run.
When I read "Mr. Henshaw" to the students they are quiet and follow along. They enjoy listening, and easily follow this with a journal writing time.
At the end of the day one student hands me a note, "Thank you Mrs. Burns."
Another student asks, "Was I good today?"
"Of course you were," I respond.
Many students have had me as a substitute before, and they are respectful but full of energy. They love interacting with each other, and often this interferes with their work or with the instructions given by the teacher.
In my opinion the one thing that would most impact the quality of the work of these students at this time would be temperature control. Even in the winter this room is overly hot. Students cannot work in an environment that is so hot and humid. I would do everything I could to change this to a comfortable climate. A work friendly environment would be more quiet and calm, helping students improve their work and ensure success.
I really love going in to see the children at Whitaker, most are such lovely children and want to learn.
All are so unique, I could spend the rest of my life making character studies of them, and not run out of material. As I sat in the office for a few minutes today, waiting as my class was taking P.E., I listened while several teachers helped individuals deal with issues of:
jammed fingers(ice, and taped them together)
scraped knee(ice)
basketball on the head(ice)
bee bite(ice)
twisted ankle(ice and comforting)
toothache(call home/ Mom said they had been at the dentist and tooth was growing in)
thrown rock(talk and referral)
Band-aid for scraped ankle
Band-aid for bloody arm
I'm sure there were more visits to the office. So much ice was handed out that we were concerned that the ice might run out. The care and concern of the patient office personnel was incredible.
The morning started in room 106, the hottest room in the school. The teacher had six fans running, and opened all the windows. My body heat began to rise almost immediately, and during this day I sweat so heavy that students would come up to me and ask,
"Are you all right?"
"Yes," I would answer, "Mrs. Berns is just burning up!"
There were some assignments left by the regular teacher that we were able to complete and students could work through independently. Other assignments ended up unfinished, and I felt dissatisfied with the end product. I just wonder how much the constant sips of water, the intense heat, the humidity and the steam hut where we were confined effect the quality of the work done in that classroom. Note that the work we completed was best in the early morning, and slowly lost quality, students became more restless, as they were less able to complete work or ask questions about their work.
As water pours off my face and brow, I ask students to work on social studies, the exploration of North America by the Spanish, the French and the English. Students are moving around, taking drinks of water, and the progress I would like to see is just not happening. We are stewing in our own broth.
The steam rises as we work through a crossword that is using vocabulary words with the prefix, "dis", but the words are not listed anywhere- so I have to work with the students to get it to fit. MOST students do not listen, and end up spelling DISBELIEF, "disbelive", and after we have spelled it several times, so I have the rest of them "LOOK IT UP!". That is probably why we have a lot of word searches. Words are right there, and all the student has to do, it high light the words chosen.
There are several math worksheets with code substitutions of letters for numbers, which make no sense, and we lose time trying to make sense of the whole thing. If the problems would work from top to bottom, right to left, left to right, or have a logic to them, I could follow them. One section goes one way, another goes middle to top, then down to the bottom; each time you do a work sheet the order changes. I would have preferred a sheet of addition, a sheet of multiplication, or some straight forward word problems. Our time would have been spent on the actual MATH involved instead of the search for what the directions mean.
At the lunch break I have a short talk with Mrs. Green.
"The hallway is cool with a breeze flowing through, and then the temperature raises by twenty degrees when you step through the doorway into the classroom."
"School used to start after Labor Day, we only had a few hot days, and they did not have as many as now when we start the middle of August."
"I think it is just hotter nowadays!"
"I tell the students to wait until they have hot flashes- I'm fanning myself with the worksheets, and I turn red, but wait a few minutes, and I'm over it!"
A student interrupts us, "What is the enter key on this phone?" She is trying to use a regular office phone. no "enter".
"Dial 9 to get an outside line," says Mrs. Green. "They would not know what to do with a dial phone!"
She is still struggling...."Can you help me?"
Mrs. Green shows her how to use a phone, comes back and says, "She was keying in the numbers, then pushing the star. If they only know how to use cell phones these office phones confuse them."
Returning to class, I work with the students that do not want to sit in their seats and write on the worksheets. It seems that when I read with them and point to the words, they can do the work. Why is that? But then there are fifteen in a class and you cannot ignore the others in the class, so that is not how a classroom works in the long run.
When I read "Mr. Henshaw" to the students they are quiet and follow along. They enjoy listening, and easily follow this with a journal writing time.
At the end of the day one student hands me a note, "Thank you Mrs. Burns."
Another student asks, "Was I good today?"
"Of course you were," I respond.
Many students have had me as a substitute before, and they are respectful but full of energy. They love interacting with each other, and often this interferes with their work or with the instructions given by the teacher.
In my opinion the one thing that would most impact the quality of the work of these students at this time would be temperature control. Even in the winter this room is overly hot. Students cannot work in an environment that is so hot and humid. I would do everything I could to change this to a comfortable climate. A work friendly environment would be more quiet and calm, helping students improve their work and ensure success.
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