I decided to take today off from subbing. I know it's a sacrifice of $75 but I needed it. I thought I could consider today as my Saturday since I'm not gonna have a whole Saturday this weekend due to my Master's class taking up most of it. Plus, the beginning of this week was a little difficult with classes. Monday's sub job wasn't exactly enjoyable. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't good either. I subbed for a fellow classmate of mine and he teaches middle school ELL, which I should've known would be difficult. First of all, he emailed me with this complicated skeleton of a lesson plan and it confused the crap out of me and then he listed SEVERAL students who would resist working. Then he said that the vice principal would be visiting every so often to check on the dynamics of the classroom (well, she only ended up visiting once). So to begin with, I wasn't very excited to go into his classroom anyway. Well, the morning went well but the afternoon went downhill. These kids were so negative toward each other! They kept telling each other to shut up and then they were calling each other names! I just couldn't believe it! I mean, this is an ELL classroom where everybody is pretty much in the same boat of being new here (well, they're not brand new because they speak English pretty well but still need that bit of assistance) and I feel like the ELL classroom should be treated as a safe haven for them to come in and escape the mainstream class and the pressures that go along with that such as other students maybe making fun of them because of their accent or something. Why do they feel they can abuse their fellow ELL students? One kid called a girl an elephant because she was slightly in his way and the fact that she's a little on the chubby side--she's just a big girl--she's tall too. He said it twice and I really made it known that I was not happy with his language and the fact that he was calling her that name. I wrote his name down for Sam to see the next day and I hope he addressed this issue with the kid the next day also! It was just stressful to see this kind of behavior. This subbing really allows me to see in what environments I want to work when I finally graduate with my degree. I don't want middle school ELL at all! With the ELL middle schoolers, you have a whole combination of factors: pre-adolescents, hormones AND different cultures that might be clashing with each other. It's definitely a mess! So my two choices of where I would want to work would be either high school or elementary school (imagine that, I said elementary school even though I had said I wouldn't--but this past experience has been consistent with the other middle school ELL experience I had last Fall, so I think it's very fitting). High school is number one on my list, though.
Yesterday wasn't so bad except for the fact that this time I had to sit through another movie for the whole day. "Understanding Bacteria" was the name and it actually wasn't as bad as the Plant movie but still. Sit through any movie for 5 periods and see how it affects you. On the bright side, I got some college work done. :) Anyway, I was so tired afterwards and only one class did I have to get mean in and it wasn't even mean. I had to snatch up a hat that one boy threw across the classroom. They were really disruptive so I wrote a note to the teacher to let him know also. Oh well, guess all jobs can't be perfect but so far this semester, I've only had a few that were less than desirable. I guess I can't complain too much.
Kyle goes back on shift tonight and we'll see if anything has materialized about layoffs or not. He's been checking his Micron email to see if anything's been said and so far nothing. As soon as I get done with this post, he's gonna check. Plus, he has a whole list of things he says needs to be done today since I'm off and I can't waste anymore time now, can I? ;) I'm already doing laundry ahead of time, have already cleaned the coffee maker and now I guess he thinks we should do some gardening work...blah. I thought "Saturday" meant that I could just relax and do a little chores but not too much....
No comments:
Post a Comment