I went to bed last Sunday night figuring I wasn't working Monday. I hadn't managed to pick up an assignment. (I had just missed a couple. Sigh.)
I had worked myself into looking forward to a day off. I went to bed a bit late. But I was totally asleep when the alert on my phone woke me with a job for Monday. I grabbed it without looking at it too closely. It was one AM.
I was covering a special ed teacher who co-taught with three different teachers. Not a bad gig. (Block schedule, so I only had three classes.)
The first block I had integrated math 1 (think: algebra 1). It turned out the general ed teacher was also out. After a bit of a scramble (as the general ed teacher had assumed Mr. R would be there), another teacher got the lesson loaded to Google Classroom, and we were good to go.
The class...
The other sub was competent. She took roll while I got the class going on what they needed to work on. The kiddos were very laid back which was fine. But, they were not following certain rules, like having their cell phones put away and like actually doing their assignment. Sigh.
But things came to a head when three students "returned" from somewhere. We had been keeping track of who was allowed out of class, and the three of them hadn't been allowed out of class. (How we missed them leaving, I have no idea.)
The other sub asked the kiddos their names. And one of them lied to her about it. That's when we learned that this girl was not enrolled in the class. Deep sigh.
She was incensed that the other sub called security on her. She claimed that she had only just been taken out of the class... (Which poses a couple questions: If she knew she was in a different class, why would she go to her old one? When the other sub called roll, why did she not say anything when her name was not called? Why was she roaming campus, anyway?)
The student acted like the aggrieved party, but security agreed with us. Because, seriously? Doubling down when you're in the wrong?
When Mr. R responded to my email about the day, he commented that the class was very immature. Yeah, we caught that.
The rest of my day was uneventful as the general ed teachers were there and taught their lessons.
I don't really mind the one AM calls. It gives me time to go back to sleep before I have to go to work.
Do they really think they can get away with this stuff?
ReplyDeleteEither they do, or they don't think it through. Probably a bit of both.
DeleteThe patience you must have to deal with these kids.....
ReplyDeleteI remember being a kid and thinking the adults weren't as smart as I was. They always think they are going to get away with lying.
ReplyDeleteThe technology changes, but the basic human preteen/teen never does seem to changes. Do these students realize that we all were young once and maybe pulled some similar stunts (and hopefully learned our lessons) so we are on to them? No, of course they don't. I salute teachers once again.
ReplyDelete