Ohhhhhhhh baby! Did
I ever have a teaching day for the books last week. My closest
friends and family members have already heard a few of the antics of
my Grade 1/2 class on that fateful day, but let me share the full
extent of the shenanigans with all interested parties.
Let me start by
saying that I was not prepared for what I walked into. I knew the
reputation of the school but I thought, “Hey, it's Grade 1/2,
that's my niche, I'll be fine!” Not to toot my own horn, but I am a
born primary teacher. My primary voice is calm, cool, and collected,
and occupies a range of pitch so high I am certain that only dogs and
6-year-olds can hear and respond to it. I'm natural built low to the
ground, so crouching for multiple face-to-face chats throughout the
day is a piece of cake, and I have an instinctual draw to pink and
pretty sundresses that quickly win the hearts of most students
between the ages of 4 and 8.
This is the very
confidence that blinded me to the following warning signs (which are
now OH SO CLEAR):
- The classroom was in utter disarray. Scattered papers, garbage-strewn floors, and a strong kindergarten-vibe assaulted my senses upon arrival. (*kindergarten-vibe : too many colours, disastrous sink area, no teacher's desk, general chaos, etc).
- There were no names listed of students requiring my particular attention. Now, I can see how at first this would seem like a positive sign. No behavioural or academic special needs means an easier day, right? The simple answer is yes, but at a school like this, the chances of there being no students in need of extra support is miniscule. Therefore, it can only mean one thing: There are too many students to list.
- The plans left seemed like far too little work to fill the amount of time allotted. Some possible explanations for this:i) The class takes an exceedingly long time to accomplish tasks in comparison to other students their age. (YUP!)ii) The teacher doubts her class' ability to work under the authority of a supply teacher. (correctly assumed)iii) The teacher had no time to create a more thorough lesson. (maybe?)
17 kids. 17 kids
was all it took.
Getting students to
congregate at the carpet was like herding cats. Actually, I have
cats, and I really think it was more difficult than that. After
(literally) 15 minutes of getting the students into a lopsided
circle, we began our day by going around the circle and sharing our
names and our favourite animals. Not shocking: many students told me
their wrong names. Shocking: the other students did NOT correct
them!! This was not good. I was now flying solo for the rest of the
day, with not a single teacher's pet to help navigate the dangerous
skies ahead.
How to remedy the
situation? “I know!” thought the optimistic Mrs. A, “I will
offer a reward to the class for good behaviour.” I proceeded to
draw my “happy face” and “sad face” lists on the board, a
method I commonly use in supplying. The idea is simple: good
behaviour gets you on the happy face list with a positive note
written in your agenda and to your teacher at the end of the day,
while bad behaviour gets your name on the sad face list with an
explanation note to your teacher as to why you got your name on the
board. You cannot get your name removed from the happy face list (a
good deed is a good deed!), but you can get your name removed from
the sad face list by changing your behaviour. If there are no names
on the sad face list at the end of the day, the whole class gets
rewarded with free time.
This is a tried and
true method. My favourite part is that I don't usually have to say
anything else about it for the rest of the day. If a student is
distracting their classmates, I simply stop what I'm doing and
silently write their name under the sad face. In 9/10 classes, the
negative behaviour stops immediately as every head turns in the
offender's direction with eyes pleading to get the class back their
reward. However, this was not one of those classes.
Not only did I hear
the dreaded “I don't care” multiple times throughout the day, but
students would take it upon themselves to add and erase names from
the board at will when my back was turned. This may seem like an
obvious move to an adult, but 6 and 7 year olds are not usually so
bold, and tend to have a general respect for authority figures and a
desire to please. These students also differed from the majority of
kids their age by exhibiting a streak of cruelty and hard-heartedness
towards their classmates. One of the few students in the class who
obediently followed instructions was a Grade 1 boy with a distinct
stutter. At one point, I found him encircled in the hallway by a
group of his peers mimicking his stutter, crying so hysterically that
it took me over 5 minutes to get him to breathe properly. When I
reprimanded the bullies and tried to explain how hurtful their
actions were, their responses were, “We don't care. We hate him.”
Later in the day, I
caught three girls stealing treats from their teacher's desk. When
confronted, they blatantly lied and shoved their hands in their
pockets to conceal their loot (kids really do think we are stupid).
As much as I hated to do it, I knew I was going to need to take them
down to the office. Silliness is excusable, but stealing and lying
require action. I thought I may have to deal with some tears after
telling the girls I would be taking them to the office, but was
startled by the eye-rolls and sarcastic, “So what?” I received
instead. They skipped the entire way to the office singing, “We're
going down to the office, and we don't care!!”
After depositing my
prisoners with the warden, I returned to the lunchroom to find a
student tossing food around the classroom. I politely asked him to
stop and sit down, to which he responded with a whipped tomato at the
face of the student next to him. Once again, I pointed towards the
office and received the encouraging words, “I don't f*#*ing care! I
hate this class and I hate you!” Now doesn't that just warm your
heart?
As I suspected, the
math activity scheduled for the entire hour and a half math block
took a grand total of 20 minutes to complete. Thus, I bumped
everything ahead of schedule one period and decided to end the day
watching the educational film, SpongeBob SquarePants. I swear,
I owe my present sanity to SpongeBob and Patrick the starfish. Those
kids became zombies before the big screen, and I breathed for the
first time that day. However, the peace was not lasting. A half hour
into the film, I heard a loud cry from the first row as a little girl
discovered that a classmate had embedded silly putty in her hair. I
spent the remainder of the movie removing the putty, and
french-braiding the girl's hair to disguise the putty-bits that
refused to leave their new nest.
The saving grace of
the day was a thank-you note from that little girl for taking the
“pubby” out of her hair. It was enough to make me smile, but not
nearly as big as I smiled when I removed my name from that school's
OT calling list later that night. Supply teaching for the win!
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