Consequences List...

Yesterdays Assignment: 6th grade students (27 students) in the newest district.

This is the “top end” of my risk taking in the sub business. Everyone had been telling me that this would probably be the toughest job to deal with because these guys are “almost junior high”.

I wasn’t too reassured when the top item on the lesson plan was the “Consequences List”

Five levels of discipline starting with “name on the board” to “Principal’s office”

What am I getting myself into?

I decided the “Kindergarten” friendly grandpa persona wouldn’t work with this age kids. I decided the straight forward no nonsense approach should be the order of the day.

To my surprise (and relief) this worked pretty well. They were under control for most of the day. One of the kids was asking me what job I had before being a sub. “I bet you were a teacher”.

I let it slide and completed most of the teacher’s lesson plan. We had a few minutes left when some of the kids started pestering me for the “What I did before…” answer.

I thought it would be more interesting to see what they “thought I was” rather than simply telling them.

I had them guess what my old job was before teaching them and the list was interesting to see how they saw me.

The guess list:
Military (2 guesses Army, Navy)
FBI/CIA (2 guesses)
Teacher
School Principal
Engineer
Computers
Cop

I told them that one of these guesses was right and I’d erase the wrong answers one at a time to reveal the right answer just before the end bell was supposed to ring.

There were moans and gasps of mock dismay as I erased each guess until it got down to “School Principal” and “Computers”

Since this was an election year and “voting in class” seemed to be the order of the day, I had them “vote” for which job they think I did.

School Principal – 21 votes
Computers – 6 votes

I think I got this job down………….