Substitute faces up to 40 years in prison...

The setting:
Old unsecured computer running Windows/98
Orginal trial version virus checker.
Technophobe substitute teacher.
Kids left unattended.

The result:
"...The six-person jury Friday convicted Amero, 40, of Windham of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child. It took them less than two hours to decide the verdict. She faces a sentence of up to 40 years in prison."

What's wrong with this:
Security Focus by Mark Rasch, MSNBC

"...Substitute teacher Julie Amero faces up to 40 years in prison for exposing kids to porn using a classroom computer, but the facts strongly suggest that she was wrongfully convicted. Many issues remain, from the need for an independent computer forensics investigation and the presence of spyware and adware on the machine, to bad or incomplete legal work on both sides of this criminal case."

"...Ms. Amero, 40, a longtime substitute, contends that when she arrived that day in October 2004, she asked the regular seventh-grade language arts teacher at Kelly Middle School if she could use his computer to e-mail her husband. But first, she says, she went to the bathroom, and when she returned, the teacher was gone and students were gathered around the screen, watching a hairstyle Web site.

When she tried to close the site, what she got was an endless barrage of pop-up ads for pornography sites. The images continued all day, since “I absolutely have no clue about computers,” she said in an interview."

----------------------

I didn't realize that this substitute teaching job could be this hazardous to my freedom and financial health. Similar instances of what happened to Julie Amero could happen to anyone.

A very similar situation happened to me a couple years ago. I didn't end up in jail or even close, but this case demonstrates just how quirky the situation can get.

My wife once misspelled "www.nordstrom.com" and got a nude photo site.

The South West Airline commercial isn't far from the truth when it comes to demonstrating how inadvertently anyone can be "caught" in a similar situation.

There is so much "reasonable doubt" in this case, that I believe that Julie is being used as a scapegoat shield from potential parental lawsuits.

If anyone is at fault here, I think it rests squarely with the school administration for allowing "dangerously outdated" equipment in the classroom.

Winter Broke Week...

The schools are out for this week. I did get a full week in before the winter break.

"Winter Break Week" is actually "Winter Broke Week" for substitute teachers.

Haiku Note Taking …

Day 2 of 4 opened with only one absent.

LB’s mom called him in sick today.

-- No comment --

The remaining sixteen 4^th graders were great today. All were eager, bright, energetic, enthusiastic, and fun to be with.

The lesson plans for the week consist mostly of “packet work” for math, language arts and science. They plow through these things in half the time allotted so we have lots of “silent reading” time.

I decided to give them a break and dug out my video of "The Seedy Side of Plants". I asked them to write at least five interesting notes from the video.

Being the high group they are, only ONE student wrote five “interesting notes”. All the rest generated 20 to 50 “interesting notes”

I read them all but was intrigued by the somewhat Haiku-ness of one student’s paper:

Ants eating the seed…
Eating ants is only hope…
Plants starting to grow…
When woodpeckers store acorns…
Bats flapping wings…
Bats eating fruit…
Bats hanging upside down…
Bats spitting seeds…
Bats pooing out seeds…
Zebra walking…
Melon plants grow…
Snow falling…
Thick wind…
Damp of hair goes down…

They ALL liked the part about how the Strangler Fig tree propagates its seeds. Sample comments:

• Bats go potty hanging upside down eating.
• What bat poop looks like.
• Bats poop figs and then it falls and it grows a plant.

There’s nothing like good quality subject material to keep the kids interested…

Left Behinders Day 1 …

I was asked last month to take this four day, 4^th/5^th combo class assignment this week while the teacher and all the 5^th graders are at Science Camp.

The combo classes at this school are reserved for the high end students who can work independently at or above grade level. It’s considered a privilege to be selected for any combo class at this school.

So this week while all the 5^th grader half is away, I’m left with the remaining sixteen, “cream of the crop”, 4^th graders… and one 5^th grade LB (Left Behinder) from another class.

I could tell right away LB wasn’t happy about the situation being stuck in this “younger” class. His teacher’s lesson plan for the week was: “He’s to do all the same work as the 4^th graders”

I couldn’t tell if the half completed work and lackluster participation in class today was the result of not being able to keep up with the high-group 4^th graders or the general resentment of being the only 5^th grader in school left behind.

Seeking a clue as to what I might be in for the rest of the week, I lightly broached the subject privately by asking him if he had something like allergys that didn’t allowed him to go with the rest of the class.

LB: My mom had a “bad feeling” about the trip and wouldn’t sign the permission paper to let me go.

Me: Wow. Does she have these “bad feelings” often?

LB: Yea. She has them all the time. My brother and I don’t get to do much.

Me: I bet that’s hard.

LB: Yep…

When I asked the office staff person about LB’s situation, she told me that “Mom” is very controlling, WAY too attached to her boys and a general PITA when she doesn’t get her way at the school.

Poor kid…

SICK OF THOSE HIGH PAID TEACHERS!!

I, for one, am sick and tired of those high paid teachers. Their hefty salaries are driving up our taxes, and they only work ten months or less a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do....baby-sit! That's right, all they are is overpriced baby-sitters, and we can get that for less than minimum wage.

Now we're talking...Let's give them $3.00 dollars an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time, lunch time, nap time or "teacher work days" crap.

That would be only 5 hours each school day, or 15 dollars a day.

Each parent should pay 15 dollars a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now, how many kids do these glorified baby-sitters teach in a day.... maybe 25 at the most.

Then that's $15 per day, times 25 students =$375 a day.

And what about those special teachers or the ones with fancy master's degrees?

Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair. Let's round it off to $6.00 an hour.

But remember they only teach school 180 days a year! We're not going to pay them for any vacations, holidays, annual leave or such stupid crap as that.

So, let's see.... for regular teachers that's $375 x 180 days=$67,500.00 (What the heck ?!?)

And for the special degrees that would be $6 times 5 hours times 25 children times 180 days =$135,000.00 a year.

Hold on, my stupid calculator must need batteries! That can't be right! Wait a daggone minute, there is something wrong here!!!

There sure is, duuhhhhh????!!

(...Make a teacher smile, send this to him or her!)

(Note: I can't take credit for this one I received in an email...Thx, Mike!)

New Look...

I'm on jury duty this week.

Since I can't check the jury line from the classroom, I can't take any class assignments.

Until they dismiss my juror group or I get selected and dismissed from a case, I'm stuck not working this week.

Since Blogger seems to have finally finished fiddling with the blog template editor, I thought bring the blog up to date under a more standard format.

(...I hope I don't break anything)

--Update--

Well it looks like I didn't mess it up. I even got the StatCounter back in place.

One neat thing I like about the StatCounter is the "Visitor Map" feature.

It shows a graphical map of where visitors to your blog are generally located. From there you can switch to Googles satellite maps to zoom to the street level ISP point of contact.

Just click the link "View My Stats" under the counter at left, then select the "Recent Visitor Map" from the left hand menu.

I'll leave my counters enabled for public access for a while so you can take a look.

Yard Duty Karma…

I was talking to another "retired teacher and now working as a sub" person in the teachers lounge today.

I was telling her that subbing is hard enough without being assigned the before school, morning yard duty since that is when I need to go over the lesson plan and locate all the material needed for the day.

She revealed the following bit of "sub sneaky" tactics.

When she was a full fledged teacher and she knew she was going to get a sub, she'd ask her other buddies if anyone wanted to dump their assigned yard duty and she'd just add it to the lesson plan.

Now that SHE'S the sub, I hope Karma gets her!

---update---

(An interesting sample of follow-up comments from the ProTeacher Discussion Board)

“…We used to give the sub "study hall" duty that normally rotated amongst us middle school teachers when I taught middle school. One week, everyone on my team got out of study hall because we had a sub covering for the week. There is not much a sub can do and we had a great week off.......THAT'S LIFE”

“…Honestly, I believe it boils down to treating others the way you would want to be treated. I would never switch a duty so that a sub would have to do it. Just another reason I think every classroom teacher should have to sub from time to time. Subbing is going to make me a more considerate classroom teacher. It's not "just life" it's common and professional courtesy. Do unto others and all that.”

Teacher refused to leave campus - Arrested!...

Frankly when I've had a bad day at school, the LAST thing I want to do is stay at school.

"...An officer summoned to the school arrived and said Mo put a girl between herself and the officer and told her students to help her, Gagan said. She screamed something about the late Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat to a white man in 1955 sparked a bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., police said. "

Complete SFGate story here: The Sheldon Elementary School teacher

January a Busy Month?…

January 2007 has been the busiest month I’ve ever had guest teaching.

In December, the calls were starting to be so frequent, that I notified a second district I work for that I was unavailable for the entire month of January.

With only half the schools calling and the short month that started Jan 7^th, I was in class 12 of the 18 possible school days this month. I could have been teaching 15 days this month, but I had some personal stuff on the three days I turned down assignments.

In the last two and a half weeks of January, I taught one 2^nd grade, one 3^rd grade, two 6^th grades, two Kindergartens, and five 5^th grade classes. (Yea, you read that right, TWO Kinder classes).

All of the classes were pretty stress free. Yea, even the Kinders were kinda fun.

This week has been a blur but one memorable conversation comes to mind from a 5^th grade boy.

The teacher that runs the “Homework Club” asked me to let the kids know that the after school club was canceled for the day and to let them make calls home from the classroom to arrange for early pickup after school.

Kid: Can I call my uncle to come pick me up?

Me: Sure…

(Kid begins dialing…stops…hangs up)

Kid: I don’t know my uncle’s number.

(--Awkward pause—looking at me expectantly)

Me: Aaaand…you think I know your uncle’s number?

Kid: Well….you ARE the teacher!

Sigh!

(I made him use recess time to go to the office for help in arranging his ride home.)

Autism and Technology...

The blogging has been pretty sparse lately due to overwork. More about that later, but today I ran across this video from a non-verbal person with autism "speaks in her own language".

It's pretty interesting where technology intersects and enables communication in a whole other area of human interaction.

Other autistic video communiques: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=silentmiaow

A Failure To Communicate …

EG13-G6

Communication is the key. Most teachers will tell you that they have “A Look”.

When some student in class isn’t paying attention or is pushing the limits of a teacher’s patience or just plain defiant, the teacher will give them “The Look”.

The message is clear. “Enough is enough! Knock it off, NOW! Get back to work!”

Most of the time, the targeted student will get the message and comply…at least for a while.

For me, I’ve found that simply standing and without saying a word, staring at the kid in question will provide a quieting affect within less than a minute. Even if the “kid” has his back to me, the room will eventually go quiet until the oblivious “kid” is the only one in the room still ignoring me, yakking away.

Eventually the “kid” will notice that the classroom environment has suddenly “chilled” and get the message. Sometimes the clueless one needs a table mate to nudge and point in my direction that he’s missing an important communiqué about desired classroom behavior.

If that doesn’t work, a raised eyebrow and a look of incredulity to the rest of the class will usually generate a few giggles from the rest of the class to get his attention.

Rarely, will a kid dare to push beyond that point.

A 6^th grade boy, named after a famous outlaw, in Wednesday’s class is one such rare case. Having failed several attempts to end his antics in showing off for his two buddies in class, I approached him one-on-one, in his face, and in a low voice have a point blank conversation:

Me: “This isn’t working for me or the class. This is a final warning. The next time I have to deal with your acting up in the classroom, you will be spending some time in the office. Clear?”

Outlaw: “Yes, sir.”

As I’m walking away, I hear Outlaw tell his buddies “He has bad breath…”

I pretend not to hear the comment and things remain pretty good for a while until they return from lunch when Outlaw starts up again. I remind Outlaw of our earlier conversation and his comment to me is:

Outlaw: “I think a visit to the office would be nice…”

Me: “You got it!”

I call the office and ask if I could send a student down for a little timeout. They tell me to send him on down.

Outlaw: “I’m not going!… ”

Me: “What do you mean, ‘You’re not going’?… ”

Outlaw: “I’m not going!… ”

The class goes dead silent. (Long pause…)

Me: “Fine, I’ll have Principal D. come here to talk to you about that.”

(I start dialing the phone…)

Outlaw: “Ok, I’m GOING!!”

I sent a trusted student with him to make sure he didn’t lose his way to the office. I called the office secretary again to let her know that 10-15 minutes of “quite contemplation” on his part should be enough before they should let him come back.

Office: “Oh, he’ll be longer than that. The principal wants to have a word with him before he’s allowed to return.”

I believe that I have finally communicated my message to Mr. Outlaw. We’ll see the next time I sub this class.

I think I'll start with “The Look”…

First Day of the New Year …

EG11-G3

This is the first day back in class (grade 3) for 2007. This wasn’t the first opportunity to work this New Year as I turned down the call to class every day since January 3 (the first day school resumed).

I think I had an excuse to not take all those Kindergarten assignments. If not, I made one up. I just didn’t feel up to it yet. Just exercising the only “guest teacher” perk I have.

BTW, the 3^rd graders today were great. Lesson plan was complete, the material readily findable, in a brand new school room with working heat.

I’m in 6^th grade tomorrow. Maybe something excitingly blogable will happen...

Tax Time…

It’s that time again.

It’s the time the government starts demanding a cut for every last nickel you “earned, found, gifted or eBay’ed” this last year. The 1099s, the W2’s, the K1’s, the DoWakka2’s will all start arriving in the mail so the arduous process of deciphering the United States tax code can begin.

I have a college degree in mathematics. I have successfully designed, coded, and programmed some pretty complicated, complex computer programs over the last 30 years. But for the life of me, I have a block when it comes to filling out tax forms.

I despise the process.

Not the actual writing the check which I also don’t enjoy, but the process of trying to decode the government legalese used in the tax forms. The “combining of lines 1 and 2 to enter on form SE10$orkU line 46”, the itemizing every last lint ball that might be considered income or a deduction. The whole process. Hate it, hate it, hate it, I hate it all!!

That’s why I don’t do it.

I let my friend, Gary, do all the heavy lifting. He REALLY, REALLY loves this stuff. The plowing through all the minutiae, the excitement of new tax forms, the installation of this years version of TurboTax Deluxe (plus state). The whole ball of wax.

If you’ve ever seen the TV series NUMB3RS, Gary is my “Charlie” guy of taxes.

I’m more like the detective guy sitting at the desk in the back whose eyes start to glaze over and head tilts back in a coma when “Charlie” starts spewing chalked tax equations and explanations in the analysis of crime patterns of crazed serial income earners.

If only the answers to real world questions were somehow made available in the tax preparation process, it might go something like what I found online at Consumerism Commentary:

Q. This year, I’ve been taking bribes to keep the caviar smuggling ring off the FBI radar. Do I have to report this?
A. Yes.

Q. I found an abandoned car and kept it while the person who lost the vehicle presumably wept. Do I have to report this?
A. Yes.

Q. I hosted a party to sell products to my friends (and use my social circle for multilevel marketing from some corporation), and my guests brought me gifts. Do I have to report this?

A. Yes.

Q. Do I really have to give the government a cut of my estimated $0.65/kid/hr substitute teaching job where I get to deduct absolutely nothing?
A. Yes

I can hardly wait till April 15 when it’s all over.

…until next year.

Turkey Anatomy Search …

It’s still Christmas break for at least another week so I have time to check the http://www.statcounter.com/ statistics to see a sample of how the internet community finds their way to my blog.

So greetings to all you culinary aficionados from such far flung places as:

• Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Nordrhein-westfalen, Bochum, Germany
• Hessen, Darmstadt, Germany
• Maribor, Slovenia
• Saudi Arabia
• Delhi, India
• Kenya

I hope that using the Google search engine for the key words: “turkey boobs” enabled you to cook and enjoy a traditional American Thanksgiving holiday meal.

If that’s not what you were looking for…sorry weirdo!

Hyper For The Holidays …

EG13-G5

The phone is ringing at 05:30am this last day of the year before the start of the Christmas break. I instantly have a case of the déjà vu’s all over again. That last time I subbed on the final day in December for Kinders was enough for me to avoid all “last day” assignments forever.

But what the hell, this is a different school and a different grade. Maybe it won’t be so bad. As it turned out, it was a short, short assignment for a full payday.

Once you subtract the 15min school tour of decorated doors, the 40mins where the art prep teacher takes over the class, the 35min lunch, the 40min movie, the 20min recess and the minimum day dismissal at 01:15pm, the actual classroom instruction time works out to about 2 hours.

…AND NO PARTY!!

The kids were hyper for the holidays but still trying not to rate a mention on Santa’s naughty list. All in all, it was a fun, successful afternoon.

Maybe that’s why when the office called at lunch time; I agreed to sub for a class of left behinders four days this February while the rest of the school is off at science camp. If I was wrong about all “last day” assignments, maybe the “left behinder” assignment won’t be too traumatic.

Right?...right?...a little help here…

Pushing My Buttons…

EG7-G4

We returned home last night to five missed calls for subbing jobs for Monday so I wasn’t surprised with this mornings call for a half day afternoon 4^th grade assignment. It seems this last week before the Christmas break is a busy time for substitutes.

Lesson plan is minimal and easy.

1. Go over answers to the math exercise they were doing when I arrived.

2. Lunch (40 mins)

3. Make sure they pay attention while Parent/Volunteer reader reads the story.

4. Cursive writing exercise (20mins)

5. Social studies – 6 pages

6. Clean up, Pack up and Go home.

Total class time 2.5 hours! This should be an easy day!

It’s such a short amount of time that any one student shouldn’t have had enough time to find that button that really ticks me off.

Orlando did…

Orlando is probably the best reader in class and probably the smartest kid in class. Unfortunately, he’s also the biggest “smart ass” in class. That’s probably why his desk within an arms length of the teacher’s chair at the front of the room.

This kid has NO impulse control. Whatever thought sails through his head detours out the mouth, hands or feet. Sometimes all three at the same time! Constantly!

Hopefully my report to his teacher will allow me to have the last shot as he spends 20min of recess time on the bench tomorrow.

Left Behinders…

There are two schools in the district that have very similar names and are easily mistaken for one another. One is a country club school where discipline is never a problem. The other is the polar opposite to the point I don’t take any assignments above 3^rd grade at that school.

The first school is overloaded with parent volunteers who sign up to chaperone field trips, grade papers, organize fundraisers and anything else the school might ask of them.

The other school, not so much.

So it happened that I got a call from a teacher to take his 5^th grade class at what I thought was the “good” school. He mentioned I was scheduled take his class on a field trip with all the other 5^th and 6^th grade classes at the school to see the “Nutcracker Ballet”.

“Sure! No problem.” (I’m still thinking this is the “first” school)

When I called the system to receive the assignment number, I realized it was for the “other” school.

Now I know that either I’m going on a field trip with minimal chaperone coverage for a bunch of kids that need the maximum level OR they’ll want me to stay at the school and monitor the real bad ass kids that weren’t allowed on the field trip in the first place.

No winning options here.

As it turned out I ended up on one of three busses with about 250 kids, three teachers, two substitutes, the health aid and one parent chaperone. We arrived at the theater along with busses from about 20 other local schools. The place looks like opening day at the Giants game.

The experience wasn’t any where near as foreboding as I anticipated. The packed house “Ooh’d, Ahh’d, and clapped in all the right places. They seemed to enjoy the ballet even if there were a few grumbles from some of the kids about it being: “boring”, “they didn’t talk”, “I didn’t know what it was about”, etc.

We managed not to lose anyone after the performance and I didn’t notice any discipline disturbances anywhere from the full house of about 5000+ kids in the audience.

We got back to the school with about an hour left before the dismissal bell. My class was rejoined with the five “left behinders” kids that didn’t go.

They also rejoined us with a student teacher that had them while we were gone who informed me that four of the five “left behinder” boys were caught exiting the girl’s bathroom after lunch.

Somehow, I’m not surprised. I'm glad I didn't have "left behinder" duty today.

Let Teachers Carry Guns???

I found the following story in the news today: Nevada politician: Let teachers carry guns

"LAS VEGAS - A Nevada state senator and also-ran in this year's Republican primary for governor says the Legislature should consider letting teachers carry guns in classrooms to stem a rise in school violence.

'I would expect enough teachers would be interested so it would serve as a deterrent,' said Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas. He said he's preparing a bill to introduce when state lawmakers convene in February.
..."

I wonder when and where Sen. "Too Many Beers" got that bright idea?

Personally, if it ever got that bad in the schools around here, that's time to give up the substitute teaching job and stay home.

JMHO...

Half Day Assignments…

This is a slow week for subbing. I had a half day in 5^th grade Monday and another half day Tuesday in 1^st grade.

I’m usually not real fond of 1/2 day assignments but if I have a choice, I prefer the afternoon half of a 1/2 day assignment. It’s usually shorter because the kid’s lunch time is part of that half day. Since you don’t have to be there until 11:30 or so, you can sleep late and not rush breakfast.

If you compute the pay by the hourly rate you are actually in the afternoon class, then it’s the highest paid job for substitutes (per hour) in this area.

The rate (a little more than ½ the regular day rate) divided by the actual hours in the classroom (around 2.5h) works out to be about $25/hr. Slightly less if you do the morning half class.

Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary in the district you work…

Answer Key…

EG5-G1

Substitute teaching at the elementary level isn’t all that difficult as far as subject matter goes. While there have been occasions in the past where, once or twice, I didn’t feel “educated” enough in English grammar to actually teach the subject, those situations tended to be at the upper grade levels. Teacher edition text books with the answers included and teacher provided answer keys for any worksheets to be handed out make my job fairly easy to handle.

Any functioning adult should be able to master 1st grade worksheets without any problem or aid from an answer key. English grammar at a 1st grade level shouldn’t be a problem…even for ME!

So imagine my surprise and frustration when confronted with the following worksheet involving words with vowel “U”:

(click the image to enlarge)

The instructions are simple enough.
1. Say each picture name.
2. Listen to the sound of each letter
3. Print the word for the picture name.

All the words have either the short or long form of the vowel “U” and this being 1st grade work, all the words are less than five letters in length.

Quick, time yourself and see how well you do in identifying the word that goes with all the pictures.

Note: All current and veteran 1st grade teachers are disqualified from participating. THEY, of course, have the answer key!

(The one circled in red is a real killer. For the longest time the only thing I could imagine was that finger removing a “booger” from the baby’s nose. But that’s an entirely different vowel…)

Turkey Boobs…

Sorry! This is about a week late but I’ve been babysitting the granddaughter while her parents are in warm, tropical Hawaii all this week. Not much time to do any subbing or blogging.

My wife is a big fan of Rachael Ray and her “30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray” show on the food network.

For the few of you who have not heard of this perky Italian-American cooking dynamo, let me give you the short stroke picture. Her claim to fame is producing a complete gourmet tasting meal in less than 30min. The show is fast paced and entertaining in a down home cooking style where a “half a handful” is a precise recipe term.

Now, the week before Thanksgiving, she had a show that purported to produce the whole Thanksgiving feast in less than 60 minutes. Claudette decided that this year, we were going to try it for the big event.

Monday (T-day minus 3), she returned from the stores with all almost all ingredients required as listed on the recipe sheets printed from the shows web site. The only thing missing was….unsalted shelled pistachios and TURKEY.

“I should have picked them up last week when I saw them all over the place” she lamented.

It was hard for me to believe that TURKEY wasn’t available at any of three local markets she tried. She then explained to clueless husband, that WHOLE turkeys are available everywhere and are dirt cheap. The Rachel Ray recipe calls for “boneless turkey breast halves with skin attached”. The Cosentino's Market had them but the price was $46! Yikes!

So confident that I could find the elusive turkey boobs much cheaper, I volunteered to complete the shopping list for her on Tuesday while she went to work. Easy-Peasy as Rachel might say.

Tuesday morning, Costco was my first stop. Pistachios and turkey breasts. No problem. Peanuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts…no shelled pistachios. Whole turkeys, turkey legs, chicken breasts with skin attached…no turkey breasts. The butcher behind the counter said they had them last week, but some Rachael person on TV seems to have caused a run on them this week.

I was starting to get a bad feeling about my ability to locate the main ingredient for Thursday’s dinner and called Claudette to see if she had an acceptable alternative if the required turkey breasts couldn’t be located. Claudette said she since she had already spent considerable time and effort acquiring all the special ingredients for this special Rachael Ray Thanksgiving dinner that I should really try to find said turkey breasts.

As an alternative, I also mildly conjectured on just how hard it might be to buy a whole turkey and perform a bird double mastectomy myself.

I was then informed on how uninformed I was about butchering meat so off to Lunardi’s, another gourmet market, in search of the main dinner attraction. Amazingly, they had them! Whole boneless turkey breasts with skin attached. Fifteen dollars…EACH!

At this point, I didn’t care about how much they were. I have been on the hunt for over four hours now, driving more than 20 miles (at $2.50/gallon) and was getting tired. So with $30 worth of boned turkey breast, I continued the hunt for the last item on the shopping list.

This store has an entire isle devoted to nuts. I don’t mean moi, but the edible kind and sure enough they had pistachios! Salted pistachios in shell, unsalted pistachios in shell, shelled and salted pistachio meats but…NO UNSALTED shelled pistachios! The last stop at Trader Joe's 10 miles across town in search for pistachio meats produced success.

Fifty miles and six hours later, I have finally acquired the only TWO remaining items necessary for our “quick and easy” Thanksgiving feast.

I greet Claudette at the door with the happy news only to find her standing there with a bag of turkey breasts she picked up at the local PW on the way home.

Guess what we’re having for Christmas?

More Worthless Coins...

My stash of "worthless coins" to hand out at school was running low so I asked my buddies, still in the industry, if they'd like to donate to my stash.

Since they frequent overseas companies on a regular basis I figure they might run across a fair amount of "low status" (meaning something less than a nickle) coins in their travels.

Since I don't know Chinese, I'm finding it hard to locate a web site to identify the three coins above.

Is that "100" coin indeed under the $0.05 limit for worthless status? How about the rest?

I already attempted google for pictures of Chinese coins without luck for the modern coin variety. If anyone knows, a posted comment or email would be helpful.

Mindset...

EG13-G3

I haven’t been working for most of the week. In fact this was the first assignment call I accepted this week.

Instead, I spend a couple of days trying to extract my lungs and some parts of internal organs from one of two body orifices and occasionally both at the same time. A stomach flu will have that affect sometimes. A couple of more days to recover and I’m good to go.

The district SubFinder system called Thursday night for a 5^th grade assignment at a school I been to frequently this year.

I arrived at the appointed time and was given a key to a room not in the usual block of 5^th grade classrooms. Curious because I know they group the grade levels together.

On entering the classroom, I notice the desks are arranged in groups of four. Again, for some reason, it struck me as odd for 5^th grade. The room, somehow, didn’t “look” like a 5^th either.

It wasn’t until I counted the pods of “groupings of four” desks that I realized that this couldn’t be a 5^th grade class. There were only 20 desks where there should be something like 30.

It was only then I checked the class attendance list and saw this was, indeed, a 3^rd grade classroom.

Without realizing it, I had a mindset going in ready to deal with 5^th graders today and was temporarily disoriented to find I had to adjust for 3^rd graders. That hasn’t happened before.

It seems that this teacher taught 5^th grade last year, changed to 3^rd this year and the system hadn’t been updated yet.

Resetting the mindset for 3^rd grade wasn’t really a problem, just a mild suprise. Third graders are a fun trip. I had one of the best “problem free” and “stress free” classes I have had all year.

Pre-School Political Ad...

It MIGHT just come to this in a future election...

Mr. Shukudai...

I’ve been remiss in my blog entries lately. It’s not that I haven’t been working. In fact, I’ve logged four class days out of six since we got back from our short midweek trip. One 4th, one 5th and two 6^th grades.

Here are a few of the things I learned or noticed in the last week:

• One of the oldest schools in the district has an actual chalk board in the classroom (in addition to whiteboards). It’s the only one I’ve seen since I started subbing.
• My nickname, “Mr. Homework”, in Japanese is “Mr. Shukudai”. Same number of letters. Maybe I’ll use it sometime in the future.
• Is it the best idea to wear a Ralphie Wiggum T-shirt to school if your personality actually IS a “Ralphie” type?
• On the way to my 4^th grade assignment Tuesday, I saw a lot of teachers out on street corners campaigning for a “YES” vote on the local school bond issue. Is this a valid reason to call in a substitute teacher for the day?
• Trading 5 minutes of absolute silence for leaving 2 minutes early to lunch is sometimes totally worth it. Even if that means 32 kids watch the clock for that 5 minutes instead of working. (…For the record, they weren’t doing much of any work for the past 20 minutes anyhow)

A Little Time Off...

Highlands Inn Vacation

We took advantage of one of those timeshare presentation deals to take a short, mid week, three day vacation from school (...one of the benefits of part time substitute teaching).

We stayed here at the Park Hyatt Highlands Inn resort in Carmel, Calif

We spent some time at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, had some good food and a few other relaxing activities.

Cost including meals? About four subbing days! Totally worth it!!

Kerry! U Gots Emial...

I see my original impression of John Kerry continues to be validated…

Standard Substitute Inservice...

The last two days in a 5^th and 2^nd grade were really great. The kids had a good time, I had a good time and things got done.

Even though the 2^nd grade assignment was a last minute call and, of course, didn’t have a lesson plan (…the teacher was in a car accident on the way to school today), it was a pretty mellow class and we even got some math in before the minimum day dismissal bell sent them home at 12:45pm.

It was a REALLY short full payday from 09:00AM to 12:45PM which included a school assembly, two recesses and lunch!

The only real downer of the week was the annual substitute teacher in-service seminar at the district office.

I was hoping to learn some stuff related to student discipline techniques, classroom management, how to turn off the substitute system caller after I already turned down an assignment because I said I was sick (…he was too sick for that 3^rd grade class today, but let’s see if he’s well enough for the kinders)

No such luck. Instead we had a presentation of the FOCAL / CTAG (Closing the Achievement Gap) students and how it relates to us. (…We didn’t find out what FOCAL was a acronym for)

For the non-academically affiliated, FOCAL and CTAG are programs supposedly implemented to focus more teacher/class attention to the under achieving and/or slacker students with the goal of getting them to kick it up a gear and buckle down to business. (…my simple minded interpretation, not theirs)

The obvious question was asked: “How does this relate to us? We’ve never seen a list of CTAG or FOCAL students on any lesson plan or what we’re supposed to do with them.”

There’s a Catch-22. For confidentially reasons, the teachers aren’t allowed to disclose kids identified for CTAG/FOCAL to the substitute teachers. We’re supposed to figure it out for ourselves and do the best we can.

Doing “the best we can with minimal info and preparation” is pretty much the job description of a “substitute teacher” anyway, so this in-service was pretty much a waste of time.

Maybe I should change the post title to: “Sub Standard Inservice...”

Yes, No, Hello, Goodbye, Trashcan...

EG13-G6

While I have subbed in classes where some of the kids don’t speak or understand much English, but there have always been other bilingual kids there to help translate instructions and questions. Not so with today’s class of thirty-three 6^th graders. I had one very shy Thai girl, “J”, that didn’t speak or understand English.

I asked the kids if there were any other bilingual Thai kids in class. No!

I asked if there were any other bilingual Thai kids in the school. “YES! She has a sister in another class, but she doesn’t speak English either.”

I evidentially didn’t emphasize the “BI” part of bilingual. Surprisingly, her parents didn’t send her to school with a “Thai-English” dictionary either.

“How does your teacher communicate with J.?”

“She knows the words ‘yes, no, hello, goodbye and trashcan’… For everything else the teacher uses hand signs and gestures”

With few alternative solutions, we began our day of classroom assignments. The little Thai girl could handle most of the math assignments well enough until we got to “mean, mode, median and average”. Try to explain those concepts with hand gestures.

The rest of the assignments were a total loss for her. She sat quietly watching the other girls at her table during class.

During the writing assignment, a cart of thirty-five wireless Apple laptops was wheeled in from the computer lab. These laptops are available for the kids to access the internet for informational research.

This gave me an idea. I asked one of the other girls at J’s table to do a search for an online “English to Thai dictionary”. Surprisingly, they found a pretty good one that allowed English words and phrases to be translated into Thai. Unfortunately it is a one way process as the laptop has only the English keyboard character set.

But this allowed J. to hunt and peck English words and learn the meanings. I checked and got permission from the computer lab to let her keep one of laptops for the rest of the day.

I feel like I accomplished something useful today!

“Hello. Goodbye Trashcan!”

Substitute Union?...

From: http://cbs5.com/education/local_story_270234724.html

"...The workers who fill in as teaching assistants, special education assistants, clerks and custodians reached an agreement with the Santa Clara County Office of Education on Sept. 18, winning the right to collectively bargain for improved wages and benefits as members of SEIU Local 715."

Interesting to see what category of "substitute" isn't included.

Sony Bravia, So Cool...

Not school related but this is so cool, I had to share...

Seeds Week...

EG15-G4
OG2-G4

A couple of weeks ago, our TIVO “suggestions feature” picked and recorded the PBS Nature series: “The Seedy Side of Plants”.

It’s all about seed propagation, plant cycles, seed dispersal and…..bats and aardvarks pooping fig and melon seeds. Perfect addition to my backup activities bag for that unplanned dead time in class.

This week was ALL 4^th graders. Two different schools, two different districts, totally different atmosphere.

The first two day assignment at the country club school was with 24 very well behaved, intelligent kids. It all went pretty easy. They were running through the assignments so fast, that they were becoming bored with all that extra silent reading and down time between lessons.

Me: “How many of you have seen the movie “Holes”?
Them: “Yea! It’s really funny! Are we gonna get to see the movie?...”
Me: “No! You get the sequel about what goes into holes. It’s all about seeds.”
Them: “GROAN!”

By the end of the video, the class comments seemed pretty evenly split between:

1) Eeeeewwwww! Grossss!
2) This is so awesome!

The third day was with a class of 35 kids. Lesson plan included a “Halloween art project” involving paper, scissors, glue, crayons and black paint! This turned out to be more or less partially controlled chaos.

No matter how carefully you explain what parts to cut and what not to cut, they cut wrong, painted wrong, colored wrong. I had a mess of paper parts and paint mixed with glue on tables and carpet.

After lunch, the lesson plan indicated a science project on.......“Seed identification and dispersal”!!!

The lesson plan explanation was an entire page, included worksheets, six little cups with different kinds of seeds to be passed from table to table, magnification lenses for seed examination that the teacher was very worried about losing. I was also directed to do a reading from a book about “Plant Sex”.

I looked at all six delicate little seed cups, the precious magnifier lenses and then at the art project debris on the back table that I would have to clean up after class and saw visions of seeds dumped all over the floor in the paint and glue mix.

The temptation and video topic convergence was too tempting to ignore. I bagged on the project and science class got the video instead. First time viewing for them, second time this week for me.

Comments:

1) Eeeeewwwww! Grossss!
2) Oooohhh!
3) This is so cool!

I penned a note the teacher report that I wasn’t confidant about doing the seed project the way I knew she would want it done so I showed the video instead.

I hope she understands.

Matters of Compelling Importance...

The automated substitute calling system is a great tool for any school district that can afford one. The sub can set a “not available” date range to tell the system not to call for assignments. Likewise I can indicate certain days of the week I’m otherwise occupied.

The system accurately tracks which assignments are still open, which assignments were taken, which assignments were canceled by the school, and which assignments were declined by the substitute.

The last feature, declining an assignment, requires the substitute to provide a reason for turning down the assignment. The choice has to be selected from a carefully researched and significantly important list of district reasons for ducking an assignment.

Presumably the data is collected and carefully analyzed to determine trends or problems with the quality of the substitute labor pool or schools using the system. Presumably, reports of epidemic illness among substitutes could be quickly detected and a response team would be activated to deal with the crisis. Assignment turndowns for all assignments at a particular school just might indicate a problem that the district might want to investigate.

All in all, it’s a pretty neat tool if correctly used. So what am I supposed to make of the following list of “significantly important” reasons to decline an assignment from one of the districts I work?

----------------------------------------

Reason you are declining this assignment is…

Press 1 – Illness

Press 2 – Vacation

Press 3 – Jury Duty

Press 4 – Matters of Compelling Importance

Press 5 – Medical / Dental

Press 6 – Legal

Press 7 – Graduation

Press 8 – Paternity Leave

Press 9 – Maternity Leave

In the three years I’ve worked for this district, I’ve only used codes #1 and #4 when declining an assignment. The rest don’t apply to any real world statically useful purpose.

For example:

#2

If I’m on vacation, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be around to answer the phone to decline the assignment and enter this code.

#3 & #6

Subs don’t get compensated for jury duty. Anyway wouldn’t “legal” include “jury duty”?

Also, if I’m going to be away for a sentence of 2 to 5, I’d use the “vacation” or “matter of compelling importance” reason.

#5 & #7

I have an important appointment. Medical, dental, legal, graduation, I wanna see my kid’s first soccer game. It’s all the same to the school district as to why I’m not available for the day. To me it’s all a “matter of compelling importance”.

#8 & #9

Oh, come on! Maternity OR Paternity leave? Isn’t this just splitting hairs just a bit TOO thin? We don’t get paid for either so I believe this should fall under #2 or #4

----------------------------------------

So what would I propose instead of the current “reason to decline” list? It would certainly contain some useful information that a school district might make use for one thing. As a first attempt, how about:

----------------------------------------

Reason I’m declining this assignment is…

Press 1 – Sick.

Translation: real or imagined illness, sports injury, one too many TSINGTAO’s last night, mental health day after yesterday’s disaster of a class.

Press 2 – No transportation.

Translation: School car is in need of repair again. Suggest I’ll work if you send a ride or pay me more so I can keep my car in good repair.

Press 3 – Not available.

Translation: Not sick and I don’t want to give you a specific reason.

Press 4 – Scheduling conflicts.

Translation: Medical, legal, parole officer or other appointments I need to keep.

Press 5 – Working in a better paying district today.

Translation: All else being equal, you guys are always going to be second choice.

Press 6 – Won’t work in that school again.

Translation: self explanatory. Call me if you want details.

Press 7 – Won’t work that particular class again.

Translation: self explanatory. Call me if you want details.

Press 8 – Won’t work for that teacher again.

Translation: self explanatory. Call me if you want details.

Press 9 – Personal business.

Translation: Matters of Compelling Importance

----------------------------------------

Lack of Planning...

Whoever said: "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" wasn’t a substitute teacher. Lacking or getting the plan last minute certainly DOES constitute an emergency on my part.

Arriving for my classroom assignment, I have exactly 30min before class to go over the plan for the day, locate all the materials indicated and try to make sure I know when the recess, lunch , dismissal important stuff is supposed to be happening.

This class assignment was arranged more than two weeks ago, so I wasn’t expecting the teacher to be in the room hacking away on his computer when I arrived.

“I’m just finishing up your lesson plan for today. Just a couple more minutes…”

I’m polite and say: “Sure no problem…” but quietly, I AM concerned. Last minute plans even if nicely data processed aren’t going to be checked for accuracy and that’s guaranteed to cause an emergency problem for me.

The “couple more minutes” actually lasted more like “all the minutes”.

He printed off the plan and got it to me about two minutes before the first students hit the door. As a result, I messed up the very first student assignment after the roll was taken.

xx:xxam “Handout worksheets for Mountain Math & Mountain Language. The kids know what to do”

I dutifully handed out worksheets and the kids started working on them.

Then hands started rising and I was informed that they had already had these two worksheets yesterday. That’s when I checked page two of the plan and found:

“Before the students enter the room, please turn over the colorful cards on the wall”.

Not knowing that “colorful cards” was part of the “Mountains” assignment and not having advance time to figure out exactly what “colorful cards on the wall” was all about, I of course lost about 15mins of class time flipping the f-ing cards and having the kids erase the part of the worksheets they had partially filled out.

xx:xxam “State capitols test”

Before handing out the test papers, I checked farther down the plan where I found a last minute note

“also, have D. roll up the United States rug with all the capitols listed before handing out the test”.

I’m beginning to catch on quick to this stream of conscious lesson plan format.

The day progresses and we have a break a few minutes before dismissal. I ask the kids if they had ever had a sub in this class before me. They inform me that I was the first one for a whole day. The last sub was only in to cover for an hour.

I met with the teacher after school and went over some of the disconnects I had with the lesson plan. He profusely apologized numerous times for the last minute planning and some of the not so clear plan directions. Evidentially, I was his first “real” substitute.

I’m sure this experience will benefit the next substitute in his class.

It might even be ME!...

Wondering About Being Paranoid...

Sorry for not posting much lately but as it happens I’m taking a short sabbatical from the classroom in order to care for granddaughter #2.

Both were born on the 13^th of the month and at 18 months, she is exactly 6 months younger than granddaughter #1.

While the little pistol naps, I get some “online time”.

I’ll be back in a 5^th grade class on the 12^th.

While browsing the statcounter blog statistics, I saw that someone in Admin. Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington, D.C. spent 13 minutes reading 18 of my blog posts.

Does this mean I’m about to get tagged for jury duty?

Just wondering about being paranoid...

Week 87 of the Carnival of Education...

Week 87 of the Carnival, state by state, town by town, section by section.

Tooth Fairy Inflation...

EG5-G3

Lots of substitute call activity this morning:

1) 05:50 I missed this first call. By the time I fumbled the phone off the hook and realized the phone was switched to the second line, the answering machine downstairs had taken a message and sub system had hung up..

2) 06:30 First grade class assignment would have been “ok” except the teacher attempted to leave a verbal sub plan on the special instructions part of the recording which included the first three digits of her cell phone number to contact her if I needed anything before the sub line recording cut the rest of it off. I interpret this to mean there is no written lesson plan available today. Pass.

3) 06:40 Call from my shit listed school. Hang up before even finding out what class assignment it was.

4) 07:10 Duplicate call for #2. Evidentially all the other subs turned down the “audio lesson plan” teacher and the system had run through the entire sub list without any takers. Pass for a second time.

5) 07:30 Call for the same school as call #2 and #4 but for grade 3 starting at 08:00am. Does this indicate an attempt for a “bait-n-switch”? Show up for grade three and get the phoned in lesson plan grade 1 assignment?

So today after passing on the first four calls of the morning, I had a great day with this third grade class. The only thing of blog worthiness was the dark haired girl in the front with a loose tooth giving me hourly updates on its attachment status. She finally pushed it loose toward the end of class.

I asked what the going rate for tooth fairy collections was; she told me it was $5 !! This was a shocker. I was expecting maybe fifty cents.

I took an informal poll with the rest of the kids asking what the going rate was at their house.

A good number of kids informed me that they get $10/per!! Others informed me that they get $20/per if it’s a “silver tooth”!!

This last rate coming from kids whose dental work seems to have been done outside the U.S. as I don’t think silver caps are done here anymore.

Most of the kids verified that $1 was the median going rate for dental exchange in their home.

This must have a shocker of a news bulletin for the one little girl who told me she only gets twenty-five cents.

JMHO - Half Day...

EG3-G4

If you have a choice of taking the morning or afternoon session of a half day assignment, take the afternoon. The pay rate is the same.

With the afternoon session, you can sleep late and it usually includes your 40min lunch.

Seats Up or Down...

...just when I thought some of OUR government laws were getting a bit too intrusive, along comes News From Norway.

(Reprinted here anticipating the story will age off the net soon...)


"...A local decision that schoolboys must sit on toilet seats when urinating has provoked political debate.

The head of The Democrats Party, a splinter group of former Progress Party hardliners, Vidar Kleppe, is outraged that boys at Dvergsnes School in Kristiansand have to sit and pee.

Kleppe accuses the school of fiddling with God's work, and wants the matter discussed at the executive committee level of the local council, newspaper Dagbladet reports.

"When boys are not allowed to pee in the natural way, the way boys have done for generations, it is meddling with God's work," Kleppe told the newspaper.

"It is a human right not to have to sit down like a girl," Kleppe said.

Principal Anne Lise Gjul at Dvergsnes School would not comment on Kleppe's plans to make political waves and regretted if anyone was offended by the ban on standing and passing water.

Gjul told NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) that the young boys are simply not good enough at aiming, and the point was to have a pleasant toilet that could be used by both boys and girls.

..."
---------------------------------------------------

Girl-On-Boy Fight...

EG13-G6

I spent another Thursday/Friday stint in grade six this week. This two day assignment started out great the first day, but ended in a fight in the classroom only two hours before dismissal on Friday.

The class was great all day Thursday and most of Friday. They were on track, attentive, doing the required work. We had just come back to the classroom after P.E. I was looking in the teacher’s history text for the indicated afternoon lesson, when a chair was overturned. I looked up to see two students exchanging a couple of wild punches with each other.

The surprising part was that it wasn’t boy-on-boy or girl-on-girl but……girl-on-boy!

“YOU TWO! OFFICE! NOW!...”

Was that ME who said that? I surprised myself by immediately ejecting the pair from class. It was reflex.

I wasn’t surprised that the boy was involved. He’d been giving me just a touch more attitude than anyone else in the class, but the girl surprised me. She hadn’t appeared anywhere on my radar as a possible problem.

I guess after last week’s G6 assignment, I didn’t want bother to find out what the fight was about, who started it, who was right or wrong. I just wanted them gone. Let the office sort it out and inform me of the results if they want.

Over the next hour, three calls from the office, and four different student witness visits the principals’ office evidentially sorted out the guilty culprit(s).

I don’t really know the outcome. I’m only the sub. I’m sure the teacher will get a full accounting of who did what to whom first and the imposition of any punishment to be dealt.

But…when the sub line called tonight to work in another tough reputation of a school for yet another sixth grade assignment tomorrow morning, I didn’t hesitate long in declining the job.

I need more time to forget…