On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:13:52 GMT, Tanada wrote:



David Yehudah wrote:

That's when I had my first heart attack. They carried me out of the
classroom on a stretcher into a waiting ambulance, and the kids were
celebrating.



The little b*ggers were probably already planning the grief they were
going to give the sub. I hope they gave the kids grief instead. You
made them work, Dave, and some kids are totally lazy no matter what you
do.

My first year as a sub, I covered Spanish (of which I speak nada) at a
year around school, for seven weeks. The original teacher had to quit
the second week of school due to family illness, and none of the subs
they had lasted longer than a week. I told the kids that there were
several ways I'd leave them. On a stretcher, by getting fired, or when
they finally got a good replacement who was going to finish out the year.

The third replacement teacher they brought in was from Costa Rica and on
an international teacher's exchange. In short, she couldn't quit. I
went back to working for different teachers at that school as well as
others. The students celebrated when they learned that the new teacher
would be taking over the next day. I was too mean, and had made them
work (I was usually one lesson ahead of them) and was harder than was fair.

This doesn't really relate, but reminds me of the Latin teacher I had.
I don't know how many languages he spoke, but it really impressed us
that he wrote our textbook. He also went over to one of the other high
schools to teach Latin there. Anyway, he had a heart attack and died
in the classroom (not duing my class, thank goodness).

At first they just had other language teachers come in on their free
periods. BORING, just sort of a study hall where we translated stuff
out of the text book. Then they brought in a young teacher, who pretty
much did what it sounds like you did. She stayed a couple lessons
ahead of us, and the class. The classes were fun, as she made an
effort to make it fun. They never did find anyone qualified to teach
Latin, so it was dropped.


The Costa Rican teacher had a fit when she learned that she couldn't use
corporeal punishment on those who acted up, tried to turn the creative
writing class into a spanish creative writing class, and was able to
work with difficulty with the students.

A month or so later I was working at the same school for another
teacher. A bunch of kids came up to me during the course of the day and
told me that they really wished I was back there teaching the class.
Not only couldn't they understand what she was saying, but she was
making them work harder than I had, had given most of them detention,
and had failed most of them on a test she'd given because they couldn't
spell the words correctly. I just smiled. One of the students told me
that I was strict but fair, and that the new teacher wasn't fair, just
strict.

Pam S.

--
Steve Touchstone,
faithful servant of Sammy, Little Bit and Rocky

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