Posted tagged ‘substitute teacher’
January 27, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. January 27, 2018
I was given the opportunity yesterday to teach seventh grade Language Arts class. One hundred adolescents more excited about a weekend of doing nothing as opposed to fifty-seven minutes of literary creating and discovery!
The assignment for each period was to create a poem, based on an ancient form of Chinese poetry called “Shi” poetry. I explained the creative process to them, showed them a few examples and set them off on the road of pondering, erasing bad lines of gibberish, and creative expression.
“Mr. Wolfe, what do you think about this? “I have a flying dog who flies in the air like a pigeon.”
“Needs a bit of work!”
“Why?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure where you’re going with this, but if you have a flying dog do you really need to repeat two words later that he flies? And, isn’t it enough to say it’s a flying dog, as opposed to comparing him to a pigeon?” He ponders, returns to his seat, and I notice he immediately flips his pencil to use the eraser.
A masterpiece just destroyed by a substitute teacher who doesn’t understand about flying dogs.
“Mr. Wolfe, what do you think about this?” He hands me his creation, which I carefully read.
“The season of winter has begin
The light will be dim…”
“Shouldn’t that word be ‘begun’?
“Well, I wanted it to rhyme with dim.”
“(Thinking the words but not saying them: Listen, Longfellow!) Begin doesn’t rhyme with dim.”
“Yes, it does…begin…dim…” He is trying to convince me that I’m in error.
“No, it doesn’t! And, anyway, you don’t need to rhyme!”
“I know, but I thought it sounded good!”
(Thinking the words again: “Well, it doesn’t!”)
There were other inspired students yesterday who impressed me with the depth of their thoughts and flow of meaning. Poems about the afterlife, death, and personal value were mixed in with other poems about chicken wings, watermelon, and having a rat for a pet.
The drudgery I sensed about the assignment was soon replaced with an excitement about personal expression. Even if the poem was about macaroni and cheese there was still a sense of pride about what had been transmitted from the pencil to the paper.
When students shared their creations they read them with smiles on their faces and the hope of recognition. When each student finished reciting we snapped our fingers together like we were beatniks from the 60’s.
A few poets may have been created in those moments yesterday, as well as visions of flying dogs who look like pigeons.
Categories: children, coaching, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: chinese culture, creating, creative, creative writing, creativity, language arts, middle school, middle school students, poems, poetry, Seventh Grade, Shi poems, substitute teacher, substitute teaching
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January 19, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. January 19, 2018
I love being a substitute teacher amongst middle school students. Each class is a new experience in “classroom culture.” It takes me about ten minutes to figure out personalities… or lack of!
Students who have me for the first time soon discover that I use sarcastic humor like sunscreen at the beach. I slap it on all over the place!
It begins with the student’s question: “Are you our sub today?”
“No. They discovered that I had never properly completed 7th Grade so I had to re-enroll for the rest of the year!”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Yes!”
“Okay! Yes, I’m your sub today.”
Or “When is Ms. So-and-So coming back?”
“She’s not!”
“What?”
“Her cover was blown. She was in the Witness Protection Program and they found her. She had to be relocated to another school in another state dealing with second graders.”
“Seriously?”
Or, a conversation that happens multiple times each day.
“Mr. Wolfe, can I go to the restroom?”
“You should be able to. You’re in seventh grade.”
Confused look. “So, can I?”
“If you can’t you’ve got some real issues.”
Starts to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“You said I could go to the restroom.” (Another student behind the student whispers: “Say ‘may I go’.”) “Oh, may I go to the restroom?”
“Yes, you may!”
“Coach Wolfe, I can’t wait for basketball to start.”
“Me either! And they finally replaced those backboards that you put cracks in last year.”
“Mr. Wolfe, why can’t we start school later, like about 10:00?
“Because you’re slow learners. It takes you longer to understand things? And wait until you get in high school and have to take calculus! You’ll have to start at 6 A.M. that semester.”
“Seriously?”
“Mr. Wolfe, I have a girlfriend.”
“Does she know it?”
“What…yes, she knows!”
“Mr. Wolfe, why do we have to go to school five days a week?”
“Because the teachers voted down going to school six days a week.”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Yes!”
“Okay! You nailed me! I have no clue!”
Yesterday’s subbing in a seventh grade classroom ended with a gratifying comment from a student.
“Mr. Wolfe, you’re the best substitute teacher ever!”
The question is…was she serious or being sarcastic?
Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: humor, middle school, middle school students, middle schoolers, sarcasm, sarcastic, sarcastic comments, school teachers, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teachers
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December 6, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. December 6, 2017
Almost a year ago I had an unusual bonding experience. I got a phone call asking if I would do a long-term substitute teaching position for a month at the middle school I also coach at. The call came on Friday and I started the next Monday. I was as green as week-old guacamole when I arrived at 7:15 that morning of January 9th. The principal’s granddaughter was in my first class!
It was 7th Grade Social Studies and I admitted to the class that there were a lot of things that I DIDN’T KNOW as I started the journey. On the board in front of the classroom I made three columns of marks to indicate all the things I didn’t know…and then to the right of that a column of things that I did know that included about three tiny marks under it.
The class was held in one of the portable classrooms outside the school building, and on the first day high winds that registered as much as 110 miles an hour in the area made the classroom shake like a 7th Grader standing in the middle of the principal’s office. The school district cancelled afternoon bus transportation because a couple of trucks had blown over.
That was the first day of my new experience…and it was awesome! We laughed together each day in our pursuit of knowledge and figuring out the world. Each day the 125 students that entered my classroom taught me as much as I taught them. They knew things would be a bit different when I showed a Duck Tales cartoon to introduce our study of how inflation worked.
And then one day a couple of the girls were playing around with how to pronounce my name and they suddenly made me French. Wolfe became Wolfe’, pronounced “Wolf-ay”. To be fair, I had turned a couple of their names into French-sounding mademoiselles first and they returned the favor.
After my month-long stint I was a bit depressed at no longer heading to the portable classroom each morning. The other three teachers on my team asked me why I hadn’t applied to be the new teacher and were a bit surprised when I told them that I did not have a teaching degree. I was simply a state certified substitute teacher.
Those three teachers would call me to sub for them, and for the rest of the school year I was in one of the portables several times each month.
Now…Year Two…word has spread about the substitute with the French name and the new seventh grade students have joined the parade of students who have made me a French-Canadian. I walk down the hallway and have students yell my name. Yesterday I was subbing for Physical Education, today I have seventh grade language arts, tomorrow eighth grade science, and Friday seventh grade science.
And it’s awesome!
Categories: children, Community, Humor, love, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: education, learning, learning something new, middle school, middle schoolers, nicknames, portable classrooms, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, social studies, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching
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October 28, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. October 28, 2017
My parents would testify to the truth of this statement.
I was not a very good student!
Actually, I was not a very motivated student. I was motivated to get to physical education class, but I can not remember another class in middle school or high school that I was motivated to excel in. Each day was a trip to Boredom in a vehicle named Mediocrity.
I remember a number of my teachers, but not necessarily for what they taught me. I remember “earthquake drills” in Health class where we laid our heads on our desks. An earthquake drill meant that our teacher hadn’t had time to plan a lesson. I remember my chemistry teacher saying that if an atomic bomb was going to be dropped by Russia it would be aimed at a place within an hour of our location. I don’t remember the chemical symbols of the periodic chart, but I do remember that we’d be the first to perish on doomsday!
I substitute taught seventh grade all five days this past week. The techniques and methods of teaching have changed, but the students are still the same. For many students the legal requirement of being in school seems to cast a looming shadow over the opportunity to go to school. Since they HAVE to do it there is a lack of WANTING to do it!
I was the same way…or worse! I now wonder what my teachers said to my parents during those parent-teacher conferences. I doubt that it included statements about my academic achievements and prowess.
And now…forty-five years after high school, I often wish I could return to the role of student and sit under the tutelage of some of those teachers that I rarely gave a hearing to. I wish I could actually sit in one of those desks and hear about dangling participles and plane geometry theorems. I’d like to sit there with my laptop and type out notes as my teacher lectured on the Spanish Inquisition.
Why is it that we are too often late in appreciating what we’re a part of, and left to sadly reminisce about lost opportunities?
Of course, that’s how it is with other area of our lives, also! We take for granted the presence of family and friends, talk about visiting that certain aunt someday soon…that never seems to come…and then it’s too late! We commit to getting out of debt…next month! We’ll make that doctor appointment for the physical exam we’ve been dreading…sometime soon! We’ll take the family to a movie…as soon as we get that major house project done that we keep putting off!
I wish I could go back to school. Maybe I will! My Great Aunt Lizzie took art classes at the community college in Paintsville, Kentucky when she was in her mid-nineties! I still have the painting she gifted me with of her log cabin birthplace. Maybe I’ll sign up for an American History class with young adults and risk being called Grandpa!
Funny, isn’t it…my longing for education when I used to long for it to be over!
Categories: children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: desire to learn, earthquake drills, education, inspired, learning, learning something new, life-long learner, motivated, motivation, periodic chart, school days, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching, teaching middle school
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October 5, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. October 5, 2017
The past few weeks have found me in several different middle school classrooms teaching in a substitution role the subjects of science, social studies, health, and physical education. I’ve taught lessons on the digestive system, sea sponges, insects, and the Hammurabi Code.
I’ve also been teaching seventh graders how to say “May I…?”
Seventh graders are infatuated with the words “Can I?” It comes as naturally out of their mouths in interactions with teachers, parents, and coaches as breathing. For many middle school boys the words “May I” are as unused as the showers in the boys locker room. And so my contribution to their education is to lead them onto the straight and mannerly road called “May I?”
It goes something like this!
“Mr. Wolfe, can I go to the restroom?”
“Listen, Sam! You’re in seventh grade. I don’t know where you fell off the tracks in your life education, but by seventh grade you should be able to go to the restroom.” Sam looks at me with confusion radiating from his face.
“So…can I?”
“”Well, let’s talk about what will happen if you don’t go to the restroom. We just talked about it in class. Remember…the digestive system…what goes in must come out! So if you don’t go to the restroom there could be some unpleasant consequences.”
“Okay!” He starts to exit.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“To the restroom.”
“Did I give you permission?”
“You said I could.”
“I said you had the ability to go, but that’s different than permission.”
A whisper comes from the side of him. I faintly hear the words, “Say may I!”
The point of our discussion suddenly hits the light switch in Sam’s mind. “Ohhh…may I go to the restroom?”
“Yes, you may!” Three other students who have been listening snicker in the background. As my days of being saturated with seventh graders have continued the number of students who have revised their “Can I” language to “May I” continues to mount. They may not be able to remember what “cilia” and “flagella” are, or what the Code of Hammurabi is all about, what they MAY very well learn to say “May I?”
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Can I, Code of Hammurabi, learning manners, manners, May I, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle school teachers, middle schoolers, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching manners
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September 20, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. September 19, 2017
The six year old boy stood beside my desk and looked at me. “I’ve never had a boy teacher before. I’ve always had girl teachers.”
“Oh, is that so?” I replied.
“Yes, and I’ve always wanted a boy teacher. If I didn’t have a boy teacher by the time I’m eight or nine I was going to be really upset!”
“Okay! Well, I’m a boy!” He smiled and walked back to his desk. My morning of teaching first graders was beginning with one young man’s personal agenda being fulfilled.
Being a substitute teacher in first grade is a delightful experience…mostly! There were the moments when movement in certain students legs required them to get out of their seats and wiggle for a few seconds, and there’s always a student who wants to answer everything, be the one who is always chosen, and the one who is always first in line…but, for the most part, it’s an enjoyable experience. Someone’s pencil falls on the floor every five seconds, but no one ever throws a pencil at another student. That doesn’t become a problem until like…middle school!
Being a man…or a “boy teacher” in first grade causes the mouths of first grade students to drop open as they see the teacher of the other gender standing there as they arrive.
Some people who know me would say that my maturity level is similar to a first grader’s. At the school I subbed at a classical piece of music is played over the speakers in the classroom to begin the school day. I could not help myself as I swayed and moved my head from side-to-side in front of the classroom. The students giggled at my gyrations! In my opinion first grade needs to include a lot of laughter and giggling. Each day needs to be an experience in education, not a task in learning.
I led them on a journey with a nomad tribe, as we studied history. I made a fool of myself by intentionally saying the months of the year incorrectly and having them tell me when I messed up. I told them about my family as they enjoyed their mid-morning snack. My granddaughter is in first grade this year, and they thought that was pretty cool!
But this first grade class steered me back on the road when I was straying off-course. For example, at the beginning of the day the date is written on the board and I was forgetting to do that. STOP! As we were heading out for recess I had not taken the whistle that was hooked to the wall right by the door. One cute girl with a very serious look on her face corrected me. I repented of my omission and grabbed the whistle. I believe she has a future in law enforcement.
At noon the teacher who had been at training that morning…a girl teacher!…returned and I turned the rest of the day’s journey over to her…a little sad that I was leaving and blessed to have been a part of it!
Categories: children, Community, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: boy teacher, education, elementary school, First Grade, first graders, laughter, male elementary teacher, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching
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September 16, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. September 16, 2017
In my other world of substitute teaching I entered a seventh grade science classroom for three days this past week. The teacher, Mr. Williams…”Dean-O” to me…had called in July to schedule me for several days this fall. This week included Days 3, 4, and 5 of that journey…so I knew the students already. I knew who the studious students were, as well as the suspect students. I knew the “go to” students- the ones who the teacher can always call on for help- and also the ones who were familiar with the furnishings inside the assistant principal’s office.
Wednesday started with questions spoken with a whine. “Do we have to do this?”, “Can I just sit here and not do anything?”, “Why does Mr. Williams give us so much to do?”, and “Do we have to do ALL the definitions?” (No, just the ones you know, so you don’t have to tax your brain too much!)
Other questions followed closely that were lacking in intelligence. It became a pattern…questions asked about terms that were right there in the reading.
“What’s the labrum? I can’t find it in the reading.”
“First paragraph under the section entitled Digestive System in bold print.”
“Oh!”
So on Day Two I made it a contest! I told them that during the last three minutes of class I’d listen to stupid questions, and the stupidest question would receive a bag of Skittles candy. You talk about excitement! The kids with the highest IQ’s were all over it. They used their extra intelligence to craft extremely dumb queries.
Some of the questions were more like problem-solving situations that required me to think…and thus were disqualified from winning! Others tongue-twisters, like the woodchuck riddle that creates muscle spasms in your mouth.
A few tried to plagiarize “stupid questions”, sneaking their smart phones under their desks and googling “stupid questions.” Most of them were nabbed. Like the boy who asked the stupid question, “Why does an alarm clock ‘go off’ when it’s actually ‘turning on’?” Questions such as that got class responses of “You got that on the internet!” I was amazed later on when I googled the category that there were so many links to “stupid questions”! Stupidity is in abundance!
There were the stupid questions that included no creativity, such as “Is this a stupid question?”, or “How do you spell “a”?”, and “Am I smart?”
The winners were usual the ones that were so stupid that I had to stop and think about it for a second. They will appear in the midst of the dialogue of the next Dumb and Dumber movie. Questions like, “How does brown work?”, “Since the moon is made of cheese is it true that astronauts can not be lactose intolerant?”, and “What do they feed the cows to make the milk come out chocolate?”
Let’s face it! In the midst of seventh grade science classes there have been a lot of stupid questions asked over the years, but on a couple of days this past week thought-through stupidity was celebrated!
Categories: children, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: asking stupid questionn, classroom fun, education, middle school, middle school humor, middle school students, middle school teachers, science class, Seventh Grade, seventh grade science, seventh grade science class, seventh graders, Skittles, stupid questions, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching, teaching middle school
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August 24, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 24, 2017
This week marks the beginning of my second full year of substitute teaching. I have settled into enjoying my role as a mostly middle school substitute teacher, although I do have two days of kindergarten physical education coming up soon! When I mention to some people about subbing for middle school they look at me like I have a flu virus or a tattoo on my face…diseased and disturbed!
Last week I stood in the middle school entry way waiting for football practice to begin and in the few minutes I was there I was asked by three different teachers to be their subs for a total of 14 days in the coming two months. One teacher called me in July to schedule me for late August (today and tomorrow) and September.
Call me a “strange-o!”
One of the ways I connect with middle school kids is by gradually giving them nicknames that sometimes make sense, but often don’t! The nicknames, however, stick to them like flies on honey! This morning one young lady reminded me that I had nicknamed her “Georgia” last year, because her name is Savannah. One of her classmates then asked me to call her “California” for no apparent reason.
Last year Bryson became “Bison”. Another young man whose initials are “A.B.” became “Arby’s.” A young lady who requested that I give her a nickname became “The Professor”.
Nicknames make kids feel special in a funny kind of way. My nickname in high school was a takeoff on my name…Bill Wolfe. We were studying Beowulf in English and someone picked up on the similarity in pronunciations. To this day I can go back to Ironton, Ohio, see an old classmate from forty-five years ago, and be called Beowulf, or “Beo” for short!
To be honest, a lot of first names these days are hard for me to pronounce. I look at the class roster and don’t see many students named Bob, Jane, Susan, or John. Instead I look down the class list of young boys and girls who have more syllables than Mississippi. Pronouncing the names are like running obstacle pronunciation courses, each syllable ready to trip my tongue up.
Last year some seventh graders that I subbed for quite a bit even gave me a nickname. Instead of “Wolfe”…one syllable, they named me “Wolfe-a”, like I’m French. The “a” is sounded like it’s flying into the ozone! It made me feel good, that a bunch of seventh graders felt me worthy enough for a nickname. I remember a few nicknames we had for some of my teachers back in school and they were not French, but definitely not very flattering!
Categories: children, Humor, Parenting, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Beowulf, long names, names, nicknames, pronouncing names, pronunciation, school nicknames, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching, teaching middle school
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May 20, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 20, 2017
It was a full week! Monday to Friday…start to finish…six classes each day inhabited by a hodgepodge of students who were seeing the end of the school year in sight. Such vision causes some students to do weird and unintelligent things that usually have negative repercussions attached to them. Such as saying something inappropriate and being added to my class list!
Oh…my class…yes, that thing! I’ve been teaching the Opt Out class of middle school sex education. When they asked me to teach that class I thought to myself, “That must mean the class on abstinence!” Wrong!!!!
The Opt Out class is for those students who have decided not to take the sex education curriculum that is state-mandated for the school to teach. Probably more accurate, it is the class that the parents of some students have decided their child would not be a part of. Back to the inappropriate comments, I had a few eighth grade students, who had made crude or insensitive remarks in the sex education class, suddenly get ushered into my class.
In all I have about forty-five students in the six classes: 20 eighth, 16 seventh, and 9 sixth graders. We’ve made it past the “weirdness” feeling, of knowing that 90%+ of their classmates are in a different class that they aren’t participating in. For some of the students, mostly the eighth graders, there is a slight stigma attached to it. Almost all of them think about sex almost as much as they use their cell phones. You can even see the “posturing” in the class to look appealing, cool, or manly.
Strange as it may sound, I’ve enjoyed being the classroom teacher, not so much for the content- 6th Grade has been studying erosion, 7th Grade the ecosystem, and 8th Grade electricity- but for the ongoing relationships with the students. As the week has gone on I’ve discovered things about them and they’ve discovered things about me. Interestingly the last eighth grade class…my last class of the day…has become increasingly interested in who I am. They’ve met Carol, who has been subbing with the special needs students, and asked me questions about family, my kindergarten granddaughter, and how I like coaching middle school kids in football and basketball? In return this last group has felt safe sharing some personal information with me about life struggles, life situations and interests.
Sixth graders are funny! They say things that make no sense, and then giggle with glee.
EX: If rabbits had wings they wouldn’t have to hop across our street! What would you do, Mr. Wolfe, if I tied your shoe strings together right now? I wish my skateboard had an engine. That would be cool!”
Sixth graders, working on individual assignments in the same classroom, have random thoughts and conversations that are totally unconnected…and they are totally engaged in the journey together as they travel from one topical state to the next. The teacher is more of the lead cowboy in front of the herd.
Seventh graders are more likely to question one another about the ludicrous nature of a statement. Seventh graders have more, what I call, “squirrel moments”, where they will become instantly distracted from what is being talked about by something else in their peripheral vision. The teacher is like the cowboy riding behind the herd, keeping stragglers from getting lost or straying off.
The teacher of eighth graders is standing outside the corral, looking to simply keep the thoroughbreds and ponies corralled.
My Opt Out assignment goes through next Wednesday, and then, quite frankly, I’ll miss the characters of the classroom. Call me strange! That reminds me…squirrel!!…I rented the movie “Dr. Strange.” It must be about a middle school substitute teacher!
Categories: children, coaching, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: eighth graders, end of the school year, middle school, middle school boys, middle school girls, middle school students, middle schoolers, Opt Out Class, seventh graders, sex education, sixth graders, squirrels, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school
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May 13, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. May 13, 2017
School field trips were always awesome! I remember my first one back in…1960! Our class went to the Royal Crown Bottling Company plant in Winchester, Kentucky. We discovered how they made the sugary drink and then each student received his/her own bottle to drink at the end of the tour. Awesome! RC Cola was our standard back in those days!
Field trips are no different today! In the past two weeks I’ve been a part of two 7th grade field trips. The first was an “educational” educational experience. The second was an “educational” experience to a minor league baseball game. Whatever and wherever class field trips take place some common elements exist.
1) There are attempts at adolescent romance! Mostly unsuccessful, mind you! You can see the hints of it on the bus ride. Most of the two person seats, which were mandated to hold three, get occupied by three of the same gender, but then there were the couple of seats where a boy wearing his dad’s borrowed cologne and a young lady who is trying to look like she’s twenty get scrunched together…happily! Whereas most of the bus passengers were counting down the minutes until they could unpack themselves these “couples” wanted these moments to last forever! They are now “an item!” At the baseball game I saw a couple of “roosters.” Game time temperature was 50 degrees (It did get warmer, but the forecast was for a high of 58 that day), and a couple of the young men wore tank tops to the game. They were proudly modeling their biceps, which must have looked bigger to them than they actually were. I watched, and was intrigued by, these boys, who did not pay one bit of attention to the baseball game going on. The young ladies crowded around them weren’t paying attention to the pitch count either. They were focused on whether one of the these guys was going to make a pitch to them. The next day a young boy, with one blonde hair sprouted on his chin like a dandelion, told me he had gotten the phone numbers of a couple of girls from another middle school. What???
2) There is money that is burning a hole in someone’s pocket! At the baseball game I heard one boy, who was surrounded by nachos, cotton candy, and a Pepsi, make the remark, “I have seventy dollars in my pocket!” He was like a concession stand high-roller! By the end of the game He had a couple of coins and a sick-looking expression on his face. I was glad to know that on the return trip he was riding on someone else’s bus. There were the students who hadn’t brought squat and those who had stopped by the ATM on the way to school. One student looked at me and with a high pre-puberty voice said, “Mr. Wolfe, guess how much I paid for this popcorn and Pepsi?” I gave up. “Twelve dollars!” I looked at him and asked, “Well, why would you spend that much?” “I needed to eat lunch!”
3) Someone will lose something! One frantic student ran to one of our bewildered teachers, “I lost my hoodie!” Several moments of desperation resulted before another students came up with the misplaced hoodie that had simply been left behind. One reason God created necks was to keep the heads of middle school students from getting lost from the rest of their bodies! I’m always amazed at how trusting parents are with cell phones for their sons and daughters who lose their math homework with regularity!
4) On field trips students often discover that their teachers are really people! My teaching partner, Ron McKinney, and I danced together in the midst of the educational establishment we visited. There was a peppy song playing in the background. The students discovered that their teachers could actually…get crazy! They discovered that their teachers could actually function OUTSIDE of the classroom! It was a scary moment for many of them! Scary also for Ron and me…because someone videotaped us on their cell phone! Where and when will the video resurface? We live in fear that the momentary lapse of our “teaching persona” will be discovered!
Categories: children, Community, Humor, Parenting, Story, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 7th Grade, 7th Graders, adolescence, adolescents, education, educational, field trip, middle school, middle school boys, middle school students, middle schoolers, RC Cola, Royal Crown Cola, school bur rides, school bus, Seventh Grade, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teaching middle school, young people, youth
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Words from WW Blog 
Substitute Teaching Sarcasm
January 19, 2018WORDS FROM W.W. January 19, 2018
I love being a substitute teacher amongst middle school students. Each class is a new experience in “classroom culture.” It takes me about ten minutes to figure out personalities… or lack of!
Students who have me for the first time soon discover that I use sarcastic humor like sunscreen at the beach. I slap it on all over the place!
It begins with the student’s question: “Are you our sub today?”
“No. They discovered that I had never properly completed 7th Grade so I had to re-enroll for the rest of the year!”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Yes!”
“Okay! Yes, I’m your sub today.”
Or “When is Ms. So-and-So coming back?”
“She’s not!”
“What?”
“Her cover was blown. She was in the Witness Protection Program and they found her. She had to be relocated to another school in another state dealing with second graders.”
“Seriously?”
Or, a conversation that happens multiple times each day.
“Mr. Wolfe, can I go to the restroom?”
“You should be able to. You’re in seventh grade.”
Confused look. “So, can I?”
“If you can’t you’ve got some real issues.”
Starts to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“You said I could go to the restroom.” (Another student behind the student whispers: “Say ‘may I go’.”) “Oh, may I go to the restroom?”
“Yes, you may!”
“Coach Wolfe, I can’t wait for basketball to start.”
“Me either! And they finally replaced those backboards that you put cracks in last year.”
“Mr. Wolfe, why can’t we start school later, like about 10:00?
“Because you’re slow learners. It takes you longer to understand things? And wait until you get in high school and have to take calculus! You’ll have to start at 6 A.M. that semester.”
“Seriously?”
“Mr. Wolfe, I have a girlfriend.”
“Does she know it?”
“What…yes, she knows!”
“Mr. Wolfe, why do we have to go to school five days a week?”
“Because the teachers voted down going to school six days a week.”
“Seriously?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Yes!”
“Okay! You nailed me! I have no clue!”
Yesterday’s subbing in a seventh grade classroom ended with a gratifying comment from a student.
“Mr. Wolfe, you’re the best substitute teacher ever!”
The question is…was she serious or being sarcastic?
Categories: children, coaching, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: humor, middle school, middle school students, middle schoolers, sarcasm, sarcastic, sarcastic comments, school teachers, seventh graders, substitute teacher, substitute teaching, teachers
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