reconsidering...

Subbing is indeed starting to pick up a bit. (Thank god.) I worked three days last week (of the four I volunteered for), and I worked today.

Today's experience was a new one for me. I subbed at a school in Humboldt Park (the west side of Chicago), that was a bit different from the north side schools I've been accustomed to.

I was covering for the music teacher, so I didn't stay in a single room all day, but moved from class to class. Luckily, I didn't have to actually teach anything, I was just expected to show movies. With the 7th and 8th grades (who were supposed to watch "West Side Story" - proclaimed "lame" - although the boys were interested for a while after I told them it was about gangs). I just told them that I didn't care if they talked or did homework, they didn't have to watch the movie, as long as they stayed in their chairs and were relatively quiet and didn't make me look bad, and things were fairly calm. I was told that I was "much nicer" than the last time they had a music sub, as he cursed and screamed at them and tried to force them to watch the movie in silence. In the fourth grade (my first class), I tried to get them to watch the movie (Willy Wonka), which was about 70% a losing proposition, with a lot of backtalk and "sly" behavior and small defiance. But not completely out of control.

Later in the day, in a fifth grade class, the class had apparently been so bad that they were behind on their work, so the teacher didn't want me to show a movie, but to keep them on task while they completed work they were behind on. Very little work got done, and I felt like I was barely keeping a lid on chaos.

In the final period, the lid came off. The teacher asked me to have them finish up copying a word web off the board, and then show the movie. She handed me a handful of paperclips, which are used to mark the table signs of groups when they are good. The table with the most paperclips at the end of the day gets a prize. And then she left. Pretty much as soon as the teacher left the room, the first grade class imploded. Before today, I have never been afraid of a 6 year old.

Kids hitting each other with stuffed animals. Kids getting punched in the stomach - I had three different kids crying and two of them hiding under a table while crying. Someone colored all over a desk with a crayon. A child who went out into the hall and refused to come back in the room, and who later slapped me on the arm when I stopped her from changing her card (green, yellow, red) back from where I'd put it (for about the third time), and then picked up a bottle of cleaner off the desk and aimed it at me. Kids running and sliding on the floor. Kids whacking desks with a yardstick to tell others to shut up. I eventually had to call the office and ask them to send security in, because I couldn't keep kids from hurting each other and from trying to leave the room at the same time. Paperclips and "behavior cards" couldn't control this.

My teacher training did not prepare me for this. I can only imagine what it would be like if this was my classroom on the first day. How would I take control? What is different about these kids than those at the north side schools where I've worked? What do they need to be taught, and how do you teach it?

I don't really have any reflection on this experience quite yet. I'm still processing.