A Day At Westfield Elementary

Today was a good day. I impersonated a sixth grade teacher in the morning, and fourth grade in the afternoon.

I find many things about subbing to be silly: I'm the new kid and yet I'm in charge. I'm the leaast informed individual in the classroom and yet I get to tell other people what I do. Also, I have to PLAY being more uptight then I naturally am. I never make up cruel or unusual rules and occassionally you'll find me outside playing at recess alongside the other kids, but I say no where my inner child says yes. I keep things tight so the environment is safe for everybody.

For the first time ever, I played teacher for two differnt male teachers. Being one of the only of my gender in the workplace reminds me of the White Male privilege that I ignore as "given" on every other day of my life.

As a Guest Teacher, mostly I don't teach. I monitor study halls, I manage behaviors, I keep the peace, and I babysit children. But rarely do I get to teach. Pushing a button on a VCR and getting kids to walk silently through the halls is not teaching. It's monitoring or proctoring and it's mostly what I do.

Today, it was writing time for the foruth graders in Mr. Chang's class. The kids were writing ceaselessly, silently for 10, 15, 20 minutes straight!! At the thirty minute mark i decided to cut it off and quit before the kids got restless. I took volunteers for sharing. This one boy, Marco, was hilarious!!! First of all, English is not his first language and in general he's kinda quiet. But in his writing notebook he had treatises on ice cream, essays on homework, and an homage to the Simpsons.

At the top of his lungs his launches into this demogogic tirade on the virtue of the Simpsons:

" They're really cool! They're really neat! Even for babies they are quite a treat!! You can learn lots of things from Homer! He is really stupid and really loud. So watch the Simpsons! And you'll be hanging on a cloud! And now back to our usual commercial interuption..."

And then the gaggle of classrom 422 erupted into fourth grade laughter!!

It really was pretty funny. What I wrote is not even close to a verbatim quote of what Marco said. If I can I'll help him publish it someday. But I think I captured the essence of his message. It's moments like Marco that make me glad I'm a teacher.


Other cool stuff:

It was really good talking to Steve Chang about his job as a teacher. He said that he worked for St.Paul for several years before coming to the Peatown district. While St.Paul is good, Peatown lets him be creative with his instruction without chaining him to his curriculum. I agree. Teachers are meant to be thinkers not obedient acceptors of directives. It's good to know that there's a place for teachers can still make teaching an art and find time to create.

It was also good talking to Mr. Anderson. He's a young male teacher and was very friendly. He also spent time living and teaching abroad, but in South America.


Steve Chang is going to try to help me get a job at his school. He says there may be a position opening up soon and he will keep me posted. The only (possible) problem, someone who I have worked with in the past who has reason to dislike me works there. I have been fortunate enough to make very few enemies as I've gone through life. I made a mistake at a past school. And it ended up affecting Ryan professionally. I did my best to make amends but I feel he handled it poorly.

Whatever misunderstandings I've had with this co-worker in the past, I think it should stay in the past. If roles were reversed, I think I could let it go. But what if he doesn't? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.