Music?

My next day was for the great teacher at the school I don't like, and I already wrote about it in the last post about being in for her. So, skip ahead to this next school.

South end of a neighbouring town. Not the town where I had the F-bomb kid; the other direction. I looked up the school and discovered the last VP from our school was the principal there. That might be good, might not.

I heard before I left that there was an accident on the road I was going to take. I tried a different route but got stuck behind a bus and then a working garbage truck. It seemed to take me forever to get all the way over to this school! I walked into the office, and the principal was actually right there!

And recognized me! And said she loved my hair! (My kids didn't!). It'd been over 2 1/2 years since I'd seen her! She was excited for me to be there. Awesome!

I was in for the librarian/music teacher. She had someone take me to the library and that's where the dayplans were. First up, getting the library computer up and running. I couldn't get the passwords/log in to work; I kept trying different things based on the words she left. Finally, it worked. It wasn't set up exactly like her scribbles. This often happens. Teachers get so used to using something that they forget exactly what it takes for someone who's never seen it, to use it.

Someone (the VP, I think) came in to tell me the fire department was coming in for presentations so instead of having one gr 3 class in, it would be a different gr 3 class, then second period would be the first period gr 3...then the period 2 teacher I was supposed to cover his prep with music, came in and said the kids were having their gr 9 course selection then, so I couldn't do music, but come by and check on them near the end in case they're done. "We're right across the hall".  Okay.

The fire department presentation was neat! Hard to keep grade 3s focused and not asking totally irrelevant questions. Halfway through the second period I popped out to check on the gr 8 class. Ummm. Right across the hall from the library was the backside of the gym. I found their room on the map and they were down the hall, around the corner, down the hall.

I peeked in and they were actively doing stuff. I went back to the library. About 8 minutes before the end of the class I thought "I should go back and check on the other class". They were all standing in the hall. I heard someone say "There's someone!". I guess that was me. Turns out the music/librarian has a music room....directly across the hall from this class's room. Duh. This was not clear on the day plan at all.

They were working on Soundtrap and it was a typical class. Thankfully, short.

I don't remember the next bit. I did get asked to cover a lunch supervision because they were short. Could that be because the principal knew I was a "professional" lunch supervisor? LOL. I was actually a few minutes late to that cause I had the wrong time stuck in my head.

One class after lunch was a behavioural class. The plan said they were coming to the library to use a website..something about Tinker. They didn't come. I went to the classroom it said they were in, and it wasn't their room. I did find them, and joined them in their room. No idea why they didn't come down; they were already working on the website and some kids were working on something else. Only a few kids in the room and they were all fine, but again, I felt like a bump on a log. I was really of no use to them. I did get to talk to one boy, who was going to be away the next week. He would be at his family farm a little to the north-east of me. They have something like 80 horses and he would be working on the farm! He was really excited.

And then. Wait a minute. I have to go get coffee before I get into the next class.

According to the plan, I was supposed to go upstairs to room 201 for a grade 6 class. As I started down the hall, a group of grade 6 looking kids came towards me. I asked them what class they were going to. Music. What? We were almost at the music room so we went in there.

They had worksheets to do. Argh. Don't teachers realize? Boredom is the friend of bad behaviour.

Once again...the kids did not have pencils. Why does this keep happening?!

The kids knew there was little real value in the worksheets, despite them being music related. The behaviour was really lousy. Recess was next and they were supposed to have snack, so once most people were done, I decided to take them back to their classroom. Which was not Room 201.

What a mess! Not just "this teacher has been here a long time and has accumulated a lot of stuff", but "we have no respect for our teacher, school, or anything" type of mess. Apparently their teacher was also away. I definitely wrote about this in the letter for the teacher I was in for.

Finally, the kids got out for recess. I had about 7 minutes to go to the bathroom, re-group, and get ready for the next class. Which was a grade 2 or 3 class. They were to come to the library to work on a social studies project on the computers. Gah. The kids are great with tech, but not always when there's something specific they need to do.

I went to their class, and they had to have their snack first. Fine. I'm all for watching kids eat their snack LOL. I trucked them down to the library and they got seated at the computers and started logging in.

Some of the computers suck. Logging in takes forever, and sometimes it just doesn't work. Yet there was only one or two extra computers, due to kids being away, and other kids didn't want to use those computers because they were the other student's seats. The students that weren't there. Yeah.

Some of the kids knew what to do, but I couldn't quite figure out from the dayplan what the kids who had been away were supposed to do. I did have some great helpers, but there were a few kids that just were not interested in using tech and creating a timeline of their life. One was so adamant he couldn't remember any of his info because he didn't have his rough draft. And he couldn't just think of other things. Meltdowns all around. It was impossible for me--one person--to help 23 kids with tech issues, or "how to spell" questions. I was totally exhausted after this double period class. And, I sort of had the time wrong that it ended and we had to rush out to get ready to go. Then I find out there are no buses at this school, so really, did it matter that we rush?

Would I go back here? The drive was on the longer side (I know I'm being petty---a 20-25 minute drive is nothing compared to what others do!), and I wasn't wowed by the kids or the school. I was initially thinking if I could get a couple good days here, the principal would most likely be a reference for me. But is it worth it? Hard to say. I think it'd all come down to what grade it is, what day of the week (Wednesdays are a challenge) and what the rest of my week looks like.