I tell the grade 5 class of 24 that in the library there are 19 computers so we will have to share. One boy says “or we could kill a few people”.  I joke “That would work too”

The kids are studying electricity hooking wires to posts with batteries.  If they hold hands while doing this they find the current runs through them and if they drop hands it does not work. They are fascinated.

In the grade 6 yearbook I notice on the desk one student wrote “My parents separated when I was very young so my only mother was a dog”,

A grade 2 girl notices a library picture book of the human body and asks me in the picture of the fetus in the womb, what this object is near it. It’s the umbilical cord and I tell her about its function. Her eyes grow wide with interest and we agree that’s a pretty good system.

A grade  4 poster about sharing has the title “It’s always fun to share’ . However the printed version is not clearly an ‘r’ and some kids have written graffiti on the picture as if it said’ “It’s always fun to shave” . They have drawn two boys shaving faces and leg hair.

It is December and this elementary school in a wealthy district has contracted with the Food Bank to be the supplier of Christmas hampers to a few families. Over the next few weeks I see the hallways tables assembling items in carefully organized categories – canned fruit, toiletries, pasta, canned meat, canned vegetables, baby food etc.  I notice that the school has asked the 500 strong student body to bring a certain category of item every day for about 12 days and that is why the focus is so balanced for contributions.  I am there just at the end of the campaign too and notice the material has now all been put into boxes, marked with the ID of the families, vaguely.  I am shocked to see this ID. This is Calgary, a very wealthy city in the country and yet the descriptions of the needy include

-dad, 7 year old boy, 5 year old girl

-mom, five year old girl, 10 month old boy, 12 year old girl, baby due

dad, 9 year old boy, 13 year old girl, 14 year old girl

-dad, mom, 7 year old  girl, 10 year old boy, 3 year old boy

-dad, 11 year old girl

-dad, mom, 7 year old girl, 8 year old boy

I am teaching French immersion but I don’t know quite all the words of the language. Two grade 3 boys ask if they can go out in the hall to “petez”. I assume they mean to pissez, use the washroom.  They return. Then another later in the PM is scorned by the others because he did not go out in the hall – he is accused of petez. It turns out it means to pass gas.

Little kids don’t know who I am and if I appear in a grade one class they may cry or wonder if I’m their teacher’s mother. One asked me “Are you tight with her?  In one kindergarten class a little girl on seeing me says” You look like my nana”. She seems mesmerized by this observation and stares at me as if to confirm I am not quite her nana and I am hoping she at least likes her nana.  Later that morning she says again” You look like my nana but her hair’s curly”.

I have to become good at trying to say students’ names and in a traditional learning centre, nearly all the names are new to me. Over the course of several days though I do get familiar with these new words and also associate many of them with the girl. The names include Urooj, Tanjot, Batoul, Taminah, Areej, Prabjet,Abrar, Sharenpreet, Navreet, Gaganpreet, Harsimrit, Seeret, Bavenjit, Rosedeep, Savneet.  There are also Laila, Hopa, Attiqa, Rabbia, Ambra,Brinda,Aiza, Eiza, Odessa, India, Saamia, Hadiqa, Umemah, Samra, Nyah,Ribcha, Zartasha, Rupsikha, Ayeesha, Areesha, Manpinder, Gurpinder,Ekta, Jazeeba.  In an earlier era I might have worried a bit about how names like that would fit into the culture ‘out there’ but now, not so much. They will fit in. They may not have to anglicize their names to get accepted. I am interested in how the girls act in grade 6-8 for they are actually very westernized, very clever, quite self-confident really for the most part and they are proud of their culture.  It’s nice to see that but I wonder where they are headed for career.  In an earlier time and with cultures that kept women down, they might not go on too far in post-secondary. But nowadays they very well may.    They crack funny jokes, have a kind of rebel standard in wearing their regulation shirts just a bit too short, and they allude to boys and sex in ways kids in other schools do too.  It is an interesting social experiment, this all girls’ school.

Any school in the city now has some racial diversity though certain districts have more than others. I’m kind of proud of the mix and the access for it speaks well of our culture, but I don’t think we’ve achieved diversity if the school is mostly an ethnic island. I do enjoy learning how to say new names but notice that many are old names just spelled new ways. I learn words like  like Zaven, Filip, Jese ,Shamok, Emerise, Neesha, Kristian, Agnieszka, Attiya, Edyta, Agnelika, Thorben, Ruhee,Joost, Dilene, Gaelle, Anneliese.

In the grade one class I, a 62 year old woman, am circulating around the room trying to help the kids print the agenda message the teacher assigned. It is only November and the kids vary widely in how well they print. I stop by one desk where the little boy is going painstakingly slowly and when I encourage him and try to help he  notices my hands are wrinkled and dry. I notice he notices because he asks “Why are your hands so crumbly?”

I am teaching a grade 12 ESL class and the teacher does a room -share with another teacher. Both are not in the room, just me, but one left her computer on. Fifty minutes into the 100 minute class we all suddenly hear classical music blaring from her computer. 

I am stunned by the bureaucratese of education, how the PA system asks a teacher to pick up a call ‘parked’ on line one, how teachers are being ‘deployed’ to a different room. The secretary tells me on arrival at one school that the third floor wing of the old building is being renovated. Her words are that it is being ‘decanted’. Teachers are asked to tell their future plans through teacher professional growth plans but those are named TPGPs. They to to AGMs and write IPP reports

I have been at the school two days and we’ve played some games and created a few ideas more than what the teacher asked. I had some extra time. As I get ready to leave one little kid says, “We’ll miss you’”.

Before big school assemblies I notice that many teachers give their young students warnings about how to behave. The public is watching sometimes if parents were invited and the principal is also watching the teacher’s class control. But those messages are not given so much as the idea that you have to behave because otherwise the student looks bad. I have tried different strategies of this warning over the years.  I have tried telling the little kids to walk down the hall like ghosts to see if they can be invisible and silent. I have tried making it a game to see if they could be so quiet nobody in the other classrooms looks up at them from doorways. I have tried telling the older grades at any school that they are the most mature, the coolest, the biggest and that all the other grades look up to them so they should live it and own it.  But I noticed that one principal came into a classroom and told the kids before a Remembrance Day assembly to not clap, talk, whisper or fool around. She added “This is not a time to celebrate”.   When we got down to the assembly a grade 6 student read a very sad poem about war, and one little kindergarten girl broke down in tears and had to be taken to the office to calm down.

When a teacher is sick I often suggest that we as a class make  a surprise get well or welcome back card.  The kids usually get into this task with great enthusiasm and sign their names, draw little pictures, personalize the greeting. In one French class I did this the student wrote “Meilleure Sante Madame Chocolat”. She then explained that the kids called the teacher a pet name of Mrs. Chocolate to tease her about her favorite snack.

It’s a grade 3-4 class and I’m asked to read the kids a fairy tale about a girl carrying baskets of rice to market. She is attacked by a dragon. The book goes on to say an evil monkey attacks her, steals the rice and starts to eat it. When the rice is in his throat however it expands, chokes him and he dies. I am a little surprised at the thought but hey, the grade 4 boys are fascinated and one suggests another possible ending even- spines cut through the monkey’s throat spewing blood out as he dies.

However naughty the little kids have been in the morning they still have to come to me at snack time and ask for help opening their snack. It’s kind of endearing really to see they’re still so little.  I open ziplock bags, poke juice pouches with a straw, open fruit snacks using scissors, ‘open’ bananas, ‘do’ an apple which means to peel it. 

I notice a note by the teachers’ desk, obviously a plaque of advice for herself” Take a deep breath and remember that there is so much more to life than what you are worrying about right now. Remember that you are significant in students’ lives by just being you”.

The kids in grade 1-2 are asked to bring to class one hundred of something to celebrate the half way point of the school year, and to show they can count to 100. This happens in mid February, near Valentine’s day>  The kids have brought 100 pennies, 100 cinnamon hearts, 100 chocolate hearts, 100 marshmallow candies, 100 cut out paper hearts, 100 paper clips, 100 pieces of Lego, 100 bobby pins, 100 beads grouped into tens. I realize I am looking at good parenting.

The teacher has left a lesson plan for me to spend 90 minutes teaching each of 3 classes about wind energy. I invent a lesson but after about 45 minutes we’ve exhausted it. I trot them down to the library and get permission to read to them for the rest of the time.

Schools are obliged to hold practice fire drills several times a year. They also have to hold a few lockdown drills.  It seems that in the fall wherever I go there is a rash of fire drills for a while and I notice the oddities of rules in some schools.

-A few require the teacher to hold the class list across her chest when outside and to stand soldier like in silence to indicate all are present.  It is very military.  The big high schools are more casual, maybe because the kids are just more amused by the process.

-Sometimes the teachers are warned there is a fire drill coming and someone may even tell me, though not always.  At one school I was told ahead of time and waited and waited for it to come, and it did but late.  Meanwhile lesson plans nearly never had included a fire drill so I am mentally adjusting what we’ll do later. I always am more than willing to cancel a messy project like painting- if we don’t have time.

-At one elementary school a kid asked me ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we had a lockdown after a fire drill?” I laughed and said that would never happen. Moments later it did.

-At one big high school there was a fire drill and then moments later after we all got back in, another one. I later learned that the first one was a drill and the second one was a prank some kids caused.

The grade 10 class is working in silence and then one sneezes and says “Excuse me”. Another says “Bless you” and this starts a little sequence of fake sneezes and blessings. I have read that in a US school a teacher urged the class to stop the blessing part and one student then accused the teacher of religious discrimination . I knew not to go there but I did say eventually. “Very funny, now knock it off”. They quit

With the Internet I think many parents especially of high school kids fear that the kids have surpassed them. Just because the teen can program the VCR or make a power point presentation, use garage band or do animation, does not mean the kid is smarter than the parent.  Kids are still kids.

I am in a grade 5-6 class for the gifted. These kids are screened and IQ tested and they really are very clever . However I don’t think it should be an ego trip for them. I try to engage them in fun lessons and good discussions and I admit their cleverness sometimes does amuse me.  One has put a post it note on the back of another kid. It reads “We have your kidney”

I am to administer an exam to the students but the instructions they are to read are only available on one sheet. I was advised to print off the rest before class  but the photocopiers are not working. I have to hand write 17 copies and fast.

It is a Spanish class in high school and we’re taking turns translating the Spanish text. It is embarrassing for kids to get a word wrong so I try to make each task small and kind of easy. However some things you can’t prepare for.  The word ‘preguntar’ means to ask so the story say that the main character had asked how his girlfriend was when he got back from war. He asked – pregunto.  The boy translating said, much to his embarrassment later, that the girl was pregnant.

I broke my arm while walking on ice and since it was my right arm, at the elbow, I was not able to do much for several weeks. I could not even do up a zipper, hold a fork or of course drive a car.  Once I could hold a pen and maybe even chalk I took a job at a school a block away, one I could walk to. I painstakingly wrote a bunch of notes on the board for my 1st and 3rd and 4th period classes before the day began and felt pretty good about how well it was turning out. After my first period, during the prep, I went to the library to help supervise exams. When I returned a discovered another teacher had not only had a class in the room when I was gone but had erased all my notes

The grade 3-4 class is studying spelling of words like make, pay, pain and the rules of long and short vowels.  I make three columns and ask the kids for other examples and realize I have just called these the A-words

I am in a grade 3-4 class at a wealthy school. The teacher has asked me to do what seems to me an odd assignment, to have the  kids rifle through the textbook and find 25 photos she had previously photocopied. The kids are to identify page number of each photo and tell what it shows. I notice one boy is not doing the work at all. I ask why not. He says “But I’m creative!”

I realize that now having subbed for over 12 years, I have seen some kids theoretically through all their public education. I suspect there is not a particular kid I’ve seen every single year somewhere but it is possible there is.  I do notice sometimes that kids now look at me as I arrive and say “I know you”.  One little girl saw me walking down the hall and thankfully had an apparent happy recollection. She sang shyly as I walked by “I love you and you love me..We’re a happy family”

I am at a very old school and the kids are studying geology and rocks.  I notice the wooden box on display has compartments for about 50 types of rocks,with samples of each and on the inside of the very obviously home-made box is a label. This is a gift of the class of 1960-61. I am stunned that it has been 50 years since someone put together this display and at its legacy.

I rarely get thanks so when I do it really stands out.  The thanks of teachers is token usually for they don’t even know me, often never see me, and only have my notes to go from about how things went. But the thanks of kids means a lot to me since they do know what went on and how hard I tried to make it a good lesson and fun.  I have had a few compliments over the years

-You’re our favorite sub

-We’ve already learned more from you than we did in class all year

-Wow-you’ve obviously done this before (when I wrote answers on the board fast)

-Have you been teaching French a long time? You’re very good

These compliments make up for the other comments which I try to see as not about me but about subs or schools in general.

-You could at least try to teach better

-She’s just a sub. She doesn’t know anything

_Aren’t there any real teachers here?

I am teaching a high school ESL class and the reading is about racial discrimination. I notice they are from Asia and Africa and probably know more about that topic already than I do but we discuss it.  I tell them that in our country they have a right to jobs and housing and education regardless of their race or color or place of origin. And yet I have just learned privately that funding for ESL is being cut next year and all the while I’m telling them their rights I realize that they will get less help with education than they need. And that it is a problem, precisely because of their race, color and place of origin.

When the teacher is away, kids sometimes want to help me. But I don’t usually want the help partly because I am leery of the tricks they have up their sleeve if they ‘re teens and partly because I think a key element of my job is to continue the learning process seamlessly and to still be the teacher. I am not to be some lost soul unfamiliar with the process and I have to exude competence. They can’ do attendance’ for me yes, but I never let them because I want to get to know the names of the kids and because I have the legal responsibility to make sure who’s there. I do let them help with clean up or running an errand to the office of course but I am leery of getting their ‘help’ to run a computer or a VCR . They may be well intended, or may not be for I am a sub and it is often game-on with subs. Even if they are well intended though, they may not be competent.  I have had a kid try to help with a jammed CD disc who ended up freezing the entire computer and I know he did not mean to.  But it did occur to me that teachers  know the kids and they do know for whom trust would be a good next stage.  The young want to click with the mouse and attach the necklace themselves and push the buttons on the machine because for them it is the first time.  The older teacher – me – may want to do it because they want to prove they still can. I have found that kids who tend to act up  are often flowers in bloom if you let them run something and give them control of a task they do it great.  On the other hand we subs are too often burned by kids who say they can be trusted to go to their lockers who don’t come back, who say they are always allowed to do their lesson in the hallway, who then disappear.

We are in a portable classroom on a cold winter day. It has its own furnace but not its own washroom and the grade 5-6 kids have to run back and forth to the main building for recess, for lunch but also for library, for phys ed, for music class and yes, to use the washroom.  By rules they are not allowed to wear their ‘outdoor’ shoes indoors so this hike and relocation also involves changing foot gear and putting on hats and coats every single time.  But that is not enough of a challenge . No.  They also have to be locked out because of security rules so every single commute has to involve also ringing an outside doorbell and waiting for a teacher or student from inside to open it. As a sub I am not always given the key either, through some oversights  in the office, and I too am sometimes waiting at the doorbell for someone to open the room for us.

I see an oddity to the rhythm of it all. We are the constant for a few years in the buildings of the school while the river runs by us, the kids forever come in and then leave.  And yet in their lives they are the constant and we are only going into and out of their childhood, and briefly.  Ironically neither of us is right. None of us is a constant.  When I visit the same schools for several years I see a large changeover of teachers. New ones hired, older ones retired, many transfers.  It is as if the thing you depend on to be rock solid is also always shifting. New principals, new admin policy. We subs see life in a bigger flux than maybe most classroom teachers do, for we see not just the variety between schools, and the variety within school classrooms but also the variety historically at any one location.  It ‘s like we’re time travellers.

Being a sub I often am not told background. I don’t know what oddities of medical condition or family crisis a given student is dealing with, that the teacher does know of but forgot to tell me.  I can check the list of medical emergencies in the file if I can fine it but usually the issue is not an emergency. I just notice little things and am not sure why they are so.  Should I mention or ask the student who is wearing a hat all day to take it off or is she having chemo and allowed to wear it?  Should I say something to the child who is wearing fake eyeglasses very large? What about the grade 5 boy who has been wearing a Santa hat to class all December?  If the child is in socks not shoes should I mention this as a problem or inquire, or is it because this child has no shoes for indoor use?  I don’t want to be a naïve pushover of a sub and let kids get away with mayhem and yet I also don’t want to intrude on something troubling to them or embarrass them.  Often I choose to just ignore any unusual thing that is causing no harm  to anyone and that is causing no disruption in the class. If the child is doing the action just to get my goat, to get attention, to get a razz out of me, absence of razz is my response.

Once in a while the indication of who may be disruptive is just in how the desks or tables are set up.  The one who is planted alone, right by the teacher’s desk is not going to be the star pupil, duh.  When all the kids are grouped in pairs and one desk is off to the side, that is likely a person whose behavior will be a challenge.  And yet, in my first few years of subbing I could confirm most of the warnings- the kids expected to be rowdy usually were. But the more experience I get, the less that turns out true. I’m not sure how it happens. It may be partly my age and I’m less of a fun target of pranks because I have a tone about me or look grandma-ish. But I like to think that it is also because I know a few tricks. I am more adept at noticing the child likely to act up right away, from taking attendance even, and then I try to engage all the kids in a relevant and fun discussion of something but I try hard to to include that person and listen well to that person’s input. I try to make the lesson so interesting nobody wants to act up. Sometimes that works.  Not always but in ways that seem to surprise teachers after that the kid voted most likely to misbehave actually was good that day.  Hmm

Exam supervision is an interesting assignment. Even when the kids are just writing quizzes or little chapter tests I lay down the law right away. I tell them about the test, its length, papers and supplies needed, try to get them all settled in and then warn them that anyone who talks, for whatever reason will get a big red zero.  I tell them I don’t know them and can’t make exceptions and so I just have to assume that if they are talking they are breaking the rule.  I tell them if they have any problem, need an eraser, want to use the washroom or other, they raise their hand and tell me, not a neighbor.  This intimidation routine right up front has worked very well nearly all the time.  I have in fact confiscated papers and written on the top of them ‘talking’ so the classroom teacher could deal with it later.  I keep my word and that is part of just being honest with kids. But I also do what all good police officers do, not happening to  ‘notice’ little things that I can see are innocent. If the child sneezes and asks for a tissue from a friend, I’ m not going to rush in with penalty.  One day a grade 11 class of very high achieving kids – read super keen to get good marks- was told these rules and then given a quiz.  They were to hand in the quiz when done but to still stay silent and read quietly while others finished the test. Well it turned out that in the back of the room I heard whispering so loud I could not ignore it and I called the two offenders to my desk. They were visibly shaking.  I asked what they were doing, they said they were just talking about the next class and I noticed one had already handed in the exam.  Should I give the ‘penalty’ to the other or both, or none? It is a judgment call and I think given their tension level and my gut feeling, they were not in fact cheating. I let them off. 

It does interest me though about image and subs.  We need to look like we are in control.We need to show kids the system is secure, they don’t get a day off and their education does go on. We need to enforce whatever the school rules are and show them the nature of an environment that they must respect. We are in some ways society’s reps for the justice system, peace , order and good government.  So we are not ever to look lost, clueless or pathetic.  Often as subs this is kind of an act to seem competent while we are winging it, on the fly, but we get used to this interior level of uncertainty and over  the years actually learn a calm despite it. The calm is real.  We can handle nearly any change in the day from a fire drill to a lock down to a sudden assembly, to having no lesson plans left for us at all, to another teacher being sick and handing us also her class, to the kids arriving ten minutes late from a longer than planned earlier class, from movie projectors not working and photocopies not functionning to someone throwing up right beside us.  We learn to handle it.  But I also think that when things do really seem very surprising and the kids even see this fact, having a sense of humor helps/

It’s funny too to see experimental strategies and to wonder how long they’ll last .Like the teacher who at the start of each year let the little kids each have hand sanitizer on their desks.  How long before they spill it, accidentally ingest it, throw it?  Or the teacher who lets anyone who wants to bring a cushion from home to put on the desk chair. How long will that last before they get really dirty, musty become weapons or objects of envy?   The teacher who has the little kindergarten kids sit anywhere they want on the rug may wish to consult the one who at the start of the year has already lined the carpet out in squares with assigned seating. You see the experience of the one who knows that very little kids budge, squeeze, push away/

Teachers try things out and they should. I ‘ve leaned an awful lot of good teaching tricks from the notes teachers left me about what the do routinely. Songs for clean up time with kindergarten. Asking questions in a chain in a second language class, so everyone asks the person next to him and answers the person in front of him. I am a better teacher for sure because I’ve learned from some of the best.  I’ve also noticed things teachers had tried that had been rejected. The idea that a high school kid can be trusted to use a washroom without having to ask permission first is a great theory and respects them but what happens is you get even one or two who leave for the day and then the teacher has to set up a sign out and check back in system.  I guess the saying that we start off revolutionary and end up traditional is partly true for teachers because we all start starry eyed about being really engaging and fun and permissive and end up being pretty strict, with tight rules. We learned kids need some.

I do find that spelling names is a big challenge as parents have departed from the traditional  frequently. The oddity is that any child before me with that odd spelling has had it at least 5 years if not 15 and for them it is not odd.  Callum is not Calum or Kallum. Ayla is pronounced Ila.  Riis is not Rees.  Apolo has only one l.  Elena is  not Ellen or Helena and she cares that I get it right.  Jaedyn is not Jaden and I am not sure how to say Mia – is it My-a or Mee-a? I find out Devon is a girl. Levi is a girl and there are three Liams in the class.  That means we have to use that elementary school mainstay of last initials – Liam S. and Liam J.

Sometimes I see such kindness, spontaneously, that I am speechless. You start to think not only that the world is a good place but that the future is going to be fine. These little people in front of me, these teens in front of me, known rebels even, have a good side, some strong passions about right and wrong.  One time there was a little blind girl in the grade 2 class and when she had to come up to the front to recite something, a little boy jumped up and took her arm gallantly to get here there. Nobody asked him to. Some of the most emotional discussions I’ve had with kids about how to teach your kids were with a grade 10 class of rebels some of whom were just adamant about how they were going to make sure to teach their kids good values. Honesty.  And I was hearing it from kids some of whom had criminal records. Were they conning me? No. I don’t think so. All kids aspire to being good parents if they become parents.

I love empty schools. I arrive in the dark outside, get to a partly lit school, find the office, walk down the hall and enter the dark classroom. I reach around to find the light switch. All round me are the memories of kids, their little desks, their paintings and drawings on the wall, their optimistic slogans about life and they are not here.  It is a  moment frozen in time, sort of like they have gone on forever and this is all we have left.  But it is not that.  The sadness of the end of youth is not necessary for it is still here, we get them back.  It is a privilege as if we rewound the movie to see them come to the door after all. This empty time  was just the moment before the storm, magical.  Every day and maybe it’s because I’m 62, I think of the experience as ‘one last time’.  But it is always one last time. Youth is fleeting anyway . I always hope that in some small way each day I helped somebody.  You never know.

Teachers get to the school half an hour or an hour before class, some sooner even but I worry about those ones.  Kids however are not allowed ‘in’ till ‘the bell’.  This magical moment of letting them in always seems to me like opening the gate for horses or buffalo to stampede.  What concerns me is sometimes how inhuman it seems to leave the little kids out there in the cold while we’re all warm inside. There are rules I know about liabilities and needing to supervise them, rules we can’t meet unless all staff has arrived. And there are allowances for conditions of very cold days and letting them in early. But I look out the window at them as they wait to come in and I feel kind of protective of them. They are strewn across the field, huddled in little groups or singly walking towards the building in the dawn light.  A white light illuminates the community centre nearby and the biggest group of kids arrives lately by bus anyway, big yellow buses pulling up in rows to the curb. All very organized with drivers with lists and clipboards and routes and deadlines – and the kids pour out.  The school bell rings, the doors are opened and teachers stand there, often holding their morning coffee mug, and greeting all the rows of kids who pour in. The kids dutifully remove their outdoor boots and carry them, in stocking feet. padding along to their classrooms. It’s like when a boat docks and the fleet’s in.

I suggest we discuss current events and ask the kids if they know of something very important that happened yesterday?  In fact the premier of the province resigned and the grade 5s may have heard of him. But one kid suggests the news was “World war four was declared?” I say not. He says “World war three?”

When I returned to teaching after a 4 week absence with a broken arm, I suddenly notice all the students with broken arms, with casts and crutches from skiing. I suddenly am way more considerate about their comfort and how easily they can navigate crowded hallways and I am a bit ashamed of myself I did not think of this earlier. 

I am teaching a class of grade 6 kids coded as gifted. I look at  the lesson plan before they come in and as always, try to do the math sheets myself before they enter so I’ll anticipate problems areas or questions. One math puzzle is very hard and I struggle with it and eventually get very near the answer but in a rush, look it up on the  answer sheet. I gave it about 10 minutes of my time and had not solved it. When the kids come in and math class arrives in the time slot, I notice the teacher anticipated that  puzzle would take them about 20 minutes.  Three kids of the 23 get the puzzle answer in five minutes.  After 15 minutes nearly all have it and one group even got another equally correct answer to the answer key one.  By 20 minutes all have it.

Another math question for the gifted kids was meant to be insolvable.The kids were to conclude that the answer could not be found given the situation and after various attempts to solve it.  Well they all did agree it was hard but one group kept trying and trying heroically, to figure out how to get the green chameleons to change to brown in required numbers.  One group even suggested the fastest answer was to kill some of the chameleons.

Then occasionally you just enter another dimension of teacher devotion. I am at a specialty school for the arts, which, admittedly may be getting special funding for this purpose but I am just stunned. It is an average income neighborhood and an older building, nothing fancy. In fact the school has the floor plan of about ten other schools in the city of the same vintage and I am very familiar with how these hallways and annexes are usually decorated. But this one is way different. Someone has just devoted a lot of time  making this school breathe art

-along the main hall is an ‘art walk’ of shelves of objects, hanging objects from the ceiling, murals, fabrics, all done by the kids and all miraculously intact and not vandalized

-one short hall is all black-walled with painted red bricks and faked graffiti messages

-there are postcards hanging off a metal pin sculpture all with artwork

-the teacher does not just have photos of the kids in the classroom but has made sure hey are professional quality 8 by t0s and she framed them and mounted them on dark backing. They are set out from the wall a bit as if 3D.

-the elementary classroom is not at all bright plastic red, yellow and green of most rooms. It is all in browns, tans, and beiges, very restful colors and the wall poster backgrounds are of that same color.  The teacher uses for storage 26 varying sized brown wicker baskets

-the room has several living plants init, seashell art on the walls and a fishtank

-there are mobilws hanging from the ceiling with kids’ artwork on them.

-all kids’ artwork on the wall is displayed in a frame, mounted, elegant

-objects hung from the window ledges are hung by wooden clothes pegs

-there are natural rocks and glass stones on the window ledges and the kids have appaently made some of their own wood frames for art on the walls too

The room is just so relaxing and so validating of the work and value of the kids. I notice the kids are also very calm, not hyper.  I see her theory at work.

I get irritated when the public thinks subs just babysit a class and never teach or do marking or lesson planning. I do all of those other things on most assignments. Sometimes I get the very demanding experience of subbing for someone in administration to do a job description that really does not exist. I am the one called in to pinch-hit for 7 teachers each one in turn, so that teacher can do marking or attend a meeting with the principal.  My job that day can be intense and fascinating but really really demanding. For instance one time on such a call I had to relocate every 45-60 minutes to a new classroom often on different levels of a building and then do the following-

-music- to help the kids as they watched videos of songs to sing and then imitated them, and one of the videos about yodelling so we yodelled

-watch with the kids a historical movie in French

-supervise a skipping rope competition

-read a book about an imaginary dog and lead a discussion about imaginary and real animals and friends

-help kids write a note to a friend in the class to give that person a genuine compliment about something

-take the class to the library and supervise returning and signing out of books

-read to the class a witch story

-teach the kindergarten kids how to print upper and lower case L.

You know it’s going to be a difficult day when

-the secretary tells you the wrong room

-the secretary gives you the wrong key

-the secretary mixes up which instructions to give which sub and you spend the first 20 minutes organizing for the wrong assignment

-the parking spot you are assigned is already occupied

-the parking spot you are assigned is behind a locked gate and you don’t know the code to enter

-you are to park on the street and the street nearest the school is a snow route and no parking that day. A ticket will cost you the day’s salary

-you are to park on the street and that’s exactly what dozens already did. You have to walk three blocks to the school even though you drove to the assignment

A grade five girl suddenly stands up and vomits on the carpet.

For the Terry Fox run the little kids are given a brief instruction in an assembly of the life of Terry Fox.They watch a video and then go out to recess. One of them is over by the tree crying. I go to help. She says her leg hurts and it is clear she is worried she has what Terry had and may be dying. I ask where hers hurts and she shows me and I explain that Terry’s hurt in an entirely different place and she cheers up and runs off to play.

At home I have discovered a wonderful Youtube video version of O Canada done in French, English and mouth singing.  The French class I’m teaching may be interested in this so over the noon hour I try to find it so I can show them.  Youtube however is blocked to all users and I am  not allowed to override. A grade 6 boy asks me what I am trying to do and I explain, he looks at me seriously and then says “I can do it” and he gets in.  This ability kids have to override the block fascinates me.

Along the wall of the school hallway kids have obviously been asked ‘What peace means to me” and have written their answers. They include

-Peace smells like fresh cookies from the oven

-Peace is my little sister laughing

-Peace is two kittens snuggling together

-Peace is my dog putting its head in the food bag

-Peace smells like hot chocolate and marshmallows

I am assigned to teach choral music all day in a K-4 school. By noon I’ve already taught five classes and feel a little hoarse already.  The instructions are a big vague. I am told to do these few songs or ‘any others ‘ I like.  I skim through the list to find any I actually even know and land on a few. We have a cassette I have to carry to each class and find the right places on it for the songs and we have to do actions, going under bridges, skipping, dancing, and for a few we sing in rounds. It’s fun for sure but really quite a logistic challenge.  I am sad that the music teacher is not given a music room and all the time we are wadded into corners of the regular classroom.

I realize I have had the privilege of seeing some very good teaching strategies. I recall a few

-the teacher compiled the kids’ stories last year into a bound book for this year’s class

-the teacher has a ‘detective’ project so each child solves a different mystery

-the teacher has each child create a memory book of personal photos of the year’s events

-the teacher pasted on the sides of her desk, artwork from the kids

-the kids have obviously been taught to open the door for each other and to have someone hold the door open for others to go through in a line

-each child made a kite about what they want to be in the future and the kites are suspended from the ceiling

It is a grade 3 class and for current events I suggest we talk about the very strong near-hurricane winds in the night. The kids have stories even the news reports did not have – of barbecues blowing over, a shed falling down, a trampoline blowing onto a roof, trees fallling, power outages, dogs upset at the noise, being hit in the face by blowing cardboard.  I feel privileged to get this inside scoop practically on a news event.

The French immersion teacher booked a sub but was not sure she’d get a French-speaking one so she left the instructions in English.They include

-After the homeroom attendance the students are going in the noon

-I write down many work to do

-Everything is in French on my book

 I am at a nice little community school and am told in a whisper from another teacher that they have recently had some new kids enter from the women’s shelter newly built two blocks away. I know this place. It is a three floor apartment of hidden address and not identified outside, where abused women can bring their families when in crisis. These kids do have to go to school so they come here but it is necessarily a pretty sheltered location in case the abusive partner is nearby.  My heart is sad for such situations and I glance around the room wondering if I could tell which ones are in that situation.  I do notice some little kids in very threadbare clothes and restless.  I try to give them all a good day with games and good instruction and as I walk home I see a tall woman coming to the school to pick up her children and apparently to go back to the shelter. I see courage.

Sometimes you wonder about the parenting of the kids though.  In a kindergarten class I ask all the kids to take off their coats and mittens and come sit at the carpet but a few straggle. Eventually though they’re all there but one little girl who has not even started taking off her coat.  I go over to help her and suggest I can help remove her backpack. She balks however and tells me haughtily “You didn’t say the magic word”

I am at a K-6 school in a low income district and notice the kids are not wearing the high end T shirts and fancy shoes of the richer communities.  That is not a problem though for I know kids in poverty are as smart and can thrive but then I notice something that concerns me more. Two of the kids are not feeling well and I ask why. One reports that he was pushing an old car forward and his foot got a bit injured at the ankle as he got bumped when it started to roll. I ask if he was taken to a doctor and he said no.  A girl says her back still hurts and I ask what happened. She tells me she fell backwards off a trampoline flat on her back and saw stars and now her chest hurts. Her breathing sounds a little raspy to me and when I ask if someone took her to the doctor she said no.