Just a Substitute Teacher.....

I find that embarrassment is a pretty good deterrent to continuing distractions in the classroom. Passing notes instead of doing work is one such distraction I tolerate only at a minimal level. I warn the students that I read everything I find on notes being passed around or found on the floor. I even suggest that I might share a few of the more interesting ones out loud with the class.

“In general, if you want to keep it private, don’t do it in class.” More than a few haven’t taken me seriously.

Such was the incident in a 5th grade class last week when three girls were fighting over a tiny address book in the back of the classroom. After an ignored warning to “knock it off and put it away” I walked back and confiscated it, telling the owner she could have it back after class.

Returning to my desk at the front of the class, I made a show of opening the book, turning the pages, not really reading lists of names, addresses, Face Book handles and email addresses of classmates. Every now and again I’d make non-committal comments like: “Hmm! Interesting!, Oh, wow!” while surreptitiously watching the book owner squirm in her seat. After a minute or so, I believed that I had made my point, was ready close the book and place it in the desk drawer until the final bell.

That’s when I turned the page and saw it! The sudden shock or surprised look on my face must have registered or maybe it was something I uttered under my breath but the kid knew I had seen it.

There, entered on the next page was MY personal email address!!!

Now it was me that had that stunned, surprised and pissed all at the same time look. I didn’t want to overreact in front of the rest of the class. I simply looked at the book owner and gestured that she should approach the desk.

When she came close enough, I turned the page and pointed with a questioning look.

“Where and when did you get this?” I whispered, pointing to my email address. Her explanation was simple and direct: “From the paper on your clipboard. I saw it when you were helping me with rounding up numbers in math.”

Sure enough, I see that part of my contact information on the end of day status report has slipped just a bit beyond the bottom of lesson plan that is on top.

There wasn’t much I could do at this point but to but cross out the email address and warn the girl that I wasn’t happy that she had copied stuff that she knew she wasn’t supposed to have access to without permission.

I normally try to end blog entries with clever quips or a summation phrase but…nothing comes to mind for this one.

Still stunned and pissed I guess.

What can the average person expect to achieve in his or her lifetime?

While some will, I’m pretty sure most of us won’t snag a Nobel, Emmy, Golden Globe or even first prize at the county fair.

What most of us can expect to achieve is a high school diploma, a college diploma, maybe even a PhD if the money and brains hold out.

Most of us can expect to achieve finding that special someone to share a life.

Most of us can expect to achieve parenthood if so inclined.

Most of us will experience a few years in one or more careers before settling into the retired life.

I just had one of those “decade birthdays”.

I won’t say when it was or what number it was, but there were fireworks involved and let’s just say that “The Sixty’s Generation” has a whole ‘nother meaning for me now.

While any achievement in my previous career may now be obsolete (such is the pace of cutting edge software design), I now realize that true achievement isn’t all about attaining recognition, wealth or status. It’s really much more basic.

For my surprise birthday party, Claudette and daughter Jene’ compiled a “memory book”.

Now that my real memory is beginning to encounter a few “bad sector” faults, they felt that a hard copy backup was necessary. As I started to peruse my birthday book, I came across pictures and comments from lots-a-people I hadn’t expected and others I hadn’t seen for a while.

I must admit that this was an emotional moment as I realize that the following is MY true life achievement:

G6

I was in the local Costco yesterday with discount coupon book in hand looking for the $2.00 off two-pack of Reynolds Wrap Quality Aluminum Foil when I heard someone call out “Hi, Mr. Homework!!” It’s still Spring Break so I wasn’t expecting to interact with any school kids until next week.

Momentarily stunned, I turned and looked at a happy cheerful smile of the typical “generic” 6^th grader. Now I sub in two different school districts, seven grade levels, an average of three classrooms at each grade level and an average of thirty kids per class so of course I didn’t recognize her and had to subject myself to confessing as much.

She told me the school (nope, not yet). The class (getting warmer…). Her teacher's name Mr. Fuji --- (BINGO!).

Me: “Now I remember your class. It’s the class with all the jobs, right?”
Her: “…and the bet” she added helpfully.

I DID remember this class and their teacher Mr. Fuji . I wrote some notes about that class that I had meant to use in a post about this amazing teacher and his classroom concept but hadn’t yet gotten around to doing it.

I first met Mr. Fuji in the teachers lounge at lunch a week before the assignment. He mentioned that he needed a sub and wanted to know if I was available. Before accepting, I jokingly asked if he had a “good class”. Mr. Fuji bet me that they would be on their best behavior or he would give me $100 if they got anything less than a good report from me. Evidentially, he had warned his class about the $100 bet and he didn’t want to pay up.

Now that’s a confident teacher.

On morning of the assignment, it only took me a few minutes to go over the lesson plan and materials. Mr. Fuji is super organized and detailed.

Fifteen minutes before class there was a knock and and a head peeking around the door.
“Can I come in to do desk checking? It’s my job!”

Now, I have been in lots of classes at all levels where the kids have “jobs”. Line leader, paper passer, homework checker, phone secretary are the familiar kid type jobs that I recognize. “Desk Checker” (DC) was a new one for me and prompted the following dialog:

Me: Just what does a desk checker do?
DC: I check each desk to make sure the books are neat, no junk on the floor and no garbage on the top.

Me: …and if you find something wrong?
DC: They get a fine of $10FB (Fuji Bucks) which I split with Mr. Fuji

After a few more minutes of Q/A with Mr. DC, I discovered that Mr. Fuji rents the school desks to the students for $20FB/mo.

Evidentially, in addition to the standard Three R’s of education, Mr. Fuji adds a dose of a fourth ‘R’ as in “Real Life”.

Throughout the rest of the day, I was able to delve deeper into how intricately this classroom society operates.

There are two class accountants that maintain student checking accounts for each kid on the teacher’s computer. The kids all have homemade wallets where they carry their spare $FB spending money and ALL the kids have one or more jobs to pay their desk rent.

Mr. Fuji requires the kids submit written job applications to the class CEO to apply for any one or more of 41 designated classroom jobs.

Job pay scales differ according to difficulty, responsibility and time. Some jobs, like “desk checker” are on a commission basis. Commissioned income is split 50/50 with Mr. Fuji .

There are no tenured jobs (sorry teachers) and the CEO can hire/fire the employees for bad job performance or misuse of job authority. This keeps the “Desk Checker” from padding his take with excessive fines.

Mr. Fuji can hire/fire the CEO if abuse of power or favoritism becomes a problem.

In addition to “desk rent”, FBucks are used bathroom breaks, water breaks, new pencils and other small classroom supplies.

FBucks can also be used for daily rent one of four cushy, swivel chairs at $5FB/day, buy an empty spare desk for $200FB as an alternate personal desk or rent it out to other kids at $20FB/mo.

A couple of times during the year, Mr. Fuji will hold a swap meet where the kids can buy, sell or trade their personal stuff from home with their parent’s permission and an end of year party where remaining $FB can be used for food and drink.

(Mr. Fuji told me that he started requiring “parent notes” for all items after an incident where one kid brought his Dad’s CD collection to a swap meet without asking…)

Class Job List and weekly pay rate (C is commission)

My final query of the day asked the ultimate “What if?” question.

Me: What if someone doesn’t have enough to pay their desk rent?
Class: They can borrow from a friend or the bank.

Me: What if someone doesn’t want to do a job and refuses to pay rent?
Class: Then they are on “welfare” and we all have to chip in and pay the rent for them.

(This question evidentially hit a sore point with the system as following comments got louder)

Class: It’s not fair! My dad doesn’t have to pay for someone else’s welfare from his job.
Me: Oh, no? What do you think some of the State and Federal income taxes do?

Class dismissed!...
P.S. Mr. Fuji got to keep his $100

I was sure the following was just another urban legend until I checked it out on Snopes.com

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In September of 2005, a social studies schoolteacher from Arkansas did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal, and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom. The kids came into first period, they walked in; there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, "Where's our desks?"

The teacher said, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them."

They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."

"No," she said.

"Maybe it's our behavior."

And she told them, "No, it's not even your behavior."

And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in the class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom. The last period of the day, the instructor gathered her class.

They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. She said, "Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily. Now I'm going to tell you."

She went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they had finished placing the desks, those kids for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Their teacher said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit here responsibly, to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."

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