Just Call Me Helga

I'm substitute teaching in Deanna's math class for a few days this week. I haven't subbed for this class in several years, but they have a history of walking ALL over me - the whole "familiarity breeds contempt" concept. I've known these kids since birth, I talk with many of them almost daily. I'm Aunt Patti and the transition to Mrs. Doughty never quite took. It got bad enough, that I chose for a couple of years to sub only in other elementary classrooms and not take assignments with Deanna's class.

Now, two years into Middle School, they have me for 3 days running. After praying and thinking about it, I decided to start out with a sterner image. Does the word Nazi conjure up an image?

In my preparations, I assigned seats. As the kids walked into the classroom yesterday, I barked out their seat assignments from the front of the classroom. Most of them stood around bewildered. One girl even attempted to quiz me.

"Did Mrs. Reilly leave those seat assignments?" she asked, as if I had no right to do it if Mrs. Reilly hadn't left me a note. I chose to ignore the comment and continued moving the children into MY spots.

We did have a little bit of humor. One of the boys, a neighbor and someone we all (dare I say it, even Deanna) consider a friend, wasn't there, yet I had assigned him to three different seats! The kids caught on before me.

"Aunt Patti, you've just put Ethan up there, back here, and over there," several of them commented.

"Oops," I said. "Don't worry. We'll get it straight."

And we did. I then told them that they were to sit in their assigned seats all week and these were to cut down on idle chatter. I had placed the chatter boxes next to quiet children who won't be engaged in conversation!! Ha, ha! Evil Mrs. Doughty - using my knowledge of them against them!!!

Then I announced that I haven't subbed for them since Elementary. They're now in their second year of Middle School and I expected them to ACT like Middle Schoolers. There were be no frivolous talk and there would be NO disrespect towards me. I followed up with, "Is that clear?" and made them all respond with a "Yes, ma'am."

Off to a great start. The first five minutes went swimmingly, right up until we started classwork. I had poured over my lesson plans, working every problem, being sure I understood how to get the answers in case the class needed me to explain them. However, when I started to teach, I discovered that their Monday substitute hadn't done ANY classwork and they hadn't finished all the work last week that this lesson plan was based on. I didn't even have the material where they were at, and I certainly hadn't prepared.

I began trying to quickly move them through the older material so we could get up to where I was prepared, but they're learning about simple and compound interest and banking procedures and there was nothing quick or easy about it. There were several problems that they were unsure how to work and everyone got different answers, all of which were different from the Teacher's Manual, which didn't SHOW the work, only the answers. I finally had to wimp out and told them I work on the problem at home last night and go over it with them today.

I spent last night doing Math homework. I did every problem I assigned the students so I can be sure to check their process as well as their answers. I got myself up to running speed again, but it took the whole evening. I reworked my lesson plan for today based on what we accomplished yesterday and what I hope to accomplish today. At this rate, we'll be ready to jump into the lesson plans that were left for me the first day I'm NOT teaching.

I used to always say that the joy of subbing was that it was occasional, you didn't have to make a long-term commitment, and there were no lesson plans or homework to have to do. I guess that was Elementary, not Middle School.

When Deanna got home yesterday, I asked her how she thought it went.

"Mama," she gushed, "you have NO idea. Our class has NEVER been that quiet, not in ANY class. You were HELGA!!"

I THINK that's a good thing. At least we had order. Now if we can just figure out the Math, we'll be accomplishing something.