My friend Shelly had called me early on Monday morning to see if I could substitute in her classroom. She was having trouble breathing and would much rather go to the hospital than go to the classroom. Unfortunately, I had the Art job at the High School already. During the day though, I got a text message asking me if I could sub for Shelly for the rest of this shortened Thanksgiving week. Shelly had a clot in her lung and was being held in the hospital overnight. The doctor told her to rest this week, and to not consider going back to school. She called the office, the office called Barbara and Barbara texted me during Art class. I took the job.
Today, I taught a collection of classes that Shelly teaches. In homeroom, her students do the morning announcements for the school. They have video and audio equipment. Since the video is currently broken, they are uploading everything to YouTube. If the teachers want to have their students see the announcements, they pull the YouTube. All others get audio. Well, even before the homeroom announcements, this class of kids shows up at school an hour early to pull the latest news off the web and put it together to be read. It’s just like a newsroom: lots of activity. These Middle School kids are really dedicated!
After homeroom, it was four periods of “Multimedia.” Shelly had asked me to introduce Excel to the kids… but had also told me that I could do whatever I wanted to. After a quick assessment, it seemed the better thing to help the kids prepare their 30 second powerpoint “Advertisement” spots. In theory, the spots were due today, yet 80% of the groups throughout the day were not close to finishing. Some hadn’t even started! Since powerpoint and presentation skills are something I do for a living, I spent the periods coaching the kids on how to improve their powerpoints and presentations. Come Monday, they should all get better grades.
The last period of the day was Play Production. The group had just finished a play, so they were spending the week celebrating. Shelly had cookies, chips and drinks for the kids. We spent the class period doing improv. About half the class participated; the other half was content to eat… and talk. Most of the kids had a good time, though it wasn’t all that great for the improve kids – they had no audience! Still, at one point, I had the kids laughing so hard that they were on the floor and unable to breathe. They certainly enjoyed that activity!