My friend Shelly had called me early on Monday morning to see if I could substitute in her classroom.\u00a0 She was having trouble breathing and would much rather go to the hospital than go to the classroom.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I had the Art job at the High School already.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Shelly had a clot in her lung and was being held in the hospital overnight.\u00a0 The doctor told her to rest this week, and to not consider going back to school.\u00a0 She called the office, the office called Barbara and Barbara texted me during Art class.\u00a0 I took the job.<\/p>\n
Today, I taught a collection of classes that Shelly teaches.\u00a0 In homeroom, her students do the morning announcements for the school.\u00a0 They have video and audio equipment.\u00a0 Since the video is currently broken, they are uploading everything to YouTube.\u00a0 If the teachers want to have their students see the announcements, they pull the YouTube.\u00a0 All others get audio.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s just like a newsroom: lots of activity.\u00a0 These Middle School kids are really dedicated!<\/p>\n
After homeroom, it was four periods of \u201cMultimedia.\u201d\u00a0 Shelly had asked me to introduce Excel to the kids\u2026 but had also told me that I could do whatever I wanted to.\u00a0 After a quick assessment, it seemed the better thing to help the kids prepare their 30 second powerpoint \u201cAdvertisement\u201d spots.\u00a0 In theory, the spots were due today, yet 80% of the groups throughout the day were not close to finishing.\u00a0 Some hadn\u2019t even started!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Come Monday, they should all get better grades.<\/p>\n
The last period of the day was Play Production.\u00a0 The group had just finished a play, so they were spending the week celebrating.\u00a0 Shelly had cookies, chips and drinks for the kids.\u00a0 We spent the class period doing improv.\u00a0 About half the class participated; the other half was content to eat\u2026 and talk.\u00a0 Most of the kids had a good time, though it wasn\u2019t all that great for the improve kids \u2013 they had no audience!\u00a0 Still, at one point, I had the kids laughing so hard that they were on the floor and unable to breathe.\u00a0 They certainly enjoyed that activity!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My friend Shelly had called me early on Monday morning to see if I could substitute in her classroom.\u00a0 She was having trouble breathing and would much rather go to the hospital than go to the classroom.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I had … Continue reading