This was easily the worst day of teaching I've ever had.
Admittedly, it's only my 6th day in a classroom, so I don't have much basis for comparison, but it was bad.
I showed up to school this morning a bit nervous because my clinical teacher, Mr. Daisy, was on a trip to Canada and wouldn't return until Monday, meaning there would be 3 days of substitute teachers. I'd been told that, traditionally, this meant the sub would sit back while the student teacher took the reins, but I hoped this wouldn't be the case. We were only 6 days into the school year, and up to this point my involvement in class consisted of introducing two activities, interjecting a few facts and ideas into lectures, and wandering the room guiding students' discussions as they worked in small groups. I was building up my rapport with the students and staff, watching Mr. Daisy as I became more comfortable with the idea of teaching, so I did not feel at all prepared to lead a class, let alone 6 classes.
I knew in June that Mr. Daisy would be taking this trip, although I hadn't considered the implications, or that I might need to step into teaching so early. When I asked a science teacher if I'd really be expected to take over the class she put on a wide, tight-lipped smile that told me there was a chance I'd be able to continue observing, but to expect the worst.
I'd managed to prepare a bit. I had Mr. Daisy email me the lesson plans so I could review them, and prepare a bit. My wife looked over the plans and was concerned with how spartan they were. There was a page for each class, and a little more than a half page written for each, covering all three days. I'd skimmed the readings and some of the suggestions, and came up with a few things I could add to conversations, but at that point I still wasn't expecting to teach.
The substitute, Mr. Malva, arrived shortly after me, and didn't mitigate my concerns in the least. He informed me thought he'd developed kidney stones, the second most painful thing he'd experienced, and that if he started to feel poorly he would call the office to have someone sit in the class and leave immediately.
Awesome.
First period, Sophomore English, was fine. I noticed the students were more detached and disengaged with the substitute there. I busied myself with some classroom management: getting kids to sit up, put away phones, excusing them to the bathrooms, etc. I added a few ideas to the lesson about cultural identity, but Mr. Malva did most of the talking. It wasn't as easy as it had been under Mr. Daisy, but certainly not harrowing.
Second period, Junior English, was a train wreck. Not a small trainwreck where a single engine skips the tracks in a Nebraska corn field, but a Japanese passenger train wreck during rush-hour. Nothing went right. There were three sentences for the day's lesson plans: "Follow the unpacking activity 1.2 in text. Begin sharing presentation of unit vocabulary. Saved on the front computer and emailed to Jesse."
The problem began with me. I'd been under the impression that we were supposed to continue a reading that we'd started on Tuesday, but this contradicted his lesson plan. Likewise the notes written in Mr. Malva's teacher book seemed to conflict with this as well. I'd gone over the vocabulary lesson and essay by John McCain, but it didn't coincide with the essay in the book.
We spent the passing period between classes and another 5-10 minutes into class deciding what we needed to do. We knew we needed to use the front computer and projector, but I'd never worked with it before, and had no idea how to set it up. Neither Mr. Malva nor I could get it to work, so we couldn't access the vocabulary lesson. I attempted to access the lesson from my personal email, but the school's firewall didn't allow me to access it. I attempted to forward it to a school-friendly account from my phone, but the school has little to no wireless access, so it was taking forever. (I later discovered that the computer issue was likely due to a wireless mouse that had run out of battery. I'd placed it on the charging station at the end of class, & we were able to use the computer again by the next period. Although it was too late at that point)
Mr. Malva started the unpacking lesson as I went in search of someone who could help me with our tech problems and to print out the correct McCain essay for the class. I figured even if we couldn't access the computer we could still put the essay on the document camera to read together as a class. I was fairly frazzled at this point. Once I stepped out into the hall I stopped and took a few deep breaths to refocus a bit, but it wasn't as effective as I'd hoped. I knew Mrs. Laurel, another clinical teacher, had a prep period so I went to her first. She called one of the computer teachers to help, although I'd mistakenly thought he would come to Mr. Daisy's room, when she was expecting that I'd go to the computer lab. I didn't want to bother her any more, so I returned to class to wait for the tech guy to come.
Mr. Malva had run out of lesson to unpack, and without the computer there was no vocabulary or correct essay. The students waited patiently as we hunched over a desk in the middle of class hoping for some deus ex machina to rescue us, but it never came. There was still 12 minutes left in the period, so we decided to have them continue reading the essay they'd started the day before, the one I'd originally thought was on the lesson plan. I sat down at my desk to puzzle over what went wrong. Some students read, other's chatted quietly, one student rested his head on his arm, dozing. I didn't correct him. At that point I felt defeated, and I wasn't sure the student would get any more benefit from drearily skimming over a book then he'd get from resting. I chalked the entire period up as a loss.
The bell rang and I had five minutes to get ready for the next class.
The last three classes of the day were Economics. I led these classes for the most part. We'd begun a 3-day-long poster activity on Tuesday, so I simply continued the project. Long story short, the students were on a deserted island with an unconscious captain and limited equipment. Then they had to determine their specific needs, how to meet their needs, and the opportunity costs involved with their decisions. I was fairly comfortable with the direction of the project so Mr. Malva allowed me to lead the classes. The most difficult part was probably having to repeat my instructions over and over, despite having given them to the entire class, and to refocus the students away from their plans to torture, kill, or eat the unconscious captain character. (in the introduction Mr. Daisy suggested the shipwreck was due to the captain's inattention, so they were not kind to him throughout the activity. If I were to do this again I might make the shipwreck the result of a snapped rope that knocked the captain unconscious in order to make him a more sympathetic character)
During lunch break I sought out the other Junior English teachers to ask them for help planning for Thursday. I walked away with a lesson plan, and feeling a great deal better about how Thursday would progress.
