You Want to Do WHAT?!?!

I had a great easy morning today! I subbed for a high school biology class all morning and just showed a NOVA video on dog breeding (narrated by one of my favorite actors: John Lithgow!). I watched the whole video during my first class and then read a book during the next classes while the students watched the video. Easy, but also uneventful...

Now after lunch, I moved to a different class: freshman chemistry. This was anything but uneventful. I was on a constant patrol, walking past every desk the entire class periods, keeping the students on task. For some reason, freshman are incredibly distracted. I had a couple of interesting conversations with various students as I walked about. One girl told me that she wanted to just eat bread and drink water for 40 days for lent. I tried talking her into adding a protein shake to her diet, but she was very adamant that it should be just bread and water. Regretfully, I did not have the heart to tell her that lent started today (she was eating a candy bar). 

A little bit later I walked by a group of three girls that were doing a poor job of pretending to be working on there assignment (they giggled every time I walked by and had really guilty looks on their faces). As I walked in front of the group, one of the girls looked up right at me and said with full conviction, "And I want to do YOUR makeup too!" I have to say that I was a little surprised, which is pretty funny that kids can still catch me off my guard even after 87 sub assignments this year (today was 88). 

Finally, today's post will end with a quote from a student, talking to their teacher who showed up at the end of class: "He's a really nice sub! All our other subs are mean... and he made us do our work too, he walked around the room checking on us the whole class!"

I think this quote is the best reference I could ask for. I try to be kind and make sure the students are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Today was a success!