Not Just Another Pretty Sub

Thoughts on day of middle school math.

 

Rested up from an exhausting day at a middle school (noise wears me out). Long story short, given a choice between teaching and crowd control, I will choose teaching every time, which is to say I gave a lot of individual attention, had the most problematic kids removed, and tried to keep my sanity though the sheer level of noise. This is sad. I could write a lot, but I'd rather devote my headspace to making next week a little better. Still, I'll write a little. I love math, and I love when the lightbulb goes on for a kid who is plugging away at it. Learning math resembles learning music to me in that you lay a foundation that starts from what you know. Get some mastery, pile more harder stuff on. Master that. Pile on more. Feel the relief when the thing you couldn't master two weeks ago crystallizes while you are working on the next hard thing. Be confident that what you don't know, what you think you cannot do, will become something you can do, and do with élan. Math lays bare this process, as do the arts and athletics, but especially math. Math literacy is about process, about learning that you will always be learning. I suspect our smart-phone era, where one gets so much stimulation for a mere swipe, obscures the pleasures of being happily absorbed in a challenge. Yes, sad.

 

 

 

Corita Kent's Studio Rules are for everybody, especially teachers—and students—and everybody

Back in the sixties, when I was quite young, my parents subscribed to the National Catholic Reporter, a liberal weekly that was notable for its civil rights advocacy, as opposed to our local Universe Bulletin, which kept us up on which movies not to watch.  I first became aware of Corita Kent, then Sister Corita, on the front page of the NCR, where her graphics made art out of advocacy. A recent retrospective at Cleveland's Museum of Contemporary Art, brought her back to my attention.  Her "Rules" posted in the Immaculate Heat College art department, are timeless, apt, good-humored, and encouraging.

 

 

 

Jobulator rant

So it has come to this: Scheduling is automated via Aesop®, and retrieving jobs is via Jobulator®, ostensibly more convenient than sitting at one's computer hitting "refresh" endlessly". Well.  If anything, in the dog-eat-dog world that Jobulator has unleashed, a sub job goes not to the best fit, but to the quickest swiper (in both the touch screen and grabby sense of the word).  I miss getting a phone call from a real person at the staffing agency, or the sense that someone might be looking for a good fit between sub and class, or sub and subject.  I'm so reminded of "On the Waterfront", where the hopeful longshorement wave their medallions: "choose me, choose me!" This is that, only faceless and on steroids. And, to think this all comes under the rubric of human resources.  My sense is that fewer humans are being used to save money, and that the idea that there is a best or better sub for a particular job is not sufficiently regarded. What to do?

Ironically, one reason I held a day job in addition to my tenured albeit part-time orchestra positions was that I didn't have the guts for freelancing.  Subbing is freelancing. I compete every day. Not against other subs but for the work.  It sharpens my game; I'm not content to babysit and pick up a check. Every adult/student interaction is critical. I like being on the spot, to be an unflappable, astute role model.  I let the teachers I sub for know that I have a masters degree, and that my children graduate from this district in which I have lived over thirty years. I take this job seriously; it's not an until-somethig-else-comes-along gig.  It is my work.

Ah, back to my question: what to do? I did send out an email to the teachers I work with letting them know that if they want me to sub for them, the best thing is to text me directly.  I'm going to double check my address list today (hazard of having two email addresses), and send more emails. Maybe, at last I'll get serious on linkedin® and write an actual resumé to replace my snarky occupation designation "genius without portfolio". All that and crack that Alg II text.  Be sharp. Be on. Be visible.

 

Be patient.  It's the second day of school!

off topic—Arthur Loesser on coughing at concerts

"Coughing" (January, 1975)
by Arthur Loesser

 *
This article is from Musical Etiquette, a series of short essays published by [now defunct] The Cleveland Press, 1947

*

COUGHING at public music events is a social error of the first magnitude, a veritable menace. To befoul the delicate web of a musical composition with an irrelevant mess of excretory explosions is to grossly affront all sensitive musical souls. Let no one think that his own little coughing noise is so slight as to be negligible.  His bad example will corrupt the restraints of dozens of other people; presently an annoying, repulsive barrage will fill the room and a beautiful nocturne or love song will be converted into a pockmarked torso.

    Only one apology has ever been offered for this misbehavior.  It is that minor respiratory infections are widespread during certain seasons of the year. With all the colds and catarrhs about, the coughing is inevitable, we are sometimes told.

    It is a poor excuse. A person suffering from an absolutely uncontrollable throat irritation ought not to go out in public at all.  If the coughing impulse is suppressible, the concert hall is the proper place to suppress it. Normal civilized human beings are expected to inhibit all such urges to the last stage of physical discomfort rather than offend their immediate neighbors.  A willingness to cough into music is a mark of disrespect for it and for those who want to listen to it attentively.

However, all this is not entirely to the point. The fact is that most of the petty coughing that bepimples our concerts and operas has no bodily cause at all.  It is a reaction to mental, not physical distress. People tend to clear their throats nervously when they are compelled to sit still without having their attention sufficiently engaged. The coughing always increases when the music is long drawn out or difficult of comprehension. But that makes it all the easier to inhibit.

    It can be pointed out in this connection that performers themselves almost never cough.  A hundred orchestra musicians will go through a sniffly winter and spring, playing several concerts a week, without ever shooting off their throats while working.  They are too busy.

*

[As I am unable to find this anywhere I am typing this article from my copy of the book Not Responsible for Lost Articles by Klaus George Roy, in which this appears. No copyright infringement intended.]

Algebra II here I come!

Curled up w/Algebra II for Dummies so as not to make a complete fool of myself Thurs and Fri.  I'll settle for being a partial fool.  If it goes well, I'll put myself out there.  Math teachers love subs who actually teach math. 

The Best and the Worst

Ourt high school has a notable instrumental music program, and Friday's concert was something to savor.  Orchestra, band, a student soloist, chamber music before, and jazz band after, so much talent and energy!  Our school at its best.

Then, today, I saw someone get beat up.  I realized I had never actually seen someone beat the snot out of another person. I believe this is the worst violence I have ever witnessed personally.  It was horrible.  Worse yet, other students looked on, some laughing and egging them on.  I yelled "fight!" and ran to get theguards who were checking IDs at the cafeteria steps away, where I had just been. They, and an officer in the building, arrived in seconds, but those were long seconds.  The two girls resisted efforts to break it up, the one bleeding from her nose still required three guards to subdue her.

Two worlds inside the walls of this school, in close proximity.  Which group will determine the culture of the school?  I'm disheartened.

A little growth, periodically speaking

I faked my way through a highschool chem class today.  There were no new lesson plans, the old plans being allegedly completed accoridng to my spectaularly unreliable source (read: the students themselves), so I used the old plans as a jumping off point to create The Extra Super-Fun Element Spelling Bee (Elemental Spelling Bee would have been better rhythm through allteration).  Stuff like Chlorine + Oxygen + Tungsten spelling "crow", and the reverse, breaking a word into elements, as in "life" = Li + Fe = Lithium + Iron (ask you doctor!) The students responded, mostly well. 

OK, about that mostly.  I had some mouthy, obstreperous, disrespecting kids, and it occurred to me, besides telling them HOW to behave, I could simply continue to teach.  Lightbulb! "Nothing you can do will make me NOT teach." Aha.  So, I circulated the room and engaged them.  While eyes rolled upon my approach, no-one said "go away" and they answered the questions (various drills on the Periodoc Table).  'Tis true, resistance is that odd—and old—adolescent way of saying, "look at me."

mini-rant for the day

I don't think there's a middle schooler who can keep any part of their body still for more than 3 seconds—until you ask them to do something.

Corrollary: that kid who hollers in the hall will mumble at -5 dB if you actually need to hear from them.  Especially if you ask their name.*

 

*Yes, I'm using them rather than him (sexist)  or him/her (clumsy).