I'd dreamed of being a teacher when I was younger. I even had a blackboard that I used to teach my stuffed animals. I received a copy of the Young People's Science Encyclopedia which I read several times. The book was volume 1-Aa with information on how educators can order the entire set for their classroom. I'm not sure how I got this one, but back in the day, I mailed off for almost everything offered in magazines.
Both of these books are available from booksellers for a minimal price. These books do not possess any antiquity qualities that I know of, so their only value is that of nostalgia. As an aside, it would be interesting to see how much has changed in the subject of science since the late '60s. I looked at the Cat Book on one of the seller's websites and they showed pictures of the book's interior. When I saw them I knew I would still love the contents.
Remember there was no internet and I was dependent on reading (books) for knowledge. Our family even had our own World Book Encyclopedia set. I used those extensively for the little research papers we were assigned in elementary school.
Now that I'm a substitute teacher, I get the opportunity to sample the job as it is today. I am not saying I'm experiencing the teacher's actual job. There is so much more that goes into teaching than just showing up. When the teacher leaves lesson plans, I happily follow them. I've gotten to see several different teaching styles based on the plans they leave behind. For the most part, the students understand their directives and appear proficient in doing their work. That's not to say that they don't have questions. Which I happily answer. Sometimes my answers don't work for the student. When this happens I recruit another student to be a tutor.
Except for 1st grade, I've subbed for classes in each K-6 level, including one special education class. Elementary grades were fun to work with. The students were excited to show what they knew.
I've also subbed for 8th, 10th, and 12th grades. I subbed for high school grades in two different schools and the experiences were very different from each other. At one school the students wanted to get their work done and they were cooperative and positive. At another school, the students were defiant and disrespectful. It was filled with disruptive boys that alternated between making cat sounds and shouting "F... You". The boys were impossible to appease or control. This was a shame because there was a small group of girls who dutifully did their work.
Eighth grade at one school was also an absolute nightmare! This included three blocks of different 8th graders. For these classes, I made the executive decision that they would not be doing work on the laptops. Instead, I assigned them reading in an actual textbook and assigned worksheets to complete. I made this decision early in my first class. The kids were shocked that I told them to put the laptops away. "We always do our work on laptops", they whined. To which I said, "Not today." The students were further shocked when I told them they had to hand the worksheets in and those that didn't work didn't work on them would get a "zero" for the day. "You can't do that," they said,"you aren't the teacher". To which I said, "I am today."
Who knows what the regular teacher did with the stacks of "zeros". I hope he follows through. I was shocked to find that roughly a quarter of the students did the work.
Lessons:
#1: Teaching and learning looks completely different in this post-COVID world than it looked when I was a student. (I wrote about that in my last post.)
#2: Many students are NOT motivated to do well for the sake of doing well.
#3: Some student populations have a culture that rewards being disrespectful.
Long story short: Nothing in Middle School or High School will reflect your own school experience.
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