I survived and I hope the students did too (Adventures in Subbing in Mr. DePierre's class)

I was asked to sub for a few days this week for Mr. DePierre's math class at the high school. He taught the first few weeks this year, but has been out ill ever since and won't be able to come back. Due to the fact that it wasn't official until now, the school's hands were tied in how they could replace him and so just had a regular sub in there (though she knows her math). But it seems that hurdle has been jumped and Mr D. can now truly be replaced. The long term sub got fed up and "quit" last week (there have been a few problems in the classes), and so they needed someone to fill the gap. Mr. Lords, the principal, came in today and filled the kids in on the situation. As soon as the State does whatever is needed, Ryan Sorensen is coming in. I hear he's excellent. I hope the State moves quickly.

Mr. D's schedule is 3 classes pre-calc (no problem), 2 classes app. geometry (no problem), and the 1 AP Stats class (big problem as I've never had stats before). I go to the other sub last Friday and get the 3 textbooks so I can brush up on things for today. I was told section 2.2 for pre-calc, 4-4 for geometry, and starting chapter 6 for stats.

Over the weekend I read the first 6 chapters in the stats book (it was actually quite interesting) and I looked at the 2.2 and 4-4 sections and knew the stuff, so I didn't spend too much time on that.

I get to class today and there were no lesson plans. Frustration occurs when expectations go unmet. Can I say I was frustrated? I expected more guidance. Maybe I'm sensitive, but I felt like I was being set up to fail. The other sub probably was just so fed up, she just didn't care any more...or thought I'd deal with it since I came in for the books?

I don't know that it really mattered in pre-calc. The students told me they had just been hopping around in the book, but 2.2 had not been done yet. We just started going over the section and then I assigned part of the exercises as homework and they started working on it in class.

Geometry was a different matter. They said they had already done 4-4 (vertical angles) and there was a disagreement on whether they had finished the chapter or not. They said they hadn't really been given chapter tests. It finally looked like they hadn't done 4-5 (perpendicular angles), so we started there...but none of them have textbooks at home, so I couldn't assign any homework. If I have time tonight I might make up a worksheet for them to take home tomorrow.

A little frustrating, but since we actually did "real" stuff in those classes, it was OK.

AP Stats. The previous sub was in there inputting grades from last week on the computer, so I had an extra audience for my belly flop. I guess I will get over it soon enough, but I was very stressed about it at the time.

The chapter is a lot of straight reading (though I do have to say I love the fun style it's written in). And it looked like you couldn't really do the problems in the back of the chapter until the chapter had been fully read. So I read out loud and bored the poor things in there (they were so good about it)...I read it because for some reason I really didn't want to tell them to just sit there and read it silently. There were 3 problems at the end of certain sections, so then we started going over those.

Really. Those poor students. Really. That poor substitute (me!). Of course after they left I realized that I should have told them to finish reading the chapter at home so we could start working on the problems. Still not sure what I'm going to do in there tomorrow.

I had been expecting some lesson plans...like "read this many pages and do exercises 1-4, then read these pages and do 5-8"...nope. One girl suggested they just bring food and have a party tomorrow and they would turn it into a math lesson by counting how many percentages of the cookies were in this category or that. I didn't agree, but if they bring cookies they certainly deserve to be able to eat them after listening to me today.

The students in all classes really behaved well today and that had been one of my major concerns as they have had a rough go of it so far this year. So, that part was OK. I just hate feeling like Stats was a waste of time.

So, I have lesson plans to work on, a key to make up for the 50 problems on the "Complete the Square" worksheet that they turned in today, then I need to correct the worksheets for the 3 classes. I do enjoy completing the square (more than most, I would imagine), but it is Monday night and we have Family Home Evening...plus I still have to make some plans for class tomorrow. So you are probably shaking your head at me, because here I sit at the computer instead of doing some real work. I can procrastinate with the best of the students.

So, just because now I feel I know what's happening, we should have a better time of it tomorrow. And then if I wind up still subbing on Wed. and Thurs, at least they are 1/2 days due to parent/teacher conferences and they should pass quickly.