My name’s the teacher. That is what I call myself.
In my last post, I apologized for not doing much blogging lately. Especially after I had been bugging CJ for so long about setting up the thing. Well, I’m doing it again. Once again I will bust out the excuse that California really runs its teaching candidates through the ringer. I’ve spent the past week working on a gi-normous assessment paper that I need to complete before graduating, and I’m currently taking a break from finishing up an extensive case study on a struggling reader that’s due…oh, in about four hours.
So yeah, this is another “Phil is a teacher” centric post. Not much game stuff here, sorry. I will quickly say that the YouTube upload feature in Noby Noby Boy is friggin’ fantastic. More games need this sort of thing. I’ll be talking more about that on our next episode.
This was my little adventure today, and it goes a long way in explaining why I’m very tired right now and not really in the mood to write up a case study. As a student teacher, I am currently required to be in the classroom on Monday through Friday. All day on Tuesdays and Thursdays and ’till lunch on the remaining days (starting at the end of March, it’s all day, every day!). I was pleased because as today is Friday, I was going to get out nice and early and get home to finish up this assignment.
As I arrived at school this morning, I happened to bump into the principal as she was getting out of her car. She sees me and exclaims that I was just the person she was looking for. She goes on to explain to me that one of their 3rd grade teachers was out sick and that the district was out of substitute teachers for the day (apparently there was some sort of training conference going on). Would I, she asked, be able to take over the class for the day?
Note to self: Add "teacher" to list of words to not Google Image Search unless SafeSearch is on.
Now, part of my previous student teaching placement (with 4th graders) during the first half of the school year required me to spend a week teaching the class on my own. Like, with the “real” teacher out of the room. So I certainly had some experience handling a class by myself. However, that was a class that I had been working with for months, so they knew me and wanted to work with me. This time, I would be running a class full of strange kids, and we all know how kids act towards the sub.
Still, what choice did I have? I told the principal that I’d be happy to take the class. It would be, after all, great experience, and making the principal happy is a smart move for someone who will be looking for a teaching job in a couple months.
Without wasting much more words on the day, it went well. The kids goofed off a bit, but nothing more than I could handle. I brought the hammer down on them pretty early so that they knew that I wasn’t going to let them run the class, but I also let them know that I could be a pretty easygoing guy if they let me.
I do have to share the story about meeting the first kid to pop into the classroom, though.
I’m just hanging out in the teacher’s room about ten minutes before the bell rings. All of the kids are out on the playground when one boy wanders into the room. I look up at him and immediately know that he’s going to be trouble. He’s got one eyebrow raised, and he’s wearing a shit-eating grin as he swaggers over to me. This is the conversation that we had:
Kid: So I hear you’re going to be our substitute teacher today.
Phil: Yep. That’s me.
Kid: What makes you think you can teach 3rd grade?
Phil: Well, I’ve taught 2nd grade and 4th grade. I figure I can handle the one in the middle.
(at this point, the kid is a bit stunned that I’m not backing down from his carefully planned ribbing. Little does this kid know that I was him at that age)
Phil: What’s your name?
Kid: (says his name…I’m obviously not going to say it here)
Phil: Well, nice to meet you, (kid’s name). I’m Mr. Theobald. (I shake his hand)
Kid: I can see where the “bald” part of your name comes from.
Phil: You’re a clever kid. No one has ever made that joke before.
Clearly the kid was a little snot, but he was a likable snot. I survived his test, and he ended up respecting me for it. It also helped when I told him that yes, Captain Underpants was pretty funny and I (gasp!) knew what a Nintendo DS was. Not only that, but I’ve played LEGO Indiana Jones on the DS and the Xbox 360!
It was an interesting start to my day, to say the least, and being tossed right into the substitute teaching fire was a pretty good experience. It also means that I get paid for my student teaching today. So woo-hoo! Even so, it was also plenty stressful, and now I only have three hours and fourty-five minutes to finish this damn paper. Back to work!
Wouldn’t it be easier at the start of every new class to just tell them all that before you started teaching you played games for a living? I bet 90% of the kids (well the boys anyway and aren’t they the harder ones to handle?) would set up an alter right there and worship you as a god among men.
I agree, videogames is the easiest icebreaker ever when it comes to kids. I’m a medical student and did a preceptorship with a pediatrician. Ended up doing lots of game talk
You would thinkg so, but so far my experience has been that if I come right out and tell the kids what I do/did for a living, they immediately start a barrage of questions. Usually asking me if I’ve played the games that they’re currently playing.
The problem with the barrage of questions is that when teaching (at least at the elementary level), you’re usually on a very tight schedule. The kids can be difficult enough to keep on task as it, so giving them stimulus like that can distract them to the point where actual work doesn’t get done.
The last thing I wanted their regular teacher to see on Monday is that I didn’t get through 1/3 of his planned material because I was talking to his class about Guitar Hero (and believe me, the kids would tell him about their awesome sub who just talked about games with them). That would look bad for me as a first time sub, and really make me look bad to the principal.
Interesting side note: Kids don’t seem to fully understand the concept of a game reviewer. One time, after explaining what my job entailed (“I get to play the games early, and then I write a story that tells you if the game is goo. Then you can read it so you know if you want to buy the game or not.”), the first question I got was “Did you make Halo?” To a lot of kids, it seems like the only job in the game industry is the very generic “makes games.”