Quick blog entry. Today I was a substitute teacher for the same 3rd grade class I had on Friday. Relatively speaking the experience was less stressful than some of the other classes (and school) that I’ve been to. They were wild, loud, disrespectful, and at times very vulgar. I was told by the science teacher that the regular homeroom teacher of this class yelled so much (at this class) that she lost her voice, and that was why the regular homeroom teacher did not come to school on Friday.

To try to manage this class, I remember that I had a digital camera. So I told the students that I would take photos of them doing the things that parents tend to not believe (i.e. crawling on the floor, playing and drawing on the desk, etc…) Their behavior improved only slightly. Unfortunately, I could not record some the things that the students have been saying in class. For example:

Remember that this is a 3rd grade classroom.

Get away from me bitch!
Fuck you!
Shouting out “I peed on myself” (then laughing out loud[then others imitating])
Don’t touch him he has AIDS.
Just a few of the comments that I remember at this moment. Also, it is unfortunate that I am too slow to catch the things that have been thrown across the room (pencils, scissors, markers, balls of paper, rubber bands counting blocks, dominoes, books etc…). I have attached a photos of just some of the items that I collected today.

Anyway, to make a long story short. Threatening the students with the photos has only been moderately successful.

How is this for a response? One of the wilder students, who has been caught on camera; playing with a toy, crawling on the floor (looking for the disks that his toy shoots), sticking paper on his forehead, not reading (during reading time), etc…He has done all of that, but he continued to be disruptive, even over the repeated reminders of the photos. He only shrugged his shoulders with the reminders in an “I don’t care” attitude. However, he lost one of his gloves, and he cried like a baby, worried that he would get in trouble for losing his glove.

December the 4th was supposed to have been payday, but since it was a Sunday, I will probably receive my paycheck in the mail tomorrow, or the next day.

Finally, there is snow storm expected tonight. The weather report predicts that we (here in New York) might receive either a light dusting of snow, or 4 to 6 inches drop. I am looking forward to getting my second paycheck since returning to NY. My first one was small, this next paycheck will be a little bigger. Is it irony that (at the moment) I am earning less money than I did teaching English in Japan, but I have much, much, much more stress to deal with.

Well, until next time…