Substituting

View from UC Berkeley

On Saturday night I was asked to teach on Sunday morning for another teacher in Berkeley. I had to substitute teach for the second day of a six day course. I didn't know if I was going to be paid, and that isn't the motivation for me teaching the class. I just enjoy teaching! I know I teach differently than other people that teach the class. I was wondering what I was supposed to do, teach my way or teach the way the other teacher does. I always tell my students they can't teach trying to mimic other teachers so I decided to take my own advice and teach my way. I spend the first 2 hours doing the same thing I do on the first day when I teach. There were 14 students in the class. 12 were on time and we played a couple of games and I introduced myself and my background.

View outside my classroom window!

When I teach I need to convince my students I am the best teacher so they know they will get the best education possible. The two other students came in about 2 hours late, a girl and a guy (I guess boyfriend and girlfriend). When they came in we were reviewing all the students' names. I welcomed them and then went back to the class. We got around to these last two and the girl said she wanted to say the names backwards. I thought she wanted to go in reverse order than we were doing before. In fact she started saying the names backwards, changing Greg to Gerg. What that would do it UNdo everything I had been trying to do and not reinforce the names to all the other students. I didn't allow her to continue, and when she refused to stop I turned my back to her and started teaching my class. We started talking about teaching ESL and everything I said this girl would argue with me.

The best shoes anyone has ever worn in my class

She would often tell me I was wrong, or ask how I had the right to make generalizations. She would go off on tangents and talk for about 5 minutes. I could see the other students get upset that she was dominating the class. I then had the students read something in small groups and we would discuss it in larger groups. I had the late girl and guy working together with a third student. They had been in the class about two hours and then the girl got upset that I stopped her from talking again and she got up, picked up her books, and the guy followed her. They walked out without saying anything. The other students clapped after they left. They were so happy she left. I was sad that I had done something wrong. Hopefully they will be back next weekend and I won't get in trouble. It is times like that when I realize I shouldn't volunteer for anything.