Never mind the homework, here's the Vegan Teacher

I subbed yesterday but not much happened, other than me asking a class full of muslim and hindu kids if they were stoked for Christmas. Dumb dumb dumb. Anyways, I’m out of here for the holidays. I don’t know if I’ll have much to say between now and the new year. In fact, I think I’m going to try to stay away from computers for the next couple of weeks, a vice that will surely be replaced by excessive soynog consumption.

peace.

Got the day off today. I’m excited because I’m still shaking off this cold and there’s a ton of things I’ve been meaning to do. I have 10 pages left to edit in the book, then I’m going to send it to a couple of friends to proof. I’m sure there’s some stuff in there that needs to be pulled out. Boring crap that no one would really care about. I’ve also been reading a lot of online comics lately which has compelled me to try to start putting together a strip of my own. It’s very tedious, drawing. I’ve never been that good at it, but it’s coming along and I finally have a few decent characters to work with.

Last night roomie and I hosted Family Dinner, something that seems to have worked its way into every month or so. It’s cold here, -25 these days, so you’ve got to make the most of it. Our closest friends show up with a vegan dish to sit around, shoot the breeze while eating and drinking wine.

Work yesterday went down at a high school I was at a couple weeks ago. This is becoming a neat thing because I recognize students, a few of them remember me and I don’t feel so much like the single-serving McTeacher. It was Science in the morning and Learning Strategies in the afternoon. The morning classes were fairly uneventful. The sub plans called for a pile of notes and worksheets to fill up the 80 minute blocks. These are my least favorite subplans because when I don’t really know where the kids are at and they ask me questions, I find myself employing a lot of I-don’t-knows. But they were cool for the most part, the exception being the two annoying volleyball players serving each other paper balls at the back of the class.

The afternoon was fun. I was supposed to go through some essay writing tips with the students then they were to do homework, study or just kick it if they wanted to. I like these classes. The kids are usually malcontents and truants, but it makes the class interesting. To keep them from starting anything I usually spend a lot of time working the room by getting to know them. Even the kids who try to come off as total toughs end up finding themselves in some interesting conversations. I think it’s all about the approach. Yesterday a kid was getting down on himself and others because he was from the middle east and people keep calling him a terrorist and whatever. It sucks, and we talked about how it was bullshit. Then he told me about all these gnarley places I’ve got to check out sometime; Turkey, Lebanon, Iran.

Another girl was being really annoying and disruptive so I made my way over and we got to talking about heritage. Turns out, coincidentally, she was from Ghana. So we chatted for about 10 minutes about that and she was cool for the rest of the class.

There was another kid in there that I recognized. It took him a while, but when he asked me what my favorite sport was and I said “skateboarding”, he outed me as the rec tech from the skate park two summers ago. He said he knew it was me from the grey patch in my sideburn, recanting the time I blamed it on my ex. I asked him what all the other kids were up two, specifically the two older boys who were having a rough go at the time. One of them isn’t doing so hot and has developed some pretty bad mental health problems. Sucks. But the other is totally working and doing really well for himself. Rad. All the other kids are in a school in that district, so I’m going to try to get some work there to check up on them.

There was also a heavier-set student in there who told me he ate 17 cheeseburgers one time. I told him there was no way, then he showed my some photos on his iphone. I said “holy smokes” and he told me about how he’s given them and pop up for the month. Then his friend asked him if he would be pissed should the powers that be ever decide to ban cheeseburgers.

On an unrelated note, it was only a matter of time before the Marked Men signed to Swami. I can’t wait for their next record! Fix My Brain was the bees knees.

Ugh, I’m totally sick. I would like to blame the roommate, but it’s more likely a result of being exposed to dozens of sick kids a day. It made it hard for me to be in there today and I kept on having to sit down to rest when I started feeling feverish. I’m also bummed because I was planning on going out to see Dragonforce tonight. Bah. Anyways, I taught Social Studies at a Jr High today. The first few classes were uneventful. Kids trickling in and looking tired. Not a lot of work done and a lot of heads on desks, but sometimes when you’re subbing a sleeping kid is better than an awake kid. My favorite part of the day happened during a grade 7 class, when two boys hit me with 20 questions. They ranged from inquiries on whether or not I was a flannel-wearing goldpanner with yellow teeth when I lived in the Yukon to my marital status to my thoughts about the shoe throwing incident this weekend. They were amusing and I left school with a smile.

Then I napped for 2 hours before meeting up with an old friend of mine who’s trying to rewrite history. He’s a Ph.D student researching the role of music during the fur trade and he was psyched to tell me about all these old wax phonographs he’s been checking out at the national archives. He thinks Canadian history has been taught extremely badly, to the point where it seems very dull and uninteresting. But through his research, he’s found out how well the people worked together in the early days and attributes modern day diplomatic stances (up until Harper’s reign I suppose) to this aspect of Canada’s history. Neat stuff.

Anyways, I read another article in the Globe today about the state of the seas, and how bad fishing practices are doing some pretty heavy damage to the ocean. Current scientists liken practices such as bottom trawling to clear cutting forests. So I guess if you eat fish, it’s worthwhile finding out how that fish was harvested. Perhaps supporting local fishermen is the way to go. Regardless of your diet, it’s important to know what you’re getting into when it comes to industry doing massive amounts of environmental damage.

For a brief explanation on bottom trawling, check this video out.

Lastly, I just heard the acoustic ep from Minus the Bear. If you are a fan of this band, you probably have no reason to listen to it. Their plugged in jams are way better. Their re-release of the Beer Commercials ep is great though. The bonus track on there is one of my favorites.

It was a rough one yesterday. The good kids at the school had the afternoon off leaving me to supervise a couple classes of truants. Most of the time they just watched movies, and I spent my time herding them back to their desks. A girl decided to accept a dare to take a photo of me in one class. I confiscated her camera and gave it to another teacher who erased the offending photo. Then the girl bummed out and gave me a sob story about how it was illegal to delete her photos. I told her it was a tough break, but she should know better.

Next came a flurry of hair and fists from two boys who decided to have it out in my classroom during recess. First time I’ve seen a scrap and I stepped in between them, trying to keep the aggressor from attacking the other kid. The aggressor mouthed me off and took off down the hall. I lost him as he turned a corner and I went back to the other boy to make sure he was alright. Then I sent him to the office.

The rest of the class was a gongshow. Kids were excited by the drama and wanted to get out to start their friday night. I felt the same. So we kicked it for the last period while I fielded a bunch of questions about what it’s like to be old. (They thought I was 50)

I took the day off work today to get some things together that I’ve been neglecting these past couple weeks. I was also pretty burned out and wasn’t into trying to teach while feeling like a complete wastoid. So I got some much-needed sleep, did some laundry, cleaned up my place, pulled a gigantic stinky mass of hair out of the sink drain and went to see the bank about my financial state. I owe a ton of money for 7 years spent in University and I’ve been itching to consolidate it. Turns out, it’s not such a hot idea and I’m best to just pick away at everything separately. The conversation with my banker turned into an amusingly white conversation about “mortgages”, “equity” and “investments”. But while the market is in the turlet, there’s no better time to start looking at prospects and I was interested in seeing what my options are going to look like should I decide to buy a place in the next while.

A funny thing about my current living situation. My roomie and I have been musing lately about how now that we’ve both got real jobs, benefits and what have you, we’re officially DINKs. That is; Double Income, No Kids. Personally, as a bit of dough has finally started to roll my way, being able to do things like buy a $20 pair of mitts for the winter and not feel bad about it is kind of a nice feeling. Roomie and I have also been keeping a well-stocked fridge, with enough Earth Balance to be able to use on extravagant things, like popcorn and biscuits!

Anyways, enough about that. Yesterday I subbed in a Math class that I was at not too long ago. Turns out, two student teachers were in there and counting down the days until their practicum is complete. It was pretty easy. I kicked it, watched for major behavioral issues and gave them a few pointers at the end of the day. It was neat to see how much progress they’ve made in the last two weeks, they were in the groove and had good control over their students.

Of course the 7’s at the end of the day were going bonkers. Kids were arguing over whether or not heads was cooler to flip than tales. Does it really matter? “YES!”. What was funnier was students booing when tales was flipped. Confiscated an ipod. The student was really reluctant to hand it over. I’m guessing it was because this was the song that was cued up when he was caught.

On an unrelated note, check out this counter movement to returning to tap water. Ugh. It’s pretty greasy, but wait, not as bad as this! Does materialism get more crass than a $40 bottle of water?

The show last night was nothing short of hilarious, with 5 frats in a sonic battle for a beer-fridge. Utterly ridiculous, in fact the same Chili Peppers song was played twice by two different “bands”. Not to sound smarmy as it was what it was, they did their thing and it was entertaining. My favorite line of the night was when one of the dudes addressed the crowd with “Are you ready to rock? ‘Cuz we’re going to”. They proceeded to “rock” me with a really bad cover of a really bad Nickelback song.

Today I was at the same school I was at yesterday. I’ll get paid a bit more because I filled in for someone twice in a row. The kids were overall really good but I was pretty tired and didn’t end up putting much into it. Not that I needed to, the day’s objectives were fairly laid back. I had an interesting chat with the principal about the tight ship he ran, sending kids to the office for letting their pants hang low and such. He said students will always perform just below the bar you set, so he tries to keep it as high as possible. I asked him why they refuse to hold kids back now until they get to high school. He said there was no need for a 16 year old guy to share a class with a 12 year old girl. I questioned him about the motivational problems this creates. Then a girl asked me if I was in the Clash.

In other news, this should not come as a surprise. Nor should this. It boggles the mind when you think about how the provincial government is letting compainies are get away with this bulshit. Our generation’s DDT, but way harder to rectify. How do you go about cleaning up 130 square kilometers of toxic sludge? Will the tax payer get the bill when they decide to infill the tailings ponds and plop Wall Marts or a suburbs on them?

Anyways, there’s lots of sick teachers. I’ve been getting calls for work all night and have almost filled up my next two weeks. This is good, but I’ve got to get some sleep because I’m starting to get grumpy, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Ok, check this blog out. It’s funny in a LOLcats sort of way.

Ugh. Today was rough. It snowed like crazy last night and I couldn’t find the school this morning. I showed up during homeroom and found out it was grade 7’s. What a wiley bunch they were too. Completely off the handle. To make things worse, I had no coffee this morning and felt like a zombie all day. There was some coffee at the school, but it was terrible. I had half a cup with a spoonful of white sugar and a wicked heartburn ensued.

During my prep, I scored a quick catnap which helped a bit. At lunch, one of the special needs girls sung me a couple Christmas carols, then we looked at a book full of aboriginal art. She was sad because she lost her bag at the beginning of the day.

After lunch the 7’s were dogpiling on a couch while I was playing a movie. They were loud and I had a headache. I sent one girl out to the hall for being irritating and pretty much just had to grin and bear it until the end of the day. Holidays are right around the corner and I know they’re just excited.

I’m working at the pub tonight as I signed up for a shift a couple months ago that I completely forgot about until today. It should be alright though, apparently just some fratboy battle of the band thing. I’m looking forward to a few sips of wine.

The benefit we played this weekend raised $1200 to buy recording gear for some Cuban musicians. A friend of mine is going down there this week to drop stuff off and discuss the possibilities of tour swaps between them and some Canadian bands. It’s a neat effort. The actual show was really fun. It was the second with the revamped lineup and the new tunes were well received. My favorite part was watching a dude in the headlining band play who is a mechanic by day and my rock and roll hero by night.

Work on friday was alright. High School social studies all day. Two of the classes were for students just scraping by. Half the class didn’t even bother showing up. In one of them, we talked a bit about the proposed coalition government and some of the kids weighed in with how “gay” they think Stefan Dion is. The same kid also asked me if I wanted to buy his car, then put an listing of it up on the blackboard for me to erase during lunch-break. Also, there was a girl who thought she was a vampire or something and tried to weird me out by convincing me she drank blood. There’s attention seekers in every class and I find that when I don’t acknowledge the dumb thing they’re doing to stand out, they revert back to being fairly normal and we get along rather well. There was another kid who smelled really funny and knew more about Canadian history then anyone I know.

Last week, I think I worked 60 hours between the restaurant and subbing. I’m burning out a bit, but I’m on holidays in two weeks so it’s just a matter of “hammering down”, as a friend of mine likes to say. It will be worth it when I get my first decent paycheque next week. I have plans to invite some friends to the restaurant after hours and supply some champagne to some people who’ve propped me up for the longest time.

I got home last night too burned out to blog. After I worked, I headed straight over to two band practices as my old band is getting ready to demo some new material and my new band is rehearsing for an upcoming benefit show. When I finally arrived home I couldn’t wait to get into bed and crash. Did I ever too, I slept for 10.5 hours, uninterrupted since there were no calls for work this morning. Maybe it was my day, or the class of bikram yoga I attended the night before (see: the whitest thing I’ve ever done).

Anyways, it was another really good day teaching. This time I was covering in a grade 5/6 split class at an inner city elementary school. It was the first time I’ve had a teaching assistant in class, which was also an indicator that I was going to have my hands full as far as classroom management was concerned. The sub plan was also very extensive, and it was the first time I would be working with one class though out the whole day.

I met the kids at the main doors and brought them to the classroom. Apparently the school only has one male teacher (who I was covering for) and the students were intreagued by my presence. I took attendance and we got right into it. I was supposed to start the day by reading them selections from a book and I figured that a good way to build up some quick repore would be to involve a few of them in the story. That and I’m not the greatest when it comes to reading aloud. So I asked for a couple of volunteers to do the voices of two characters in the book and a bunch of hands shot up. It was a good strategy, it made reading fun and the kids were totally into it.

From there we moved into a Language Arts period where we defined words like “citizen” and “society”, used them in sentences, then I attempted to illustrate them in front of the class. When I asked the class to use the word “represent” in a sentence, one girl told me that “(I) like to represent flowers”. How does one represent flowers? Regardless, I tried my best to illustrate myself representing flowers. During this period I was constantly moving kids around the class, trying to determine which seating arrangement would work best for the day. There was a super hyper kid beside a kid with F.A.S. that kept hitting each other and messing around. I would later find the second kid incredibly hard to manage and kept on having to send him to the classroom across the hall where he would reflect on his bad behavior then return. I found sending him out periodically for a drink of water helped him concentrate, and he was able to work as long as he wasn’t distracted.

In math class we worked on factors and prime numbers. One boy was way ahead of the others in math. His assignments were complete 5 minutes after I gave them to him and I kept on having to look for new questions for him to work on. He also schooled me on prime division. I ended up partnering a bunch of kids up because I wasn’t able to get around as much as was needed. This kept them on task, though I couldn’t believe they were expected to sit there and do math for 80 minutes.

During lunch, I rocked the outdoor supervision. A bunch of kids told me they didn’t have touques or mitts. It was -20. Another girl, when asked what she had on her ipod, told me it was music you didn’t need to yell, laugh or throw tomatoes at. I spent the rest of the time dodging kids playing spiderman or warewolf or something.

After lunch, I taught a science class where kids worked on their environmental message posters. Most of the kids focused on recycling. One girl’s poster really impressed me as it was all about space junk. I talked to her about it a bit and was really surprised by her awareness of the subject. I told her she did a really good job. Then she told me that she had three Dads and two Moms because her Dad left her. I didn’t really know how to follow that one up. In my head I was going “shit kid, harsh times”, but my mouth said something along the lines of how I had two Dads and it wasn’t so bad.

Next a lady came in and gave a presentation about trades and careers. Her deal was trying to motivate kids to stay in schools where over 15% of the population is aboriginal. I saw the point, but thought it was a bit over their heads. I enjoyed hearing what they wanted to be when they grow up. There was one boy who was messing around during the presentation. I took him aside for a one-on-one to get him back into things. I can’t remember how it came up, but it turns out were were both in Ghana last summer. After that conversation I had no other management issues with him.

For the rest of the day, the kids clowned around bit things went pretty smoothly. I really enjoyed being their teacher and I found the whole elementary school experience really great. The kids were really awesome and for the most part, pleasant to be around. Even when they were being dumb. I guess the biggest difference was attitude and how it was easy to get them interested in something. Elementary kids, I also discovered, are easily motivated by rewards or threatening to take fun-time away. Smarties work well to get that social studies work completed.

At the end of the day a bunch of kids asked if I’d be back. I always hate telling them that I don’t know. You bond with these little guys and just like that, you’re gone and who knows if you’ll see them again. Some of the teachers told me that they really need more guys in elementary because a lot of the kids there didn’t have very good male role models. Then I read about how 1 in 6 kids here live below the poverty line. Then I read about how poverty affects the way the brain works. Then I decided to try to take more elementary shifts when they come up.

Things have been fairly quiet around my neck of the woods for the past few days. I worked with N. a few nights back, the first time since we carved those pumpkins. He was wondering where I was, I told him I’ve been busy. His Mom would like me in more, but there’s no way I can swing it with the work I’ve got lined up for me these days. As it stands, though I enjoy hanging out with him, his location is a pain in the butt and the hours aren’t that great. This all makes me want to cease working with him at all, but I don’t want our relationship to be seen in retrospect as means to an end so I’m going to hold out as long as I can.

Today I subbed for a math teacher who had taken on TWO student teachers. I didn’t really have a lot to do. I managed the class a bit, but they pretty much had the students under crontrol. It was in a school I’ve been at before and I enjoyed the fact that I had my bearings before I even arrived and already knew a few students by name.

Also, I just received my first paycheque from teaching.

$176.

I no longer have an overdraft at my bank.