Teaching What you Don't Know

I've already told you about the time I became the go to French Music teacher and the time I became a violin substitute. But I also do not know much about a high school computer class. Especially when they are doing fancy things (which they almost always are).

So this teacher is in a grade 5-9 school and I naturally assume going in that I'll be teaching something normal like math or social studies but no no no... that is only a small part of the job. The majority of the day is computer class.

I should also say this school was located in one of the more well to do areas of the city and so all the kids had cell phones or iPods and had a way to sneakily work their way around the schools security system to access Facebook all class.

I should also say that since it was grade 9 students I basically blended right in with them.

So they are all in Computer class with their cells under the tables and on Facebook. I know all of this and my way around it is usually "oh that's cool what you are doing right there, can I just see you mouse for a second" and then close out of whatever program/website they are using that they should not be.

But grade 9's are scary and this was in my first year as a substitute teacher.

So instead, of fighting them all day on it, I let it happen writing down all the usernames of students who were not working on the assignment (which let's be honest was basically everyone).

At one point one kid even decides to print off what ends up being hundreds of pages of a website.

The teacher must have received my detailed note about how horrible computer class went and what does he do?

He keeps inviting and requesting me back every day he cannot be there.... and I keep accepting because let's face it I'm new to the game and need all the jobs I can get.

It wasn't terrible but it did make me look poorly on some of the students...

When I asked them to do their work they said they didn't need to because their parents would or it didn't matter what marks they got because they wouldn't have to really work.

Sometimes I think that the presents may get bigger and more expensive when you work in a school in a well to do area but I think the kids are just so much more appreciative of you when you head to an inner school... Definitely not true of all students or schools. Just sometimes.