This Week At School

... was the last week of school!

There wasn't a whole lot to do this last week of school.  I would have had my students present their debate topics in the process of an actual debate but they were doing very little in all their other classes it just wasn't working out for them to get much accomplished in ELA.  We did do a couple of them informally though.

I went for many walks to the local 711 with my students.  When one girl walked out with an extra large slurpee announcing that her mom doesn't even let her get a medium I told her that if her mom happened to find out about the size of slurpee she decided to purchase that she should just tell her mom "but mom, you don't let me get mediums"

I even found time to squeeze in a half day personal day in this last week.

I helped teachers stuff report card envelopes.

I helped a new teacher start the process of setting up her classroom.

And on Friday I got appreciated at a staff lunch because I won't be there next year.

For those of you wondering... as it stands currently I don't have anywhere to be next year.  Hopefully a lovely grade 4-6 position opens up in a lovely school that I manage to snag soon... hopefully it's also permanent because then the classroom is actually mine.  Boy would it feel great to have my very own classroom where all my teaching stuff can just stay for forever instead of always having to come home with me at the end of every school year.

But anywho, I hope all the teachers reading this have a lovely and well deserved break... and remember... I'm available to sub for you!

How I Get Teaching Jobs

I'm not sure how it is where you reside but where I do it's not too easy to land yourself a teaching job.  I blame the fact that we have 3 universities here with education programs which means we get way too many graduates looking for jobs than there are jobs available.

Anyways, I have now held terms in 3 different school divisions and 1 private school.  In total I've had 6 terms... and nothing permanent.  So how did I get those 6 terms?

2 of them I interviewed for and was the best candidate for the job in the principals mind... those would be my position as a grade 4 teacher and my short term as a phys-ed teacher.

1 of the jobs I got because I was finishing up a term in the school and was available to start a new term.  The principal knew I had applied for the position and gave it to me.. this was the year I taught grades 5/6.

The other 3 terms that I got simply by being in the right place at the right time.

The first of these was a term I did teaching kindergarten.  The teacher was sick and just kept booking me for another full week every Friday... eventually it went so long that the division had to offer me a term contract.

The second time was last year when I taught basic French.  I had been subbing in the school frequently and one day the vice principal just asked me if I had any experience teaching French.  Luckily for me I had taken a teaching French program at a local university a couple of summers (and had previously taught grade 5 French) and so I had enough experience for the job.

Finally, this term I got by answering my phone and accepting a subbing job that was supposed to last just 9 days.  It was pure luck that the subfinder system had called me as I had never been at this particular school before and that no one else had accepted the job prior to me.

I have no idea what the likelihood of getting a teaching job in other provinces/states/countries are but where I live it's fairly difficult.  There are probably a lot of us that are fairly "seasoned" subs... my advice to you... do your very best as a substitute because there are people watching and you never know when your next term will come from.

Fortnite

Last week I mentioned the oh so popular "flossing" dance move and how I can't stand it but you know what else is popular (and unfortunately will likely still be popular in September unlike my prediction with flossing)... Fortnight.

Apparently you can play it on your cell phone which is why I suspect it's so popular.... if you don't NEED a gaming console then that means all these kids can play it at school... and boy do they ever!

Every morning when I walk down the halls (before school starts) they are playing it, at lunch playing it, during class... talking about it, and after school.. still playing it.

Luckily for me my students are so concerned with me getting in on this awesome new game that they've offered to help me when I start playing it.  I can join their troops and they'll give me stuff... or something along those lines.. I have no intention of playing it so it's not all that important what they are giving me.

This Week At School

Before I tell you about this week at school can we just take a moment to appreciate that we are officially down to our last week of school here!  4 more days with students and one inservice day and then I'm officially on summer break!  So... if I happen to not post anything at all that first week of July it's because I'm taking some time to enjoy my first week off (plus, it's my birthday that week) but the posts will continue after that!

Anywho... this week at school

I put the kids into groups and we started practicing debates.  We've been using this book and the short "articles" in it are perfect for my class... especially since the iPads at the school have been super unreliable so this way they all have a bit of research sitting in front of them ready to go.  The plan is to present out debates next week BUT.... I'm getting the morning off from school on Monday which leaves only a couple of other days as possibilities... so we'll probably just play games in ELA instead.

I took my students to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.  If you've never been you really should go.  I'm not sure I would ever arrange a field trip there again though... only because it's a lot of walking and reading (although also very interactive)... you just need to have a class of students that is all interested in that sort of stuff otherwise you'll have a handful that spend the day complaining and I am just not all about that on a field trip!  Anyways, if you are planning on visiting here (or live here) the museum is actually free to get into the first Wednesday of every month after 5pm.  4 hours will not be enough to get through the whole museum but you'll certainly learn a lot!

I played some Settlers of Catan one day with some grade 8 students.  I was supposed to be helping out on a walk to Tim Horten's but this class needed some coverage so I may not have gotten my ice cap but the trade off wasn't too bad.

Friday we had some awards in the morning and then spent the entire afternoon outside.  Luckily the rain held off until I made a mad dash to my car after school but the heat certainly did not.  It was likely sitting around +35 all afternoon.  But the kids were troopers and at the end of the afternoon the schools Rock Band put on an outdoor performance for us which was kind of cool (fun fact: my classroom was right beside the room where the rock band practiced so I could often hear them practicing through the walls... and I didn't mind it).

We had our final TUSC meeting.  It was actually the first couple of periods before we left on our field trip and about 10 or so students didn't make it to school that day because they weren't going on the field trip.  So the meeting ran relatively smoothly.  One of my students had been requesting I do one of the speeches so I came with some banana cookies to tell them about and to share with the class.  On Friday one of the boys who wasn't there the day of the meeting insisted on doing his which was making protein shakes.  He said they were good for muscle repair after a hard workout so he made everyone that wanted one do a single push up.

All in all it was not too shabby of a second to last week of school.

BUT... I'm REALLY looking forward to my summer break!