The Student Becomes the Teacher

Posted by Ben , 21 June 2011 9:52 PM

Tonight was my first job as a certified substitute teacher for the Adult Education program of our local school district. That's right: I am now a substitute teacher for the state of Missouri.
Until tonight, I never realized how absolutely insane it is to drop a random substitute into a random class and somehow expect a normal educational expereince to be the result.
Let me give some background first...
I have been a volunteer tutor with the school district for the past eight months. Each week I spend an evening helping immigrants learn English and get ready for their citizenship exams. I guess I was doing a adequate job, since the school administrators invited me to apply for a substitute teacher position. I got hired for the position, did all the orientation and paperwork earlier this month, and just now just finished my first class an hour ago. It was a GED class held at the public library. I had 18 students, which was kind of a lot, since they all were working on something a little different. I also have never been to a GED class, so I was a bit clueless as to what I was even to do.

I decided to be perfectly honest and let everyone know I had never substituted for this type of class before. I think that worked. Only one person got up and walked out. It took the next fifteen minutes of class to get everyone settled and working on what they were supposed to be working on. But eventually I got the right tests to the right students and the right review packets handed out, and a studious quiet filled the room.

Of course, since this was at a public library, the experience could not have been complete without a four-and-a-half foot elderly woman coming into room and demanding we all leave the room immediately because her schedule specifically says the Red Room is reserved for the Historical Society Meeting tonight, and she was here for that meeting, and who gave me the authority to take the room? I let the librarians deal with it.
Apparently the GED class uses the Red Room every week, on the same day, at the same time, all year long. I would have thought the Historical Society would have record of that.

I really appreciate working with the Adult Education program. It is a really great experience to see so many people actively trying to better their lives. They just need to be given the opportunity. There were so many different people in all sorts of situations. There was a young teenage couple expecting their baby at the end of the year. There was a Mid Eastern woman working toward a certificate that will be recognized in the US (diplomas and degrees from foreign countries are rarely accepted in the US and must be repeated again here). There was a 40 year old woman who has worked at a law firm for the past decade who never got past tenth grade. There was a young man who didn't care about school until he decided he wanted to go to college and become a psychologist.
There was also an older gentleman who worked for two hours on math problems, figuring out how to subtract negative numbers. He left a half hour before I did. A mile away from the library I saw a woman pulling over to the side of the road to offer a ride to a man who was walking along the state highway. It was this man from class. It was more than 80 degrees out with Missouri humidity, and he must weigh at least 300 pounds. I don't think any of my classmates sacrifice as much for their graduate degrees as that man was sacrificing to study for his GED.

To top off the eventful evening, after cleaning up the classroom and putting all the materials away, I went into the men's room to wash my hands. But the restroom wasn't empty. There was a woman in there. Oh wait, did I say there was a woman in the men's bathroom. What I meant to say was two women in the men's restroom. I double checked for the urinal, and since it was there, I stayed. I have no idea why they were there, but they were just chatting away to each other about their kids and didn't say anything to me, so I washed up and left.

Well...that was my Tuesday evening. Feel free to leave any comments or thoughts below.

2 Response to "The Student Becomes the Teacher"

  1. THE ANALYST says:
    June 21, 2011 at 11:27 PM

    This is awesome/hilarious. I would love to attend your classes!

  2. Brandon Bishop says:
    June 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM

    I look forward to reading more. Who would have thought your experiences substitute teaching for a GED class could be so amusing!

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)