Thursday of last week went really well. The students were engaged, active, and asking questions. We talked about ballads, and I wrote some facts about ballads in our big ballad spiral notebook (I love using visuals). I began the lesson by talking about their own "small moment" stories. We talked about the word embellish, and the funniest part of the lesson was when the kids got to embellish my shared story about being interviewed for a job this summer. The lesson carried over into this week, when we talked about historical fiction as a way of embellishing the true facts of history to create an interesting story.
The Bad News now: Substitute teachers are such a downer! I mean, I know it's tough to come into a classroom as a new person, but you have to at least treat the students with the dignity they deserve. I think the tension in the classroom escalated to a point I could not have foreseen. Fortunately the students recognized that this was just a different kind of teaching style (one that involves yelling and saying "Heads down!" a lot), and they weren't going to have to deal with it forever. I'm amazed that no one cried. We were able to move forward with the ballad project, and did a whole lesson on historical fiction. My read aloud got "cancelled" quite abruptly: Before I could even begin reading, the sub got so frustrated with certain students not listening to her directives that she ordered the whole class back to their seats to write her notes of apology.
I wish I could have said something, but I know that undermining the sub's power would not have been the solution. I just felt like such a pawn in this whole thing, and I hope I didn't do anything to make the day more unpleasant.
Anyhow, more happy news is: I had a great assignment for one of my Bank Street classes. We had to find books depicting a non-traditional family structure, so I picked Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley. It's wonderful! It's got beautiful watercolor illustrations and is set in Venice. There's an emphasis on the fact that men can be nurturing and still teach young children good lessons, especially curious children. Piccolo is a single father cat raising two kittens he adopted from off the street. Talk about non-typical! Single parent, male-headed, and adopted children.
I will leave you all with a comforting image, one that makes me feel better too:
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