Today concludes the 1st school-year in which I was not employed in the education industry since 2005!
I was working in the education industry from May 2005 to May 2020. That's 15 years.
The bulk of that time was as a substitute teacher (May 2005 to December 2018) and within that time frame, I did some gigs as a summer program employee (2005 & 2006) and as a para-professional tutor working with students in Special Education programs. From January 2019 to May 2020, I was a Library Assistant at Kalākaua Middle School.
Spring 2020 was known as a time interrupted by the coronavirus crisis. Students were forced into distant learning with no on-campus services.
I left the library position at the end of the Spring 2020 semester. It wasn't like I was quitting school or library work forever. I just felt that me and the head librarian weren't a compatible team. Too much drama involved.
learn more at https://pwegesen.wixsite.com/kalakaua-ms-library
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2020/08/restrain-this.html
I did attempt to re-apply to work as a substitute teacher. I took the recertification course in September 2020. After the course, I did the job reapplication paperwork. I heard nothing from the Department of Education until February 2021. They wanted another round of paperwork. By then, I already found another job working in fashion retail and I was satisfied with the position, so I decided to tell the DOE "thanks but no thanks". Plus, I heard from someone who is still working as a substitute teacher that there wasn't much work available this semester due to distance learning.
So here I am, just finishing my 1st school-year in which I am not working at a school since 2005.
What I miss and don't miss
I do miss working with the well-behaved students. I miss it BIG TIME! I miss sharing my knowledge with them. I miss learning new trends, new slang, and other new stuff from them that I otherwise wouldn't know. I even sometimes miss the silly stuff that they do. Many of them so filled with joy for life that some people my age have lost!
I also miss working with some wonderful teachers, assistants & others in the school. They taught me about the profession, how to better interact with students, about the community they're in, and just about life in general. I'm still in contact with some of them on social media.
However, I don't miss the badly behaved students, the mockery, the tantrums, the disrespect. I see little kids throwing tantrums at their parents while shopping and I'm thinking "thank goodness I'm not dealing with that anymore".
I also don't miss working with diva-like characters that work in the schools. It's not just the head librarian. Some schools' office staff seem to have no joy and take it personally when you question them. Some teachers seem to view substitutes as inferior beings. Some administrators even expect perfection from substitutes despite us having to assert our authority over students who we never met before and view us as just another stranger bossing them around.
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The Distance Learning Era
I'm so glad that I'm not conducting distance learning lessons. I believe that the best education comes from having a guide on the side. You can only explain so much over the computer, it's easier to show the students in person.
News reports claim that some teachers have retired or quit out of fear of catching the virus. I don't doubt those claims, but I also think some teachers left the industry because they feel "too obsolete" to conduct distance learning with technology they don't even understand. When I was working as a Library Assistant, I had to assist some of the teachers with their inventory of classroom books. Some of them are computer illiterate. Most of those are from a generation that didn't learn computer skills while they were in school. It reminded me of when I was a substitute teacher in a preschool class, and I heard an older teacher telling her younger assistants "you guys are lucky you learned computer skills in school, my generation had to learn this as adults".
During the Spring 2020 semester, when school was interrupted by the coronavirus crisis, some of the older teachers struggled with distance learning. Some of them admitted they've never used social media before, rarely ever used the internet. And now they're expected to teach over the computers like experts. I don't blame them if they got so frustrated that they're like "that's it, I'm too obsolete to effectively teach students in this era, I quit!".
It's a possibility some felt that this pandemic era was a wake-up they needed to start embracing 21st-century technology.
It was also interesting that 2 of the teachers who were loudmouths in the teacher's lounge were relatively quiet in the teleconferences. It seemed like they too were so new to doing things online but didn't want to lose alpha-male status by admitting it.
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Self-reflection on my education career
I admit that when I started working as a substitute teacher, I didn't have the proper maturity for the job. On one hand, I tried to be "the cool teacher" who made jokes and used profanity in class. On the other hand, I didn't want to be seen as "soft" so I sometimes yelled with full-blown rage! All of that nearly ended my substitute teaching career when it barely started!
The "cool teacher" nonsense faded away fast when I realized it reduced my credibility when trying to assert authority to stop misbehavior. So I developed a more serious side, which isn't always easy to do when some students say "you're always smiling". But a serious side is very important in that you have to set the tone immediately. You have to show that education is serious business!
As for the anger, it didn't totally go away, but I've learned some level of self-control over the years. Most of the time, you just have to approach the student in a quiet manner to remind them to behave properly. Most of the time, that works well. Walking and monitoring the situation usually work wonders.
However, there are always students that think that following rules is for "wimps, nerds, and dorks", or that basic rules are "oppressive". And of course, some just get the joy of humiliating teachers in front of everyone.
I think most of my anger was when students insist on interrupting when I was speaking to the entire class. Also, if I'm trying to politely redirect the class for at least 44 minutes. Once you yell in the 45th minute, everyone will start acting as if the previous 44 minutes never happened. I can't say that showing anger should be totally eliminated, but I do know that I showed my anger too many times.
I definitely appreciated the advice on learning to be calm & stern from the former recreation director at the summer program I used to work for
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2020/08/positive-work-mentors-summer-program.html
However, Vince was there to guide me in how to best handle situations. Vince told me that yes I have to be stern, but I also have to be calm.
That took a lot of practice. It's not something you can fix overnight.
I have definitely improved on that over time.
Vince also emphasized that you have to keep the students busy because any downtime is a time when they can get out of control really fast. After all, kids aren't good at staying still.
I wasn't really good at coming up with new activities, but Vince showed me some games I do with the students while they are waiting for the next activity.
Since then, I have learned some funny stretches to do when the students are waiting forever for the next activity to set up, or when they are waiting for the bell to ring.
and
When I mentioned the issue to Vince, he told me "tell him 'thanks for your concern, but ..............'"
In other words, Vince was teaching me how to be diplomatic.
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After the summer was over, I went back to being a substitute teacher. Again, this was all new to me. Crazy situations that tested my patience. Situations I never dealt with before. Situations that I witnessed something similar as a kid but now have to take the lead and handle it as an adult.Sometimes, I would visit Palama Settlement and if Vince was there, I would tell him about the situations I was facing as a substitute teacher in the DOE. Vince himself was a former DOE teacher so he's been there.
and there's more to the story at https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2020/08/positive-work-mentors-summer-program.html
I've learned the best way to assert authority is to be in total serious mode at the start of class. Introduce myself, take attendance, and go over the plans.
And talking about attendance, that is always a major struggle for substitute teachers being that we try to pronounce names we've never seen before. Some are traditional names from other cultures, while others are non-traditional creatively spelled names. Some students laughed at mispronunciations while sometimes half-the-class yell out the correct pronunciations. I tell the students "I only want to hear from the student whose name has been called, after all, it's his/her name, not yours."
It was only later in my career (and I really wished I did this when I started) that I realized the best practice when seeing an unfamiliar name is to say "I'm going to spell out the name and I only want to hear from that student". Then the student will tell me how to pronounce it. Sometimes, I have to ask again later on because it's hard to remember the names of 30+ students that I never met before.
And the thing is, I of all people should know because my last name gets mispronounced being that it is not a common name in Hawaii. Especially when people are not sure if the "g" in "Wegesend" is pronounced as a j-like sound (like giant) or a hard-g sound (like grass). For the record, the "g" in my last name sounds like the "g" in grass.
Being that my last name isn't easy to pronounce I usually just introduce myself by saying "my name is Mr. Pablo Wegesend, you can call me Mr. Pablo or you can call me Mr. Wegesend, either one is fine with me". They usually just call me "Mr. Pablo", but I always give options in case they're accustomed to using last names.
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