Classroom to Classroom

I am starting to think that I need to start a new blog solely for the express purpose of documenting my days subbing. I feel like I shouldn't bring them all here every time, but they're really some of the more entertaining parts of my days.

Firstly, the classrooms alone can be quite fascinating, and I see it all, from the former sorority-girl teacher with bordered walls and framed posters, to the bareboned math teacher's class who is clearly only here to coach football but has giant life-sized Halloween monsters greeting you at the door inside. The brand-new elementary school teacher who has personalized everythings and degrees on the wall, to the messiest, ugliest, most unorganized classrooms that make me wonder how anything is ever taught to the kids. That's why this poster I found was so endearing. I was at King High School in Riverside and the room seemed really bare, but the vaulted ceiling also went up two levels, which didn't help. It was a man's classroom, and judging by awards and pictures and gifts, he was (or had been) a water polo coach, so of course certain ideas come to mind, but let me tell you... it was a science class so he had extra rooms for labs and storage and I noticed in a hidden corner there was an old, comfortable recliner that looked up onto this sweet poster on the wall. You think you know a person!

And some classrooms are the PE fields where I get to sit in the sun and watch the hikers on Mt Rubidoux

Yesterday I was in a middle school class and they had to take notes on a Biography Channel video documenting the 100 most influential people of the past millennium and it was super interesting. The video was longer than the classes so they never watched it the whole way through, but I finished it on my lunch because I was so interested in it, and it was amazing how both predictable and unpredictable the classes could be. When Marco Polo came up, someone took it upon themselves to yell "Marco!" and the rest of the class would answer "Polo!" in every. single. class. When it was William the Conqueror and they mentioned he was a "bastard son of a French duke" they all giggled uncontrollably and asked if they could write that down. Maybe I have been desensitized to the word from all of my Game of Thrones reading, but I said they could, that it was a fact, it was the true definition of the word, and as long as they used it in appropriate context, it was okay. When they introduced the next figure saying "he set sail..." everyone in every class would shout out "Christopher Columbus!" so immediately and so loud they didn't hear the rest of the sentence, that he set sail in 1519 (and wasn't in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue? They probably wouldn't have put that together anyway) and were all let down to find it was really Ferdinand Magellan. Everyone commented on the creepiness of Niccolo Machiavelli's face. By the end of the day I knew exactly what was coming and was just waiting for it.

But there was one class who really surprised me. Elvis Presley was announced on the video and someone knew that he died on the toilet. Someone shouted "he died on the toilet!" and someone answered "no, he died next to the toilet" and someone else "yeah, he slipped and just died next to it" and then someone else shouting out "he slipped on his poop!" and I accidentally laughed.

On a completely unrelated note, that teacher also had a cat skull in her cabinet.

Oh, and this is a great story of gossip. I was (happily!) in a high school French class earlier this week. Per usual, I would greet them and introduce myself in French, then ask them if I can speak to them in French (in French), ask if they can understand enough. The last French class I did that in looked at me open mouthed and didn't even understand that much, so I had to speak in English, but this class actually understood and did pretty well! They would even ask to use the restroom in French (which was also more than we ever did in my own high school classes), but as the class went on and they got more tired of trying, we pretty much ended up in English. They asked if I was from France, and I said nope, from right here in good ol' Riverside. They asked if my ethnicity was French and I said I didn't have a drop of French blood in me that I was aware of. They asked how I learned and I said I studied really hard in high school and college (only half a lie) and spent a year living there. By the end of the day, I was starting the last class, introduced myself, and I heard someone say "Oh yeah, she's from Paris and she doesn't speak any English" and I even stopped what I was saying to laugh and say "wait, what?!" that's what ended up becoming of my reputation. I guess it's better that than having gone the other way, like, I was gutter rat who learned French in a kitchen and only ate snails and baguettes. So, I'll take it.