Superiors for the orchestra!

I began an long term sub job for a middle school orchestra teacher, who had a baby on February 16, on Monday, February 13. There were 168 students that I saw every day, with five classes. The beginner 6th graders grew quickly to like me and my sheep and were learning and getting better on their instruments. Several of them really liked me and were sad when I finished the assignment on Monday, April 9.

The advanced orchestra class second period were getting ready to go to festival, so we spent most of our time each day perfecting the music, "Ships of Ireland" and Serendipity Suites. There were a couple of students in this class with attitudes and most of them I won over with kindness and asking them to help me. All but one girl, who was majorly Miss Attitude. We would be in the middle of playing the pieces, she would stop playing and raise her hand, and sit there with her hand raised for five minutes or more, and when I finally asked what her question was, she wanted to know about the trip to Disneyland, of which I had NO Knowledge about since it was happening in May. I even told her numerous times that I didn't know about the trip to Disneyland in May, but she kept asking!

On Thursday, March 29 I was at the school at 6:30 a.m. (a 30 minute drive from my house every morning and night) to load the students and their instruments on the buses. The regular teacher, Mrs. Crow, also came with her new baby and led the students in the warm up, the sight reading and two of the selections in the suite, then I took the podium and led the other two suite pieces and the Ships of Ireland music. They did great, though they didn't play with the gusto that we had practiced in class. They were nervous.

I was more nervous. I knew if they didn't get superior ratings they would blame me when in reality it was all them. But thankfully, just before they had their pictures taken and I took these shots, Mrs. Crow told me they had earned all superiors. She told me I should put that on my resume! I have taught and directed an orchestra for seven weeks and earned them the highest scores!

The only minus in my entire time there was one poor sad misplaced eighth grader who treated me with rudeness such as I have never experienced in the classroom. The second day I was there he told me that I was "...the worst teacher ever and I could teach the class better than you can." Oh, really, I asked. How long have you been playing the cello? Two and a half years. And every day after that he challenged whatever I said, used his cell phone and refused to give it to me, told the administrators that he had no idea why I kicked him out of class that day, and on and on. I was NOT missing him on Tuesday when Mrs. Crow returned to the class and I got to go home a day earlier than the sub system had me lined up for.

My counsel: when doing long term sub jobs for teachers, make sure they return your emails and phone calls at least once a week. Yah, right!