Do you mind substituting for Mr. XYZ today? Oooohhh...

How many times has somebody come up to you in the morning and asked you this question, "Excuse me, Ms. ABC... Could you substitute for Mr. XYZ today after recess?" Hopefully not too often...
Now, how many times have you said, "No?" Hhmm...

As much as we'd like to stay on schedule and be with our students, some things are just out of our control--bad cough, sudden fever, sick child, unpaid water bills, car wreck, and many more (hopefully not because of plain laziness to get up and drive to school, hehehhe...). When this happens to a colleague, somebody has to step up and still make things happen in class. That's where a substitute teacher comes in...

In some schools, they have designated substitute teachers on call, but in other places, they have to rely on each other. Every now and then, I get asked to substitute for a teacher. Now, I generally don't have a problem with being a substitute teacher, if and only if, I know the students and the materials. But often you get asked to substitute in a class that is known for its oddly annoying behaviors and is insanely rowdy, right? And to top that off, the absent teacher leaves no materials for the kids. So, what to do now?

I often hear that students don't respect a substitute teacher and it can be a nightmare for teacher. So the first thing I'd do is to get the students' respect first and foremost!

• I always carry these items with me to the class I substitute: a marker, something to write with, and a quiet chime!

Who to blame when students say "I don't like studying!"?

I've been telling many people that I'd like to go back to school one day. There's something about being in school that I miss... But I'm not going to lie, the moment I realize how much work I'd have to do when I start wearing my "student" hat, laziness kicks in--I don't like studying that much... :p

As an adult who has had a taste of school both as a student and as a teacher, I cant agree more with my students when they say that studying is hard! Whenever I said to my parents that things were getting too hard and confusing at school, they always said "Well, if studying is easy, what's there to challenge you? It'll be boring! Life isn't easy, you know... So toughen up!" Ok, just like many wisdom words said by my parents, I agree... Life is hard, and being in school was like being a boot camp to prepare me to face the hardship of life.

What bothers me the most is when I hear students say that they don't like studying! Why do students say this to us?

Teaching prop - Part 1: Things I must carry to class

I can never understand how a teacher can ONLY bring a textbook and a marker to their classroom, because that will never be me! Ask anybody who has seen me in action, they'll say that I should have a trolley to replace my enormous tote bags full of papers, markers, magnets, pens, and many more...

When I go to class, here are the things that I must carry:

• My one and only folder where I keep my lesson plans, notes where I scribble down ideas, my teaching schedule that I personalize, and class lists,
• A copy of whatever textbooks my class is using,
• Color-coded folders designated for each class I teach. In each of these folders, I keep all worksheets and other students' work. Every time I make copies of worksheets, I immediately separate them into the-many-number-of-classes-I-have and put them in their respective folder. And since they're color-coded, I won't have any trouble identifying which folder to bring to class! 

Reviewing materials for exams - Part 1: Soccer match in class!

My students always ask that we play games in class to review materials prior to exam week. Basically, they'd like to do something fun, involves little writing, yet helps them review the materials. Thanks to the creative and generous teachers out there, I have made some review games using Microsoft Power Point. However, I often became one of those unlucky one teachers and didn't get an LCD projector so there goes my plan on playing games I spent hours making...

Using the same review questions, my students and I had a fun "Soccer Match" in the class, and here's what to do:

You need:

• a dice (preferably the fuzzy dice so won't rolled away easily when thrown around in the class)
• a picture of a soccer field drawn on the board (see example-1)
• a magnet (I like to paste a picture of a soccer ball onto the magnet so it feels like a "real" soccer match)
• small pieces of papers with numbers (as many as the number of students in one team x 3 sets)
• a list of review questions. I usually make questions that elicit short answers (definitions, examples, list of reasons/characteristics, etc.)

Kids love games - Part 1: Conversation Cards

How many times have you played Human Bingo on the first day of class? I think Human Bingo is a quick and simple way to get the ball rolling as it allows students to get to know each other and lets them move around to get rid of some of the nervousness.

Since Human Bingo is only designed to be a starter, I was looking for an activity where students can have extended conversations and learn about their classmates in greater depth. I wanted to do something fun, yet well-structured at the same time while giving plenty opportunity for the students to talk and listen to each other.

I thought of typing a list of questions, print them on small index cards, and randomly assigned the cards to the students, but I have done that too often by now. So using the same idea, I decided to use a deck of cards as a tool!

I call it: Conversation cards

• Depending on the grade level of the students and time allotment, make a list of questions consisting of min. of 13 questions (# of cards in a suit) for your students to ask each other.
• Assign each question to the cards in the deck (see example of questions). You could make as little as 13 questions and as many as 52 questions. 

Student: We're like passengers here...

I couldn't stop thinking what my student said this morning, that she thought that they're (students) like passengers of a bus--"We don't stay here for long because someday we get off and move on..."
Is that so?

For the past couple of meetings, my students and I have been talking about the tentative times of when they would return to their country. I might have mentioned this in my previous note, at the moment I am teaching a group of spouses of graduate students of UPitt and CMU as well as wives of employees of multi-national companies in Pittsburgh. One of them has decided her departure date and I can tell that she has mixed emotions about leaving.

These spouses, including myself, know that living in Pittsburgh has never been a permanent thing, at least not for now. And we all know that someday, we all have to pack and say goodbye to Pittsburgh, a place where we all learned how to survive away from our family and close friends.