Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Time Tests

I'm volunteering in Big Kid's class this year and his teacher has me helping the kids with math.

This is funny since my math abilities are near a second grade level.

What's not funny is how annoying these little bastards can be.

Every week, no one has a sufficiently sharpened pencil. I come in at 1:50...what do they write with prior to this? I have to make them do time tests in small groups, where they have 2 minutes to do 40 problems (these tests were the bane of my 2nd grade existence, so I feel for them) and at least half of each group tries to cheat by starting the test before I say they can. Then they deny that they have started when I call them out on it--I'm sitting right there, little cheaters, I can see you.

A couple of them just flat out don't listen. Ever. At all. They especially don't give a rat's ass about the 2 minute timed tests. When the teacher sees me trying to reason with them, she gives me this laughing "Do you see what I deal with?" smile--and doesn't intervene.

And I don't blame her because I only see them an hour a week and if I could escape them for that hour, I would too.

She's got to be medicated. How else could she stand it?

10 comments:

asnell said...

I was just telling a recess monitor today that the teachers at my sons' school must be hopped up on Xanax. There is no way they are sober all day.

I have 1st and 2nd grade boys. My once a week volunteering is enough to know that these people need BIG CHRISTMAS GIFTS!!

Jennifer said...

I can not even fathom being a teacher.

Bren said...

Can I say that in third grade I LOVED the timed math tests. It was the only thing I was really good at. I think the same thing about my three year old's daycare teachers. How do they stay so darn calm all day?? I go in at various times of the day to pick her up and have NEVER seen one of them even raise their voice above normal level!!

said...

As a teacher, here's the trick, you start out early on and decide what you're going to be a bitch about and what you aren't going to be. I can't stand all the getting up and sharpening pencils during the day. They have appointed times during the day to use the electric, any other time they have to use their manual at their desk (it's a stalling technique and they can smell your ineptitude). As for starting early, either be hard on it or ignore it but never try to reason with them or argue with them. You're the adult, they're the child. The last thing is, the key to not going insane on a daily basis is, you can't let the craziness of dealing with the kids bug you or take anything personally. I'd 10x rather deal with kids than their bitchy-ass parents or the horrible administration anyday. I can tell the kids (not in so many words) to sit down, shut up, leave me alone and give them busy work. Adults don't like that.

Anonymous said...

Why isn't the teacher doing the teaching? I get volunteering. I am the president of our PTA after all. But I'm certainly not in the classrooms, teaching the kids times tables. That is straight up weird.

Unknown said...

It's a special group thing they do once a week. I take them in groups of 4 or 7 and they do the time sheet and then we play a math game together. I'm not really teaching them anything, just trying to get them to pay attention and hustle for 2 minutes and then supervising an activity. There's only 1 or 2 wild ones in each group, thankfully--but that's more than enough.

Anonymous said...

Have them start with the papers turned over. It's much harder to cheat if you have to try and read the problems through the back of the page.

Unknown said...

It's a 2 sided test, so they just cheat on the opposite side if I tell them to turn it over. Next week I'm going to have them put their name and date on both sides of the paper (which I think is unnecessary anyway, but whatever) as soon as they get it instead of going through the whole name and date thing before we start each test. Or maybe I'll write their names on there so we'll just start straight away.

Or maybe I should just let them cheat. Who needs timed tests anyway?

AnastasiaBeaverhousen said...

@ Anonymous - parents in the classrooms is way more common than you think - with budget cuts and upped enrollments, our schools invite the parents in for the extra set of eyes and hands. It takes a village......

Does BK's school subscribe to "Everyday Math"? I definately do not love EM - I especially do not like looking like a dolt in front of my third grader.....

Jacqueline said...

For some things, parent volunteers make things possible that wouldn't be otherwise. Big Kid's teacher probably couldn't do timed tests as easily by herself (trust me- I do them with my cognitively impaired high school students several times a week- it's tough alone!!). I have no doubt she is very thankful for all of your help!!