The 5th grade class…

Last month, the school sent us a very special invitation. We are looking for parents who would be willing to substitute for a teacher for an hour. We are planning a lunch to thank the teachers and we need to free them up.

I jumped at the opportunity. I’ve been talking to my girlfriend Edith Vaillancourt for a while about her profession and the challenges our teachers face on a daily basis.  Talking about it is easy. Giving advice is pretentious. Jumping in is interesting…

So this week, I prepared for my one-hour teacher experience.  I say one-hour teacher because I didn’t even dare to do the one-day teacher experience. I wanted to start with a very small dose.

I’m thinking about what I could do with a class of 23 5th graders. It’s a project that I think is important. I could be a simple proctor, tell them to open their math notebooks, do page 14-20 and give the instruction for those who are not able “put stars on the difficult numbers so your real teacher can explain them to you later”.  Yikes… it’s easier, but not really rewarding.

I don’t want to be a supervisor of a 5th grade class for an hour, I want to feel what an elementary school teacher really goes through, as much the positive and the passion as the negative and the difficulties of the concept of teaching, of passing on knowledge and manners. 

So I spent part of the week thinking, looking for an educational project that might be interesting.  I chose to give the children a one-hour lesson on “How to make cranberry bread” and I checked with the teacher to see if she agreed.

Last night I prepared my ingredients in bags. I wanted to make 3 recipes, enough for a snack to share for 23 kids. I planned to split the class into 2 groups, each responsible for one recipe and me doing the 3rd recipe as a demonstration.  I think this is a great idea.  Cooking is a bit of chemistry and applied math and you literally have to get your hands dirty. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s a really cool idea… in theory at least.

Arriving at school this morning, excited to pass on my passion for bread to 23 10-11 year olds, I walk into the classroom with my bowls, my jar of flour, etc.  I introduce myself. I had a little introduction that I thought was very good. We have a choice of doing 2 things: fractions or bread. Who wants to make fractions? Surprise, a quarter of the class wants to do fractions… Yikes, good thing 3/4 of the class is on my side… I thought everyone would think my idea was great…  First mistake, thinking that all the kids would agree with me.

We split the class in two.  I am comfortable. I have experience, I give conferences regularly, I lead workshops in clinical communication, I feel well equipped… Second mistake, children are not little adults… they are a different kind of bug.  I am not equipped to handle a group of 5th graders.  I ask that we move the desks to make a work space…. Third mistake, I should have left the classroom like this… The level of excitement is beyond my ability to manage, I feel like I’m losing control. The kids are talking louder and louder, laughing and not doing the simple task I asked them to do at all: move the desks and make a nice circle. I am trying to do group management, placing the desks along with doing the discipline and planning the rest of the activity. My little ER brain is overwhelmed. I am used to managing several files at the same time. Organized and structured files, yes. A fifth grade class, no.   It’s 9:15, I have 45 minutes left and the only thing I’ve done is separate the class into 2 groups and they each have a bowl. Damn, I’m running out of time!  Okay, let’s speed this up.   You choose a volunteer to come and get the ingredients.  Fourth mistake, not asking the kids to organize themselves… They start to argue about who is going to get the ingredients, “blah blah blah, no it’s my turn, no it’s me, you were first last time, can I go pee? I want to too, I just want to read sir, blah blah blah”

SILENCE!  I swear, I didn’t scream, I held it in. Well, take a deep breath.  You from group 1 are the ingredient guy and you from group 2. Come and get what you need.   Okay, no one talks without my permission. If you talk, you’ll go sit in the corner. Obviously, it doesn’t work, kids, to collaborate, they have to talk…. I’m losing credibility with each passing minute.  To give an example, I send one to the corner and he starts crying.  Shit! Okay, back to the group.

OK, let’s start from the beginning. Put your desks back like a regular classroom and everyone sit down.  It’s 9:30 and I’m not halfway through my 15-minute recipe…. However, I am back in control… or almost, say 90%. There are still 2-3 students that I have to constantly pick up, continually repeat to turn around and listen to the one-hour teacher who is no longer too credible.  It’s a good thing we don’t do fractions and that this project really interests the majority of the children!  Finally, I designate children in turn to come and assist me.  I explain the recipe, the role of yeast as a catalyst to transform flour into bread, we even do multiplications to find the quantities 2 cups of 250 ml makes 2×250 = 500 ml. We talk about hygiene, the importance of hand washing.  I manage to complete the recipe for the 3 pastas with the children, who are finally more engaged in the experience.  At 9:50, I ask the children to sit and read while I clean the classroom with 2 students who have volunteered.

At 10:00 am, Ms. Priscilla returns. The classroom is quiet and clean, the bread dough is rising. Everything seems to be under control, but I am completely exhausted.  Out of 60 minutes of “teaching”, I had to spend 40 minutes doing group management and discipline.  I came home and called my girlfriend to decompress. I made myself a cup of tea to reflect on this short, but very intense experience.

I survived 60 min in a 5th grade class at a good school and almost lost control a few times. I made several mistakes. I held myself back from screaming. I passed the test by the skin of my teeth. I learned a lot.  I came away with a HUGE amount of respect for the work of all the teachers.   To create a 60 minute learning experience for a 5th grade class, I had to invest half a day of my time. Imagine planning an entire day!

I have a message for all my friends and my friends’ friends: before you criticize the school, offer your time, go see what is going on in your child’s classroom, try to replace a teacher for 60 minutes. Be very grateful for our teachers who spend their days teaching and educating your children.

To all the teachers in kindergarten, elementary and high school, I say thank you.

Thank you for your passion,

Thank you for your patience,

Thank you for the evenings you spend planning educational activities,

Thank you for all the extras you don’t count,

Thank you for the love you give to our children,

It’s clear to me that you don’t do this for the pay, you do it for the love of this extraordinarily difficult but important profession.

Thank you!

Thank you to my friends. 

Original post Facebook, February 2020. The french version was shared over 20,000 times by readers.

This post was originally written in french and translated.