Unexpected pathways

When you supply these days, you have to not only be flexible with your assignment expectations, but also with your presumptions about the physical tools of the trade and preparedness of the lesson. Many a time I have accepted a position for a friend or colleague under the presumption of subject X, only to discover on arrival that it has changed to subject Y, more often than not well exceeding my scope of expertise. If one wishes to survive in today's classrooms, Uber flexibility in anticipated behavioural norms, resource access, and motivation levels are par for the course.

Case in point, I returned to my little country school to help out in a senior science class that I've previously visited numerous times this fall, fully expecting a period of exam review as per the teacher's supply notes ... YES, they still write exams in this class but they take place in December under today's structure ... but the class discussion circuitously segued into a debate about the ethics surrounding the proper cooking technique of lobster, the mouth-watering holiday anticipations of a student in the class.

Author's Note: The overwhelming favourite manner of preparation for whole, live lobster is steaming, for a few reasons: you're less likely to overcook lobsters when steaming, the entire cook time is shorter and the process of cooking and removing the lobsters from the pot is a lot easier. Lobsters and other shellfish have harmful bacteria naturally present in their flesh. Once the lobster is dead, these bacteria can rapidly multiply and release toxins that may not be destroyed by cooking. You therefore minimize the chance of food poisoning by cooking the lobster alive, but it is generally agreed that electrical stunning before killing of lobsters is the most humane and effective method as it renders them immediately insensible before death which then occurs within seconds. Plunging them into boiling water, freezing them or 'drowning' them in fresh water would be considered inhumane to many.

Not to be out done by the Great Lobster Debate, the conversation astoundingly leap-frogged into the oft postulated mountain plane crash scenario, with its ethical conundrum surrounding the consequences of survival if the crash didn't cause your demise. Of course, it makes perfect sense to leap from the delicacy of lobster to the horrors of cannibalism, doesn't it? Want to take a deep dive into the consciousness of today's teen? Get them talking about a subject that will quickly form dissension in the ranks and let them have at it. Bearing in mind that most of the class is yet to reach their "I can vote now" age, they have some profoundly deep and passionate opinions about ethical issues, and some profoundly brilliant arguments revealed themselves.

In case you're wondering, the straw vote tallied on the side of doing something unpalatable in order to survive long enough for help to arrive ... easy to say when you're sitting in a warm classroom in Ontario!

In the end, I'm not naive enough to think that this was all thanks to my pedagogical brilliance bringing out their divergent thinking skills, but rather their thinly veiled attempt to avoid doing that exam review their teacher left. Rest easy, that didn't stop me from having an enjoyable afternoon with kids that I've come to enjoy. 

As I've stated so many times since retiring, "I truly love teaching, but I simply can no longer stand education, and supply teaching lets me do exactly what I love!"

#ieducate #lifeisgood #nuffsaid