Friday, June 2, 2023
It was my last day of work today! I got a lot of comments about being brave to come to middle school on the last Friday of the school year – the last academic day of the year, since Monday is a roller-skating trip and Tuesday is field day. I was feeling confident, because I LEARNED last week! The teacher I was subbing for told me earlier this week that her classes would be working on writing their future selves letters – to be delivered in five years when they are about to graduate. I told her that I would be showing a movie while they worked. She shrugged and said to do whatever I had to do to get through the day.
My advisory class saw me clicking around on Disney+ before school started. They were loudly expressing their derision for everything that came up on the screen. I was a little concerned that only a movie that was disguised as educational would work its magic. I was going to do Pixar shorts, but then I saw Dug Days. Dug is the dog from UP and I love the shorts about Dug and Carl.
First hour started and I gave instructions. I said I was going to put Dug Days on as background – in case anyone finished early, or in case anyone needed a moment’s break to think. Ooooooo. That did not go well. There were calls for Cars 2 (the absolute worst of Pixar movies) and Space Jam and a myriad of other inappropriate movies. I just handed out the guidelines and started Dug Days.
A couple minutes later, it was silent. People were writing. A couple minutes later, a LOT of people were watching Dug. They were not writing. They were really watching Dug. The first one is only about 6 minutes long and as soon as the credits started to roll, everyone started writing. I switched over to Fantasia 2000. Writing continued. They didn’t know there was more than one episode of Dug Days. No complaints. After people finished, they were quietly making comments about Rapsody in Blue. It was a success.
In the rest of the classes, we watched all the Dug Days episodes. The one with pupppies is so cute. I watched and loved it four times. In the horrible class, nothing worked. We ended up with nothing playing. We ended up with kids going to the office. Oh, I say we because I had the regular team teacher there with me and I let him be the lead. It wasn’t too bad, though. Much better than expected, because I have subbed for him before and watched that class beat up the regular teacher.
In the middle of the last hour, a teacher came in with a giant frozen lemonade freezy pop and asked me if I wanted it. I sort of lamely pointed at the class and said, “I’m kinda doing something.” She shrugged and said, “Eat it in front of them.”
So I did.
It was really good.