Subbing at Tate, last Thursday and Friday

I subbed at the alternative High School in Iowa City last week, and had some strange lesson plans left for me. The teacher instructed me to have the students play Monopoly in each class.

I haven't played Monopoly in years. I re-read the rules, and realized that I had played with a variety of house rules that corrupted the game a little. We played with some of the fast-play rules, with each player starting off by buying two randomly dealt properties.

I don't have a lot to say about these games. A fifty minute class period is not nearly enough to get a good estimation of the winner of a game of Monopoly. There is a little more thought in this game than what I remembered from my childhood plays, but not much. The kids picked up pretty quickly, for the most part, on just aquiring property. It seemed like we barely got to the end of the early game in the time allotted. Few houses were purchased, nobody went bankrupt. Playing time alone will keep me from ever owning this game, unless I inherit one or something. With this particular group of kids, the games were certainly worthwhile, giving them practice being patient, taking turns, following rules, etc.. Not to mention counting money.

Friday afternoon is supposed to be physical education time. However, three of the teachers were missing for various reasons, so the school opted for inside activities, like movies, art projects, and the like. I ended up playing poker with one of the other subs and a group of kids.

I've never played a lot of poker. The only game I really have an idea about playing is hold 'em. This was basically a silly pastime, as we had limitless chips that were all the same denomination, and had a very limited amount of time to play. When everyone will play on almost every hand, you might as well just roll dice and see who gets high, low, whatever. We played dealer calls, and ended up with a funny variety of games/wild cards/etc.. The kids did learn some minor lessons about proper play, and about ettiquette, which, I suppose, is good.

I wish I could get more sub assignemnts that involved playing games, with the caveat that I would hope that those lessons would include better educational links between the game and the subject. It's hard to manage a class when they believe that what they are doing is a simple, nigh-pointless time-filler.