Adventures in substituting - Year 1

Once I realized that I would definitely need a job in order to pay for school, I started looking at my options.  I needed something part-time, that wouldn't take me away from my kids at night, and give me the flexibility I needed as I wouldn't know what my schedule would be each semester.  I knew working retail was out....been there, done that!

I happened to be talking to one of my friends who mentioned substituting for the school district.  I found that I could work as much or as little as I wanted and that I could designate days that I would be unavailable for calls.  I also realized that this would allow me to be home when my kids were home, including weekends and holidays.  It would also allow me some classroom experience as I was wanting to be a teacher in the long run.

My very first job was substituting 4th grade half day in the afternoon was less than stellar.  I had a hard time keeping them in line and I had a few children that were blatantly disrespectful.  As I started to write my notes for the teacher at the end of the day, I was happy to read the notes from the morning sub had about the same experience as I did.  When I left that day, I was not so sure that this was going to be for me.  I quickly took another half day job the next day and it went immeasurably better. 

The more I worked the more adjustments I made to the point that I feel like I have a pretty good routine down that most children and ages will respond to.  Here are some of the things I've come up with:

My bag of tricks: I have a string back pack that I keep my stuff in.  I have my stuffed bear, band-aids, new pencils (for kids who claim they don't have one) and dry erase markers (for the classrooms whose markers have seen better days)

K-3rd grade: I introduce my friend (a stuffed bear) that likes to sit with quiet children and throughout the day he will move from quiet child to quiet child.  I also let them know that if my friend decides he wants to play and be disruptive, I will have to take him away.  This has been a really good tool for me and I think it works because I'm not there everyday.  Some fun moments with my bear have been seeing a quiet little girl holding him in her lap while she is working and pausing every so often to whisper in his ear, taking class votes on what his name should be (every class gets to pick a name...and they remember it when I come back another day!), and hearing the children whisper that the "bear substitute is here" and wanting to know if I brought him with me.

4th-6th grade: Riddles and stories.  I always follow the lesson plans as outlined, but if I see a spot where I can sneak in a fun story, I will.  Recently I read the "I am my own grandpa" poem to them, and then we try and make a family tree.  It gives them a quick break.  I came up with the riddles because I happen to be teaching on March 4th and I told the children that whoever answered my riddle would be the first in line at the end of the day.  On that particular day the riddle was "Why is today a day to move forward?"....MARCH Forth! :)  The kids love it so much they wanted me to ask another riddle for 2nd in line and so on.  They also remember that I do this so as I have subbed for a class again, they ask me if I'm going to do the riddles.

With the older ages like junior high and high school, I just try to be myself.  I did have a fun time teaching 2 high school sign languages classes (I know sign language myself).  I got up and told them (in sign language) that it has been quite a while since I learned sign language, but that I do remember the bad words and so they need to be careful as they are signing as I will know what they are saying.  They noticed that I wrote on the board with my left hand and signed with my right and asked me about that.  I told them that it just felt more comfortable with my right, and then a kid in the back asked me which way I bat when I play baseball.  I quickly told him that I could be a switch hitter but it has been a little while since I played the game (indicating my somewhat rotund figure...which made them laugh)

All in all I have had ups and downs (we won't even talk about my trying to teach math!) but I've learned that most kids of all age groups want to be helpful and that a sense of humor can go a long way.

I have really enjoyed this first school year and can't wait for the next one to start.

Long Lost Update!

It has been nearly a year since I registered for school and at least 6 months since I updated my blog!  A lot has happened but I'll start with my class last fall.

In a previous post, I listed all the books/short stories that I had to read for class.  I had to write a 1 page paper every week about one of the stories we had read.  I also had 3 larger papers I had to write, the last one being about 6 pages long and a good portion of my grade.  I was really nervous about writing papers since it had been such a long time, but with the editing help that my husband provided, I managed to get A's on all my papers.

The class was really fun.  The teacher was great, and my classmates were all very fun to be with. 

What did I learn from my experience in the fall?

1. Old habits die hard!   I figured as I was much more mature now and that I understood the value of a dollar, I would be a much better student than when I was at 19.....not so.   I am a poor time manager and still seem to procrastinate homework.  Never in my life had cleaning the house fall at the top of my "to-do" list than this last fall when I had papers to write.  I only took one class (twice a week), I wasn't working, and all my children were in school for 8 hours and yet every Monday I was sweating over the computer trying to eek out a paper.  I will say that I never procrastinated reading! :)

2.  There really isn't a cleaning fairy that lives in my house!  Apparently if I don't clean, things stay dirty.  I got a little overwhelmed with helping the kids with school work and my own school work and reading that much of the house was left to its own devices.  I managed to keep everyone in clean clothes (barely) and we managed to eat off clean dishes (if I actually made dinner) but if we weren't wearing it, eating it, or company wasn't coming over, it didn't get cleaned.

3. School is a lot of money.  My one (3 credit hours) class costs me $1400 dollars--not including the books and I quickly found out that working to pay for school will be the  best option.  I had planned on going to school winter semester but as I didn't have a job lined up yet, I decided to put school on hold until this coming fall so I can get a job and save up some money.

4.  Old habits die hard (part II).  I am a complete bibliophile!!  I love owning books, and I love having a little library of my own.  My husband went with me to get my books from the University bookstore, while I was in line to pay for my literature anthology textbook, and the two novels that were required reading, I turned to my husband and said, "You realize I won't be returning these books, right? They are mine now."  With a roll of his eyes, he nodded his head.  No doubt this was not a surprise to him. (Just ask him about the boxes of books he had to move into our new house!)

Things will be a little different this coming fall as my twins (K&C) will be starting junior high and my youngest (M) will be going back to a year-round school schedule in elementary.  Because of this change, specifically, I'll be taking on-line courses this coming year.  The first one up this fall is "Intro to English Grammar".  I can only imagine how this class alone will change my everyday life! :)