This week in teaching

Wow, I can't believe how much better I feel this week, now that I've gotten a week of teaching under my belt. I didn't realize just how frustrated I felt over my enforced sabbatical until I got back to work. I haven't felt this good for a long time, despite now going back to working long days between the sub jobs and evenings at Sylvan. Eventually, I'd like to cut out Saturdays at Sylvan, and the rest of the week down to three hours a night instead of four, but so far so good, and with a little planning and cooperation on Laura's part, we can probalby make this work. Good thing, since I missed nearly half the school year already, and we need the money, too.

Interesting start to the week. I got a last-minute assignment for high school social studies, and went in to find no plans. From what I gather, this is very unusual for this teacher, as he's the department head and a very organized person. But his colleagues were a big help, and he has first period planning, so I found a decent video in the library for the Law and Justice classes, and I figured AP U. S. History could take care of itself. I was right about the history classes, as they had a big assignment due the next day anyway, and most needed time to work on it. As the teacher still wasn't feeling well, I went in the next day as well, and this time he made sure I had plans. Not that it was terribly hard: Take Law and Justice classes to computer lab to work on forthcoming paper, give history classes the essay questions on the final to start preparing for them and let them work on the assignment due Thursday. All in all, a pleasant couple of days, and a nice way to ease into the school routine again, for both the students and me.

Wednesday and Friday I was at the big alternate junior/senior high school in the district, for a history teacher. Nothing too toough, most classes involved taking them to the computer lab and letting them work on their big projects. And these were great kids, too, so I had little to do. What was very nice, however, was that Wednesday was their weekly early dismissal day, so I was home by 1:00, which gave me a chance to run some errands.

Thursday I ended up not getting a job. There were a few available, but they were too far out with no time to get there, in subject areas I really didn't want to deal with, or, in one case, ended too late for me to get to Sylvan. But not getting a job that day proved to be a boon, since it gave me the chance to take in the last of my paperwork to the Northshore office and wrap up my application there. They called yesterday and are sending the rest of the paperwork, so I should be on the sub list there as well, and those days off should be much more rare as a result. Between the two districts, I can work just about every day. And if one district has a day off, I can always go to the other one.

No sign yet of my permanent substitute certificate or the transcript with my final class on it to apply for a continuing certificate, but there's no rush yet, either. If nothing turns up in the next couple of weeks, I'll start asking around.

So, anything anyone out there wants to know about my life as a teacher? Feel free to use the comments area.