This week's entry will be pretty anticlimatic...

Not a lot to say this week, especially after the excitement of finally getting my certificate earlier this week. Oh, well. A few more jobs (junior high Spanish, high school English and history, junior high alternative school science, and an actual junior high math job), not much remarkable happened in any of them. Gee, do you think I'm in a rut? Well, spring vacation is coming in a couple of weeks now, maybe I'll actually think of something interesting to say then...

WOO-HOO!!! I'm a real teacher again!!!

I had so much going on this past weekend, I didn't have time to blog. But this proved to be a good thing, as I had a job today that let out early, and came home to find my brand spanking new continuing teaching certificate waiting for me in the mailbox. So now it's official, I can become a "real" teacher again. Now all I need is for someone to offer me such a job...

Anyway, a few highlights of last week:

• I got to teach at the three closest schools to me on three days, so I actually got some walking in. I could certainly go for that full time.
  
• Thursday -- the first day last week I actually had to drive to a job -- I got a late start heading out to a junior high science job, then ran into terrible traffic. When I got there, they told me that I was covering another class during my prep. So thank goodness all I had to do was show some videos! (I don't often say that, as that seems to be a copout for teachers to give subs a video to show, but on this particular day I didn't mind a bit!)
  
• Friday, I was at one local school that I hadn't been to since they'd finished remodeling. Oh, wow! What a nice set-up! And we got to watch the NCAA basketball tournament (it was shop, the students had some minor projects to work on, and I gave them the choice between that or the videos the teacher had out, guess what they chose).
  

Well, I have to go to the evening job soon, but I'm glad I was able to pop in and get you all up to date.

A few observations from the past week's adventures

No big events really happened this week, so instead I'll just give you a few anecdotes:

• Monday, I was an elementary librarian. That was a lot of fun. If I had it to do over again, maybe I'd get my librarian credentials. (Heck, maybe I can do it in the distant future anyway, after I get my master's degree and some coaching credentials.)
  
• Tuesday, junior high math. Despite the one class of very squirrelly students, it was a good day. Of course, I always consider it a good day when I can actually work in the field I taught last year, and want to teach again.
  
• Wednesday I was at the local alternative school -- and when I say local, I mean local, as it was just a short walk away. To my surprise, an old colleague of mine from Seattle is teaching there now as well, so we got to catch up a bit. And now, I'm subbing for him tomorrow. Besides being close, the school is, naturally, small, as are the classes, and the kids are pretty neat, too. Despite the fact that all I had to do was show videos (a topic I will probably go on about before too long), it was a fun day.
  
• Thursday, I was supposed to be at one school that I hadn't been to since they remodeled, and I was looking forward to seeing what the new place looked like. But as I was going out the door, the system called me and offered me another job. HUH? I turned it down and jumped online to see what was up, and sure enough, the job I'd originally signed up for was gone. I'm not sure if the teacher didn't need the job and cancelled the absence (with nobody telling me), or if a glitch in the system cancelled that job when I was trying to cancel another one (my dentist had to postpone an appointment). At any rate, I was disappointed, but I did get to work with a nice third-fourth grade split class instead that day instead. They did get a touch of spring fever in the afternoon, however, and weren't as good for me then as they were in the morning. And with the early spring we're having around here this year -- more of a lack of winter, really -- I have a feeling there will be many classes like this in the coming months. Thank goodness this didn't happen last year in Marysville! The strike-extended calendar was bad enough without adding gorgeous weather on top of it...
  
• Friday, I was at a high school teaching English -- or, to be more accureate, giving quizzes on Beowulf and The Great Gatsby (not at the same time, fortunately). During first period, a lockdown drill was announced, so I dutifully locked my door and closed my shades like one is supposed to. Sure enough, word got around school later, there was a drug-sniffing dog patrolling the hallways during that period. Unlike what happened to me the week before, however, he didn't check out classrooms, just lockers. I have no idea what, if anything, was found.
  

And that's about it! Nothing lined up this week past tomorrow, but something is bound to turn up. It usually does.

Things that go "woof" in the class

Not a terribly eventful week. I subbed for a physics/astronomy teacher at the nearby high school on Monday, a physics/math at another high school on Tuesday, then Spanish at that same school for the rest of the week. This week saw the power of videos if you have an unexpected absence, as I did little more than show videos on Monday (scrounged up by another science teacher), Wednesday, and Thursday. Dull for me, once I saw each one the first time, but at least it allowed me to get a lot of reading done...

There was some excitement Thursday morning, however. It was announced that the school was on a modified lockdown, and no students were allowed to leave class. As it turned out, this was so that a drug-sniffing dog could go around to random rooms and, well, sniff around. And guess what? My Spanish class was randomly (?) chosen. So I got to stop the video and wait out in the breezeway with my class for fifteen or twenty minutes, making sure they weren't using cell phones or the like to contact buddies about what was going on. Kind of exciting, until the novelty wore off. (One student, kidding around, asked if I had anything to worry about, and I mentioned that I had brought coke to school that day...a Coca-Cola in my lunch, of course.) Nobody was taken away once we came back in, so as far as I know my class was clean.

Turns out, however, that that was not the case in the whole school. The next day, I was talking with one of the other Spanish teachers about it, and she told me that there was a lot of resistance among the staff about the dog, as it would disrupt class (understandable, but no worse than a fire drill), and there was no need, as this was a clean-cut, suburban school with good kids and no drug problem. Well, it turned out that that was not entirely the case, as a handful of students were indeed found in possession of drugs or paraphanalia, and even a weapon. A few were expelled that day, and several others were going to be questioned later. Obvioously, this was a wake-up call for both the students and staff.

Nothing lined up this week so far except a junior high math class on Tuesday, but I'm sure something will turn up. It usually does.