This Past Week Fortnight in Teaching

Sorry, sorry, yeah, I haven't had a chance to post for a while. Now that school is pretty much going full-time again, and there have been no cancellations from wind, snow, or plague of locusts, I'm just as busy as ever. How bad is it? I've had this whole week off due to mid-winter break, and now here it is that I finally get around to updating things on Friday!

The good news is that I feel I'm getting somewhere on the job hunt. I talked to someone in human resources at the local district I work in the most, and got a very good idea of what I need to do to being considered. I've already got that ball rolling. I also met another teacher who was working in the same district I was in during the strike a few years ago, and we had a good long commiseration. Since she's also a math teacher I've subbed for before, and I did a good job, she has offered to write a letter for me. I've gotten a few other offers of letters, and I know a few more I can ask, so that's my next step.

Okay, getting back to teaching... I got a few math jobs (including the one for my fellow striker above), but I seem to be carving out a niche as a science sub as well. I don't have a lot of background or training as a science teacher, but I can hold my own. Most teacher wouldn't trust a sub to run a lab, but showing a video or giving them a reading or worksheet isn't so tough, and that's a lot of what I've had. There were also two PE jobs (yay, comfortable clothes!) — one of which consisted of taking roll, then watching them square dance the whole time — and an interesting day covering technology, which was a class of welding (!), a class of stained glass (!!), and a class of computer animation. I also filled in for one of my tutoring colleagues who is a junior high language arts/social studies teacher, which was a nice break. He taught his students how to say my name, so it was a bit of a shock to have students walk in and say, "Good morning, Mr. Gjovaag" correctly! (Even when I had my own classes in that year of the strike, I don't think any of them got it quite right. Of course, I let them call me "Mr. G" which probably didn't help.)

One other trend I've seen this month is that there aren't enough subs right now! The flu has finally hit (one local private school actually closed for two days just to keep it from spreading and give students time to recover), and both teachers and subs are out. I've had to cover a few extra classes, like the stained glass class and a junior high history class the day I otherwise watched square dancing. Long, tiring days, especially those with tutoring in the evening, but at least I had this week off to look forward to. (Too bad it's almost over.)