Versatile

That pretty much describes today. I was requested to sub by the office manager last Monday. It was a roving sub job. She put me up to it because I know the teachers at my mom's school well.

So let's break the day down:
6:45 arrive
7:00 check in at office
7:05 sent to counseling office
7:25 asked to sub for math teacher whom is at a conference and her sub didn't show
7:28 counselor said I am subbing for someone else
7:30 attendance clerk confirms I'm subbing for the math teacher
7:31 open door, greet students, pass out math test, remind them the definition of silence, and they work well
7:55 math sub shows
8:00 I cover for my mom's friend Linda's SST she had to attend. I ask her what the kids are doing in the 2nd period because I was worried she wouldn't be back. She said just listen to announcements. I pressed for more. Finally she said the kids are reading a baseball article. I had them finish reading that when they walked in. Linda was still not back at 8:30. To stall and make sure they understood things because she wasn't back I randomly asked them questions about Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, what they did, and things mentioned in the articles.

8:45 Linda is still not back. Crap. What to do? Oh. There's book questions about the article. Give the kids 10 minutes to answer them on their own. Still more time? What to do? Let's look over them as a class. Ask class to focus and quiet down. At that time principal and district visitor walk in. Class is quieting, then becomes so silent you could hear a pin drop. I say we're reviewing the questions, read the question aloud, ask for the kids to respond. It goes amazingly well. The 2 kids who are her worst totally carried me because they happen to be baseball fans. They even brought up how McGuire is now being accused of using steroids, to which I asked them what they thought about that. Does that overshadow his good deeds? Then I made a literature connection- CHARACTER! Here are two character flaws. Is this person still reliable? Are they still credible? Good discussion. Kids argued no. I argued the opposite. Was this different because it was real life? Kids argued no. Visitor took copious notes. Linda walked in about 5 minutes into it and she just stood there smiling. Principal and visitor left. I continued asking the questions. When finished I turned it over to Linda. She moved the kids on to the next assignment and told me how great that went.

9:15 sub for crazy 7th grade history - just made sure the kids didn't kill each other as the teacher told me to do
9:30 other 7th grade crazies in Algebra 1... they can be bad kids, but the teacher had them trained. I kept them on task. She asked how my Algebra skills were. Crap. What were they doing? I said I felt confident after she said linear equations. Oh! Y=3X-2, graph. Easy. 4-5 kids asked questions, I walked around and helped them. Told her the kids were wonderful

10:00 sub for Algebra 1 doing fractions and basic algebraic equations. Teacher left me with probably a dozen suspensions. She said if someone is out of their seat, send them out, she is not playing games. 3 girls were sent out. When she came back she said the class was loud and she was unhappy with their disrespect. I snuck out.

10:30 go to Mrs. C's class. She tells me it is easy. She has the low level reading kids and they're working in groups on vocabulary. Just monitor them and guide them along, going back and forth between groups. Easy.

11:00 sub for 8th grade English where the kids were working in their spelling books

11:30 sub for Mrs. C again

12:00 lunch - Linda snuck away to get us breakfast sandwiches at Jack in the Box

12:35 Sub for Mrs. H- nicest lady- worst students. She has the worst 7th grader's taken from the crazy class and transplanted here. Sent 2 gals out, then one threw an eraser at me while standing at the door. Suspended her. Then her boyfriend threw one and I called the office. Nobody picked up. Walked him up to the office when the teacher came back. In the meantime I conducted a lesson on the state of Kentucky. The kids were reading and answering questions on it. We went over those. I told them they had 1 minute after the bell for being loud, she walked in as I was saying that. She said no, 10 minutes. She kept them 10 minutes after school. Poor darlings.

1:15 sub for new math teacher. She said just go over linear equations and I stepped right in on the problem she was demonstrating, worked, worked, worked. Even did 2 homework problems with the kids.

1:45 profuse thank you's from her

2:00 I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE