I am a creature of habit.
This actually is an understatement. I have a loving family that does their best to protect his quirk of mine. But here are the facts.
For the last three years, I have had the same thing for breakfast on work days. Slim Fast drinks and the flavor has to be "Creamy Milk Chocolate." Right now we're in the middle of this horrible recall and I can't buy them. It has been drama. I eat the same thing for lunch every day. But I try to mix it up every three months or so. One time I made it a year on the same thing.
My current lunch is a pb&j sandwich on a wheat english muffin, a low salt rice cake, almonds, and a banana. Today I forgot my banana and it was kind of drama. My ideal life would be to have a rotating dinner plan. (Ex: Monday-Noodles, Tuesday-Ranch Chicken, Wednesday- Fake Chicken Patty sandwiches. . .) I would even allow for it to be changed every month.
I really like a plan. It's my favorite thing in the world. My idea of spontaneity is to plan something and then throw the idea on my friends at the last moment. This makes everyone happy as long as they all go with my carefully planed idea.
All this to say that it's a miracle that I'm functioning at this point. Because I have a new temporary (hopefully) career. I'm a substitute. Let me tell you why this is a problem. Even on my best day when I know far in advance my assignment this what I walk into every day.
1. What am I doing today?
2. What will my students be like?
3. What time will I eat?
4. Will I be able to go to the bathroom? (You laugh and the teachers who read this will understand)
5. Will the other teachers be helpful?
Imagine every day is like a first day of work. Some days I don't know until the morning where I'm going and what I'm teaching. This is my nightmare.
But everyone says you sub and it gives you great experience and it might help me get a job. But so far it's been okay and at least we get some good laughs at my expense. I have so many funny stories that I hope to share.
I think it helps that I have my stability in my lunch at least. I just wish the Slim Fast would come back!
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You crack me up! Good luck with the subbing. When I was teaching, I would TRY to get the same sub... it's really nice for teachers to know the person they are leaving their class with. Some tips: 1) Make nice with the front office staff- they do LOTS of the sub assignments- they can help you! 2) Leave good but not overly extensive notes for the teacher. 3) Kids lie. They lie a lot. They lie more in groups. If you need to know the answer to a vital question, quietly whisper it to one student, then go ask another. 4) Don't feel bad about telling the bare bones truth to the teacher. Really, they do want to know what happened in class. 5) Try really hard to get through the lesson- teacher's don't typically like to leave their class because they get behind. Most of the time, they won't leave anything new to cover, but it was always nice for me to know that some effort was made.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I'll ditto what Kelly said, particularly leaving notes. It is SO frustrating to come back after being gone and get nothing at all from the sub.
ReplyDeleteI have a few others, though:
1. If you have major trouble with a student, please, PLEASE send them to the office - don't just let it go. Number one, if you sub at the same school for awhile, they'll figure out not to mess with you; second, when kids do something bad, it needs to get addressed THEN, not 24 hours(or later!) after the fact. I tell students that I encourage subs to send kids to the office if warranted, so when the sub doesn't, it undermines authority as well.
2. The fastest way to never get invited back to a teacher's room is to blatantly disregard rules. I had a sub let my students leave for lunch 10 minutes early. Another time I was in the building at a meeting, went to my room to get something, and the sub was letting kids work in groups.
During a quiz.
You should have seen the shock on her face!
3. Carefully read directions, and don't be afraid to ask another teacher! I always leave the name of a couple of other teachers so subs can ask questions if they need to. Kelly's right about not leaving new content, but we'll still might be that "day behind" she mentioned if the sub fails to tell students the assignment is due the next day, etc.
My feedback has been very positive so far. I have had high compliments on classroom management.
ReplyDeleteAlmost everyday that I've worked, I've gotten more jobs from the other teachers or the teacher I worked for. So that's been good.
And Rachel you'll be happy to know I sent a studnet to an office for spelling an innapropriate word.
I appreciate all the pointers. Subbing is this secretive world. So I'm happy for all the help I can get.