What I Actually Like About Being a Sub

Enough with the negative, already. I am determined to focus on the positives of being a substitute teacher. While I would much, much, much, much, much, much, much rather be a full-time teacher with my own classroom and students and so forth, there are a few perks to being a sub. Here are a few I have thought of:

1. I'm like a celebrity. I can't go to Walmart or the local library without some kid waving excitedly and yelling "Hey, Miss Sub!" or pointing and whispering "I know her! She was my teacher." (This can be a curse, too, especially when I'm not dressed in my teacher clothes, but rather my working-as-a-groundskeeper-pulling-weeds-and-shoveling-mulch clothes. But we're focusing on the positive, here.)

2. I get to watch the kids grow up. In the mind of a regular classroom teacher, students stay the same age forever--whatever age they were when they left their class. But I get to keep on teaching the same kids year after year, even when they change schools. That's cool.

3. Sometimes kids call me the Candy Lady, because I occasionally pass out candy to well-behaved classes.

4. Sometimes kids remember my actual name.

Hmm... That's not much, but I'll try to think of more. I have to. It's a matter of self-preservation.

Ohio is Losing Its Minds

I've been reading articles about the brain drain in Ohio--this situation we're in where Ohio's collective brain power is being flushed down the proverbial crapper. Seems a lot of the state's most educated people are forming a mass exodus out of our heart-shaped state, heading to the promised lands flowing with milk and honey and, oh yeah, REAL JOBS!

Which makes me feel like one of those idiots on the Titanic who put off getting into a lifeboat because it was just so cold and uncomfortable out there on the water.

It really is a frustrating situation. On the one hand, I worked incredibly hard for my education. I started saving money for college when I was 13 years old, working as a groundskeeper (a job I still hold, which makes me feel proud and ashamed at the same time, assuming that's even possible). I devoted nearly all my time and energy to studying hard and earning straight A's all through college (I got better grades than the valedictorian, yet I didn't get to be valedictorian...not that I'm bitter or anything). Then, after all that hard work, to not be able to get a teaching job.... I can certainly understand why so many people are leaving.

On the other hand, my family is my life, and my family is here.

It's a shame, really, because Ohio is a great place to live. Yet when the jobs are elsewhere, what choice do we have?

Ohio is losing its minds.

Jesus' Lesson Plan

This was given to me by a substitute teacher way back when I was student teaching. I found it again the other day and laughed and laughed. (I'll have to print it off and share it with the staff at the one school I work for where regular teachers don't treat substitutes like the insignificant hairs that grow on the legs of gnats.) Wish I knew who wrote it, so I could give the author credit....

Jesus Teaches a Lesson

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathering them together, he taught them saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit...

Blessed are they that mourn...

Blessed are the merciful...

Blessed are they who thirst for justice...

Blessed are you when persecuted for righteousness sake...

Blessed are you when you suffer...

Be glad and rejoice for great is your reward in heaven...

Then Simon Peter said ``Do we have to write this down?''

And Andrew said ``Are we supposed to know this ?''

And James said ``Will we have a test on it?''

And Phillip said `` What if we don't know it?''

And Bartholomew said ``Do we have to turn this in?''

And Matthew said ``When do we get out of here?''

And Judas said ``What does this have to do with real life?''

Then one of the Pharisees asked to see Jesus' lesson plan and inquired of his terminal objectives in the cognitive domain.

And Jesus wept.

This is what happens when you tell your friend you started a blog... (I have two posts for Pete's sake!)

Pencils

I was thinking today about pencils. Mysterious little buggers, aren't they? They don't have legs, they don't have wheels, they don't have superpowers. And yet they have this uncanny ability to hop out of students' hands, roll themselves into dark corners, and disappear into thin air!

It is a problem as old as time. According to ancient Greek history, much of Socrates' most profound insights were lost forever because young Plato came to class without a pencil.

In my experience as a substitute teacher, teaching a wide variety of grades, I have discovered that the pencil issue generally begins around the 5th grade. Prior to 5th grade, students are oddly attached to their pencils and all other school supplies, becoming very distraught when one goes missing.

A 3rd grader's reaction to a lost pencil: "Where's my pencil? I can't find my pencil! I don't want to borrow a pencil, I want my pencil! Move over, I need to look for my pencil. Hey! Teacher, Jimmy has my pencil! It is too mine! It has that bite mark from when I stuck it in the gerbil cage. Teacher, make him give it back, he's wasting the eraser!"

A 6th grader's reaction to a lost pencil: "I don't have a pencil."

Teachers who have their own classrooms (I hate you, by the way...just kidding...mostly) often set up procedures for dealing with lost pencils. Some dock points for students who come to class without the necessary supplies. Some make students give them something as collateral for borrowing a pencil, as in, "Here's a pencil, give me your shoe." (Not a solution I would recommend seeing as how 5th grade is also around the age kids begin to get stinky.) As for me, I've taken to searching the classroom and halls at the end of each day. I gather up all the lost and lonely pencils that have escaped from their owners, and I recycle them back into the system.

One time, while teaching 4th grade, I handed out a pencil I had picked up off the floor of the middle school. A student halfway across the room exclaimed, "Hey, that's my pencil! It has that crack in it from when I ran it over with my bike!"

Highly unlikely, but hey, you never know.