First Student Teacher of the Year

Today I subbed in the morning in a 5th grade ESL classroom. At least that's what the sub office called it - technically it was one component of a bilingual program at a school in central Salem. There are 2 bilingual classes for 5th graders - one class is all in English and one is all in Spanish and the kids switch from one to the other half-way through each day. The class I was in was the English class. Both classes of kids were very sweet, funny kids - and both were amazingly small - 17 kids in each class. So that was nice. Also, the class I was in had a student teacher (ST from now on) - a fellow Corbanite even! She seemed familiar to me right away, and later she told me I looked familiar too - asked me if I was on SEA (Student Educator Association is what it stood for I believe). I said that no, I wasn't, but I was a part of the group that "rapped" at the Celebrate Teaching event at the beginning of her freshman year - yeah, she remembered that! That just cracked me up that that crazy stunt is still remembered!

Anyways, the day was incredibly easy for me, although that did make it a little boring. The kids did journal writing in the morning, then went to music, then came back and the ST read them a book then they switched classes. Then the other class did journals, then had lunch, then listened to ST read the book, then did some math, then both classes got together for "Fun Friday" which was when I left since I was only hired for a half-day. The kids were staying for another 30 minutes before dismissal at 12:45 (apparently they have early dismissal every Friday and they don't want to pay for subs for a whole day so the counselor or principal or someone just covers the class for the last half hour). In my case the ST and the teacher next door were there to watch the class.

So neither of us actually did much teaching. The ST was eager to ask me how I thought she was doing, and I said I though she was doing well - although I would like to see her some other time when she was actually having to teach something - I think she'd do a good job of that as well. Apparently this teacher is going to be gone on Monday as well, but when the sub office called they didn't ask for me on Monday as well, so as of right now I'm not doing that. I kinda wish that I was now though since the kids were enjoyable (and such a small group!) and the ST was pleasant. Who knows, maybe they'll call me for that on Monday. Either way, I'm glad it's finally the weekend! Even though I only worked 3.5 days this week I'm still beat! Ready for a day off that I KNOW is a day off! :)