Sub Fairy

Today I had a very interesting day subbing! I dubbed myself the "sub fairy". Reasons forthcoming... I was at a school in southeast Salem serving as a "roving sub". They were having grade level team meetings (or something like that) throughout the day, so there were 4 subs (including me) assigned to rove about the school going to 5 different classrooms for an hour each. I've done days like this before and they're kinda fun because you get to see lots of different rooms, and if a class annoys you, you don't have to be with them for that long! Well, it ended up that a lot of the time I wasn't actually needed in the room I was assigned to, so I spent most of my day flitting about doing random deeds for people around the school that needed assistance! I just popped in, did a bunch of work, and then flew away again! Hence "sub fairy". Lame, but I needed a title. haha

My first hour doesn't start til 9:15 and it's 8:15 when I arrive, so the office manager (who had the same last name as me, by the way) told me I could just go to my first room early. This was a fifth grade classroom and the teacher had me work on a project for her for the morning. I went through her book library, looked up each book on the Scholastic website, and wrote down the reading levels in the back of the book. When the students arrived she described the math assessment they were going to work on while I was there. She left, and the kids did the assessment for the whole hour while I continued to catalog books. It was quite easy.

For the second hour I went to the next class only to discover their was a sub in that class already for the whole day. Since the sub wasn't going to the meeting, I wasn't needed there. So I went back to the office and the office manager took me to the library to help them in their. The Librarian had me re-shelf books and then "read the shelves" which basically means I started at A in the fiction section and went down the rows pulling the books to the front and making sure their were in correct alphabetical order.

After that I had a lunch break and then went to my third classroom. But, surprise! This class had a sub already too! So I returned to the library and started reading the shelves again where I left off. I got through the "L"s before I had to leave for my forth class. This class did actually need me. I worked with a group of 6 kids doing a reading lesson. Tough stuff. :)

This class did frustrate me in a way though - not that they were naughty or anything, but while they were working on a project we were visiting and somehow the topic of discussion turned to movies and all of the kids were saying how they wanted to see Saw V(5) in the theater! I told them that they were too young to watch that kind of movie, that it was rated R and they shouldn't be allowed to see it. One boy said he could sneak in. Another said his mom would take him. So then I said that his mom shouldn't be taking him to movies like this. (Not something I would say probably if I was the actual teacher, but as the 1-hour sub I felt a little freer to say what I thought to him.) But honestly, what kind of sick people would take their 4th grade child to see a movie that's about people being tortured to death?! Who in their right mind thinks that this is appropriate for someone of this age? Personally, I don't think it's appropriate for anyone. Why do people like to watch other people murdered, tortured, terrorized? Why is this considered entertainment? Why can the movie industry produce one slasher/horror flick after another after another and people will still flock to see them? What does is say about our society that torture is something to watch? That it is something to let our children watch? Yes, it's not real, but it looks real and it only serves to steadily desensitize the youth of America until nothing seems "off-limits" anymore. How much more difficult will it then be to draw the line between fantasy and reality? It's a disturbing tread in adults, but even more so when I see how prevalent their popularity is among young kids! Sad sad sad. Parents should use better judgment.

Moving on though...next up was my last class...and guess what? I went to the room and there was a sub in there already! So I went back to the office for a third time and once again ended up in the library, re-shelving books. The office manager did find me another task to do this time around though - he found a teacher who could use a little extra help in his room. So after I put the books back on the shelves I went to another room and did a bunch of filing. It reminded me of my days in 8th grade, working as a teacher's assistant in my dad's classroom, filing papers all day! The teacher in this room even reminded me of dad - he had a lot of the same mannerisms and way of saying things. And that was the end of the day! It was oddly disjointed, but went by pretty quickly. I did a lot of tedious tasks, but everyone I helped was REALLY grateful and kept thanking me repetitively. I didn't mind doing any of the jobs really - they sorta fit in well with my OCD personality! Plus I was getting paid really well to alphabetize books!

The rest of my day as been really busy as well. I went to the Dollar Tree, Walmart, and Fred Meyer looking for bunches of stuff that I NEEDED. Then this evening I was surprised by Erin calling me! Hence why this post is so late! And now I need to go to bed or I will regret it tomorrow.