Speedy Pizza

Short but interesting day today. Lots of stories to tell. I will have to work hard to keep this coherent and to keep my stories from intruding upon one another. Wish me luck, readers!

First, a little background information: beloved south Salem school, afternoon only, 4th/5th grade. Okay, now we are good to go!

I arrived at 11:30 and the teacher showed me all the stuff we were gonna do. Which was nice, but sort of unnecessary. I'd read through the plans in the 3 minutes she was out of the room and felt I had a handle on them. But I couldn't just blow her off, so I listened while she explained it again, which resulted in me having a 10 minutes lunch. Yes, I can eat in 10 minutes, but this lunch time is the one with lots of staff in the lunch room, and I know bunches of them and like to visit with them, so I could barely scarf down my pepperoni hot pocket in that amount of time! The rest of the time I was distracted talking about the messy desk from last week, and my time with the kindergarteners last week, and my love of Pushing Daisies and the disappointment that it's being preempted AGAIN this week! (I found a kindred spirit sitting right next to me who also said it was her favorite show.) But I digress.

After inhaling lunch and trying to carry my Pepsi inconspicuously down the hall, I went to pick up my class from recess. Upon seeing me a bunch of the kids at the front of the line exclaimed, "Miss Barnes!" and "She's the best substitute ever!" (That's right, and don't you forget it!) If only I could get these kids to write me letters telling how awesome I am and then I could submit a giant packet to all interviewers and maybe somebody would hire me!

Later in the day I was talking with a boy from the class and he expressed his disbelief that I did not remember his name! After all, I had been in his classroom "like a ton of times!" last year. So then I said, "Ok, let me explain this. Let's say I go to 5 different schools in week, 5 different classrooms, and let's say each class had 20 kids in it (even though they always have more), that makes 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 kids a week! And then lets say I sub every day for a month. That's about 4 weeks, so thats 100, 200, 300, 400 kids in one month! 400 names!! So how can you expect me to remember them all?!" I laughed. He smiled, but then said, "Yeah, but you came to my class a WHOLE BUNCH!!" Sigh. You cannot win. So I said I was sorry I couldn't remember his name and that was the end of that.

After the kids went home I returned to the room and wrote my note to the teacher and cleaned up a little. Then I spent a little time writing in my sub journal which I'm still keeping this year. This blog is the place for my humorous, or interesting, or painful stories of the day. In the journal I write about specific management styles, classroom set-up, rewards, schedules, etc. that I either love or hate from the day. I kept one last year, and it's really nice to be able to look back and remember some of the things I learned. While I was doing this, another substitute came into the room. She had been a regular classroom teacher last year but had decided to quit and substitute this year. She wanted to ask me about how I dealt with difficult (or loud) classes, ornery students and the like while substituting. I tried to answer her as honestly as possible even when some of my answers included "I ignore it". Because honestly, some things you just have to let go when you're only with the kids for one day. It was interesting that she sought me out to ask me these things when she's had her own class before. It just goes to show that subbing IS different from having your own class in that it's often HARDER! Yes, we don't have to deal with the meetings and conferences and lesson planning. But we do have to be ready to jump up and change course at the drop of a hat, to take charge of a new group of kids, and to work with countless more assistants and teachers and staff everyday. I feel like a lot of times even people who work in the schools don't REALLY understand how demanding my job is, so it's nice when you see that others understand. And also nice to be seen as someone to ask advice from!