Having Fun Substituting

Hello All,

As a few of you know, I have recently begun substituting for the Ithaca City School District. Today I had my third job since receiving Board approval. I must say that this experience has only solidified my belief that I do want to become a teacher. (HUGE sigh of relief!)

My first day I subbed for a music teacher at Dewitt Middle School and worked with 6th-8th graders and I had a blast. Everyone was very well-behaved and were more than helpful and receptive to the assignment that I was instructed to complete with the class. It was a journal assignment requiring the students to reflect on a Navajo Indian performance that they had seen earlier in the week. I was very impressed with their willingness/excitement to do the assignment. And it was writing! I know that many of us, myself included, have become a little jaded with the amount of actual work being done in the classrooms, but this music teacher has her stuff together! They are even working when a sub is there. When I first started thinking about becoming a sub, I thought that all I would ever do was be a study hall monitor type of person in the classroom, but to date, I have had actual lesson plans to follow (which is a heck of a lot less boring)! YAY!

My second day was not as great. I took a chance and accepted a job to sub for a high school physical education teacher. It was horrible. There were no plans left for me to follow if the weather was bad (it was raining all day) so I had to impose on other gym teacher's classes and sort of piggyback. Everything seemed chaotic. By the end of the day, I had my own gym space and had the students play indoor soccer one period and handball the next. The class that played handball was crazy! It was a bunch of upper class students and they were so aggressive and into the game that there was actually some blood shed (this totally reminded me of the aggressive behavior in Raising Cain). A kid had his finger nail ripped back! He was very calm, got a band aide and came back to play with even more ferocity! It was unbelievable!

Today was the best! I subbed for a 6th grade math teacher who also has one reading class (?). The plans were great and everything went soooo smoothly. The kids were funny, cooperative and all-around-great. And, plus having worked a few days (and survived) I felt more confident and I think that the kids could pick up on this. They did their classwork (review in a workbook for a test in a few days) and didn't do anything crazy or deviant. It was wonderful. The reading class was pretty fun. We did some vocab (definitely not Masselink style, but from a traditional workbook), and then they read aloud. At the end, they were to write in their journals about their reactions to the chapter we read. After they had written everything down, I asked them to talk to me about what they had written. They were very excited to have the chance to talk about it and were incredibly vocal. So overall, the best classroom day yet!

I would strongly suggest that, if possible, everyone try subbing. It has helped me gain confidence as a teacher and it is just fun to be in a classroom again. Here's to many more great classroom experiences!