subbing

There are some pros and cons to subbing. There was a point when I was carrying around my ds and doing sudoku puzzles during my free time. I also go to imdb.com and look up movies and movie quotes. qwantz.com is not blocked yet, and neither is elevenwarriors.com. foxsports.com is not blocked and I can go to foxnews.com and look up more relevant news. denofgeek.com is not blocked, but that site does not have to much interesting content. I get a good amount of reading done, especially when subbing high school classes. Subbing for elementary classes is more work than in high school, but the kids are more set in a routine and not as dependent on the teacher. I still have to be up and moving around more for an elementary class though. The worst class I have to sub for is the music teacher at fayetteville. The first two periods are guitar classes, which aren't to bad since I take my banjo and play some in those two classes. But then I have choir and band for the next two periods and I have no idea what is going on there. Choir class can just put in a cd and lip sync for the next 45 minutes or so. Band kids just play loud and pretty well whatever they want. The leaders sometimes get a little upset, but it is pretty hard for a sub who was never in band to keep track of 50 kids playing what they want to do. Then I have junior high band later in the day and that is more of the same over there. We usually put in a movie so that class isn't to bad. 

The funniest thing that I ever did was at lynchburg high school. The teacher I was subbing for had a bobblehead that was broken in two. I put it back together, but if someone touched the bobblehead, it would fall apart. So anyways some girl comes in and touches it with one finger, and it fall clean apart. Some of the boys knew this would happen and started giving her hell. I acted like I was mad and got a pen and started asking everyone else what her name was, which everyone obliged to. She got a little upset and then I told her that it was a joke. Lynchburg was kind of odd in that last year I worked there almost 40 days, but only got called once for this year. But I worked zero days at mowrystown the year before and got almost 50 between the high school and elementary, so it worked out for me regardless. 

There are some cons when subbing. Some teachers don't leave enough work for the students to do. Most times I can let the students listen to their Ipods or whatever it is they carry around, and that pacifies most of them,  but I still may have 30 or more minutes of inactivity after they finish the worksheet. I would like to complain about the poor plans that are left for me, but that would ultimately lead to more work for me so I don't complain to anyone. I don't want the teachers to think that I am an expert and give me an expert plan on what the students are going to be tested on. I may tell them something different from what the teacher is going to test, which would lead to problems for the teacher down the road. So I usually just say as little as possible and play dumb as much as I can. Subbing does get a bit boring at times, I have dozed off before when I shouldn't have. While I have had to send some kids to the office before, I usually don't have to many problems with the classes. 

Lunch as a sub is kind of a weird thing also. When I was a full time teacher, the subs would usually eat in the rooms they were in, which is what I do most of the time. The staff lunch room is fun to go to as a sub because I get to hear some of the stories and ask a couple of questions. The teachers usually have something funny to say, or I can read a newspaper someone left out. I do think that a sub eating with the full time staff does make the staff a bit uneasy, I noticed it when I was full time. 

While I hope to not make a full time career out of substitute teaching, I do hope to continue doing so if I don't find a full time job. I do make a little extra money, which I am putting into a saving account. 

times typed "oftern"- 0