Ms. Mom

I have now officially been paid to teach...twice (well sort of-I don't get my first check until the end of Feb.)! Yeah for me. On Friday, I got my first call to substitute (at 4:30 am, no less). I had gotten several calls to teach from the automated system. Most were for high school, which I declined. I'm not that desperate yet. Several were for both bilingual and special ed combined. I will try one, but not both together. Yikes!

The job I took Friday morning was on the not so good part of town at a rough school. While I was waiting to sign-in that morning another sub said good luck. She said that the teacher I was working for in 5th grade was known as the "mean teacher" and therefore had some of the worse kids. Overall, the day didn't go so bad. The kids have a rough life, makes me even more thankful of my own. Mostly I was sad just thinking that most of them won't have a chance to make something of themselves. I was firm but fun and we got through all the lessons without any major behavior problems. It's funny how within the first few minutes of class, you'll have the problem kids names memorized!

Last night, Cole's teacher called me to sub for her today. Cole was thrilled! We had to talk about some guidelines of how things would be different when I was his teacher vs. his mom helping in a class. Last night my mom was telling him that he'd have to act differently and he looked at her and said, "Granny, you can't undo my mom. She's always my mom." His class is very lively and we had fun today. Inauguration was a great day to sub on because there was a lot to talk about and learn. The only downfall was that I was sick all weekend, so I was still run down today. It's hard to be sick and be in charge of 20 1st graders. Cole survived with me as his teacher, they only problem we had was his disappointment if I didn't call on him first. Otherwise, it went well. He was happy to stay and help me clean up at the end of the day and really wants me to work at his school every day. We'll see.

Tomorrow, I'm helping on the class field trip. Then I'll need to find jobs for the rest of the week. Hope there are more fun stories!