Tuesday, December 14, 2010

plugging away on 'day labor' work...

Since I knew I would be 'stuck' here this week, with no transportation, due to the fact that my car is in the shop for several days getting a new bumper and hood for Christmas - I thought this would be a good time to try to get some substitute teaching jobs. Which I did, and have done.

Both days have been as a para-pro in Kindergarten classrooms, and fairly amusing. I really do not want to be the only person in a room with a twenty or more kids I do not know well enough to call them by name (pretty much the only way you have any control over their behavior whatsover is by knowing them well enough to single out the mis-behaving on a personal basis.) So I have concluded I would much rather be in a pre-K, Kindergarten or first grade class where there is always another person.

I went to great, aggravating lengths to get my certification renewed to be able to increase the pay rate when I do get a job as a sub., but it only applies if I am replacing the actual teacher in the classroom - and most of the calls that occur every morning at 6: 02, and in the evenings during the window between six and nine when the computer calls, are all for para-pro/aide assignments. But I guess that is better than sitting at home and not making anything, so I generally take the para. jobs: which is where I have been twice already this week, and looking for a couple more.

All of which will come to a screeching halt on Friday, when the schools are closing for the year.

All this 'job shopping' has caused me to take several assignments for January, but I suspect that the closer it gets to those days I agreed to work, the less enthusiasm I will have for being confined up in a classroom with a mob of 9 or 10 year olds who are snotty (literally), ornery and generally disagreeable. (I really do not want to bring germs home, so try very hard not to touch anything or anybody - difficult to do when so many of those kids are starving for affection/attention.)

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