Friday, January 20, 2017

if you take a big step...

...backwards, lean to the left, squint with your right eye closed, hold you tongue just right and hop on your right foot while raising your left hand over your head, you will see, just barely, that taking another substitute teaching job today has put me almost nearly past the 1/3 mark towards a goal of ten days for the semester. You must do all the previous gyrations simultaneously for the desired effect. Today's actual count is three, but when you are dividing by ten, it is close enough to one-third for me ( the congenitally math-impaired) to claim as fact.

It was a pretty good day.  Due to the fact that I was not actually responsible for anything. This particular job I accidentally signed on for (when I did not intend to press 'accept') was a para-professional in a Kindergarten classroom.

The teacher was present, and well prepared for that little conclave of chaos. She obviously has years of experience, and is accustomed to dealing with the quirks, capabilities and tricks demonstrated by a diverse group of five-year-olds. Maybe twenty or so - some very smart, cooperative, well-behaved. A number of them were youngsters who are obviously well tutored at home by parents who really understand and appreciate the value of education and literacy. Others students who appeared to have some degree of disability or undiagnosed difficulties with learning. The usual mix, presenting a variety of challenges for even the most capable classroom manager.

Being the para-pro meant I was responsible for supervising their lunch time and a short period of running steam off when we got back to the room. Sadly, much to my chagrin, we sort of maybe locked ourselves out of the room when we went out to buzz around in the yard. A mom came to check a kid out early for a dental appointment and saved me from having to disrupt a neighboring class to get us back in the building.  We practiced writing letters, some sight words, numbers, simple addition/combining problems and talked about animal families.I would say it was a remarkably uneventful day.

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