Friday, May 11, 2018

the very last one...

... for this school year, and perhaps for ever. I backed into a day of sub. teaching, pretty close to the end of the semester. A little anxious about having enough days to reach the minimum of twenty for the year. I think/hope I am there, but still a bit fearful  - though I cannot say why, as I honestly have no explanation as to what makes me think I need to continue in this pointless endeavor.  I rationalize and try to think: "why?" It seems remarkably similar to punishment, I cannot come up with an answer that seems even half-reasonable.

At any rate: I went today, thinking I had agreed to take a job for half a day. I am sincerely hoping that half days count toward the required total. At least half of the days I have put myself through the unmitigated misery of sub. work have been only 1/2 - going in at 7:45 and getting off at noon. Oddly - I thought that was what I had signed on for today, but when I got there and started a conversation with the teacher in the Kindergarten class, she was not aware of that part of the plan. Either the para. pro. failed to tell her she was going to be out all day, or me not understanding  - some wires crossed with the communicating. I ended up staying all day. I am just too dad-gum accommodating.

Well. I cannot say for absolutely certain it was the worst ever, but I will say it might run all the others a really close second. She is a good, capable, experienced teacher, able to manage a classroom full of five year olds, and skilled at what she does. There were enough kids in that room that have a variety of problems that she was slogging uphill, and probably feels like she has been doing that since August. Reminding me of that character from Greek mythology who was destined to perpetually push a large boulder up hill every day for eternity, only to have it roll back down overnight. Sisyphus?

I did not have a particularly bad day personally. But I know it was very stressful for the teacher, as well as another adult, an aide that is maybe a floater for K. classes, who had to physically restrain one student who appeared to have no self-control. Which was a real distraction for all the others who might have otherwise learned something in the course of the day. Sad to think there were so many kids in there that did not get much in the way of education. Or much in the way of nutrition, as they sat and talked and played during lunch rather than eat: pizza and tater-tots, plus fresh strawberries.

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