In case you wondered. . .

Many people have been asking me if I'm subbing this year. Until a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure what the answer was. I thought I would have been contacted over the summer about remaining as a sub; however, I was never contacted by the school.

Instead, I got my answer by a teacher calling me, looking for a substitute. I turned down his offer, and avoided a 5:30am phone call another day. I just wasn't sure about returning to the school system. I ended last year off on a great note with my 1st graders.

However, I finally decided I'd sub for any of the elementary schools and possibly for the one middle school I subbed at last year. Well, lo & behold, I got a call to sub at the middle school for the same position (choir teacher, but the teacher is different). So my decision was made, and I chose to sub.

The experience was better in that the teacher left me amazing instructions. She described every part of my day, my responsibilities, and where to be at what time. My day started off with eighth graders and they were a handful. I was quickly reminded as to why I will never work as a middle/high school teacher for an "inner-city" public school. All the students had to do was watch movies (end of Fiddler on the roof & Mary Poppins). I was fine with the students talking with each other; however, their levels were loud and louder. I thought the rest of my day was going to be spent shushing students, but the 7th graders redeemed the day. They were wonderful!

But I knew it was too good to be true and I ended off the day with 6th graders that were 5x worse than the 8th graders. They wouldn't do anything I'd say, they were up moving around, and there were 27 of them and only one of me. At one point, I had to slam my hand down on the top of the piano to get their attention. Oh well, I survived the day.

I probably would sub there again, although it's not a first choice. I think I'll just plan on accepting elementary subs. I came home with a sore throat from yelling to get their attention & a sore hand from slamming the piano (although, that was my own fault). It was funny to me that I remembered some of the students from subbing at the school the previous year. I also recognized a few of the 6th graders because I had subbed for them as 5th graders at Andrew Jackson Elementary (where I became a 1st grade teacher for 6 weeks, too). I finally found the answer to my question from last year. It had to be the students since I had the same problems with the same students this go around.