I'm officially back. I had my week "off" then my week at the high school. I filled my vacation with work for my other job and my week in the high school went pretty well. I remembered a lot of names and the teacher left me with tons of stuff to do. The topic for the week was ecology, which I love, so I had an easy time coming up with extras for the kids to learn about and little tidbits of interesting information to keep them interested. It was a good week and nice to be back with teachers I can eat lunch with (when I go to a random school I generally eat alone or eat silently while listening to the teachers gab).
I was not looking forward to today. To be honest, I'm really tired of substitute teaching. I have a graduate degree, I've done a million and one internships at some pretty great institutions, and I've had good jobs in the past. This job search funk I'm in is pretty serious and in the last few months I've really lost hope. I finally got a call from last year's summer job and I may be transitioning back there some time in the near future. For now, though, I have to keep subbing and it's bumming me out.
Thankfully the universe was good to me and gave me a great day in the 6th grade. I was a math teacher and her students were probably the best behaved I've ever had. Not a single kid tried to get away with anything and they were actually completely silent while working on their math packets. I was so happy with their behavior I gave every period 10 minutes of game time. I was blown away at how well-behaved they were! Thank you, universe.
On a slightly different note, Osama was killed last night and the kids had a lot to say about it. Many don't think he's really dead and I don't know if that's because their parents are skeptical or they themselves are skeptical. They also knew this was BIG NEWS but since they're young they wanted to discuss it but didn't really have a lot of background information. Sixth graders were two years old in 2001 so they've lived knowing what happened but not fully comprehending. They made me feel old today - "where were you on September 11?" As it happens, I was walking into the choir room for third period (in high school) and saw a plane crash into a building on the TV. I thought, "what kind of idiot can't see a GIANT building in front of them???" I didn't realize the location until I listened to the reporters. It was interesting to compare my experiences with the sixth grader's and think about my parents and JFK's assassination as a sort of parallel.
Anyway, no more ruminations. I'll be off at my other job tomorrow and back in the schools Wednesday.
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