Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Extra Period Assignment

It's one of the perils of being a sub. I'm talking about the extra period assignment.

Full-time teachers get a prep period, a time that they use for planning or grading or whatever else they may need to get done. Subs, however, don't need to plan. So, whenever a teacher needs coverage for one period, we subs are sent to cover. (Or sometimes they don't have enough subs to cover all the teachers, so they'll send a different sub each period; but that's for a different post.)

It's a bit irksome (I like a break in the day), but where I am we get paid for the extra, so I have no reason to complain.

Today I was covering for the photography teacher. It was a pretty easy gig. The students worked on what they had to work on, and I just had to periodically check the darkrooms to make sure the students weren't doing anything they shouldn't (they weren't).

On the prep, I was asked to cover another class. Severely handicapped special ed. Wow, what a difference!

The special ed. room had five or six aides. I ended up helping a couple kids who were working on their spelling (words like bite, dive, I, and tie). And they were struggling with it (alphabetizing and completing a crossword puzzle). I tried to be as helpful as I could. Basically, I followed the aides' lead.

The other thing about classes like these is that they are exhausting. When I went back to the photo class, I could have fallen asleep. (I didn't, of course.) It took a little time to transition back into regular class mode.

Today's prep period was 4th, so I had three periods before and two after the special ed. class. It was an interesting way to break up the day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.