Substitute Teaching: Day 4

Day 4: Monday, March 16, 2009
This time, I found out about the sub opening the night before by checking the online system for openings. The teacher I was subbing for teaches a couple classes of English with a co-teacher, a Yearbook class, and a couple of study hall type classes with a T.A.
The first class was the Yearbook class and the students just worked at computer stations around the room, editing and proofing pages for the yearbook for the end of the year. There was a lot of discussion between them, they played some music in the back corner, and if they had questions, the directed them to one of the Yearbook Leaders. It was interesting to see how the ideas for the yearbook come together and how many of the students do the artwork for it.
The next two classes were English with a co-teacher. My lesson plan told me to let the co-teacher take the lead, and I would help by manning the PowerPoint presentation from the back of the room. The classes were reading Of Mice and Men, which I somehow never read in school, so I got a sneak peak into chapter 5 when the co-teacher read it aloud to the class.
After 4th period lunch, I had two periods of the study hall with the T.A. It's basically a time for the students to work on homework or projects and ask us for help if they need it. I let the students know that I am good with editing papers and Spanish and immediately some hands went up. I helped two students with their papers by checking their grammar and then walked around the room to see that the others were being productive. The T.A. helped the students with their Math and Geography throughout the two periods.
7th period was the teacher's Prep period, so I spent most of it in the teacher's lounge reading a book I brought. With about 10 minutes left, I went to my old Earth Science teacher's room to see if we could catch up a bit between classes.
Then I went back to my classroom to see if any students would show up for drop-in yearbook work on the computers during 8th period.
I am learning that every experience as a substitute teacher is incredibly different than the one that came before. It's exciting to see how different each teacher's day is from the next.