Subbing

After finishing my student teaching, it seemed the logical next step would be to get on some sub lists. After all, I'm pretty much a certified teacher. I've got my official completion of program note, saying that the university has recommended me to get my license, the dpi website shows my application as turned in and my payment received. (It really does, you can go and look it up if you're ever really, really bored. I figured the most logical districts to apply to would be the district where I live and the district where I student taught.

The district where I live turned out to be pretty easy. I turned in my information and they put me on the list. Easy peasy, especially in comparison to the district where I student taught, which took 3 weeks to decide that I was competent to work with their students. (never mind the fact that I have been working with these same students for the past 18 weeks) And this was especially frustrating because my cooperating teacher from second quarter had some dates that he wanted to sub for. Thankfully, after poking and prodding, and calling in favors, I was officially put on the sub list for the district, and within minutes I was officially subbing for my co-op for two days next week.

Thankfully, my home district had no such issues about making sure that I am safe to interact with students. Yesterday morning, bright and early (especially so after a sleepless night) I got called in to my first sub job. I was covering for an elementary LD teacher. The subbing went fine, a pretty easy day. I was a little tense when the aid warned me about one of the students. I was picturing an elementary school bugaboo similar to some of the students I worked with at my first placement (screaming, throwing, biting, spitting, hitting, etc.). Instead, it was a kid that wanted to get out of work. He came in right after lunch and saw me knitting and was extremely interested in my "sewing". He asked many, many questions trying to avoid math, but we ended up getting his work done and even had time for a couple of games of Uno. Good day all around.

Frustration also built up around my knitting this week. I worked in 18 rows of my owl cables for my sweater only to discover that I did the cables backwards. Being a left handed knitter with a right handed pattern means you have to make some adaptations to the pattern. I over thought it and doubly corrected it, which meant the cables twisted the wrong way. I ended up having to rip back 18 rows and start knitting it again. I'm now back to row 5 of the pattern.