Yes, yesterday was my first official sub job, but it didn't really count because I didn't really have to do anything all day. In the morning, before school, I asked the new student teacher if she wanted me disappear into the woodwork [so that I wouldn't overshadow her Solo Day - those kids LOVE ME!]. She told me that she actually wanted me to chime in whenever I saw anyone getting out of hand... and I kind of did that. Well, I was just torn - it was her Solo Day, and I really wanted her to get the full experience, so for most of the morning, I just kind of sat back and watched to see if she could handle everything on her own. There were a few times in the afternoon, though, where I had to step in. All in all, though, as expected, I just hung out with the kids and collected a paycheck. Naturally, the girl with autism was all over me anytime we were on the rug. At one point, she was pointing to my lips and then to her forehead when the Speech and Language therapist showed up to work with her. The therapist said to me, "Can I borrow your girlfriend for awhile?" SO, THE CRAZIEST THING is that the therapist came to get the girl with autism because there was a tape that she wanted to play for her. Last time I was in Miles' class [last Wednesday], the Speech & Language therapist came running up to me with a cassette tape in her hand. "Do you know what this is?" she asked. "This is a tape of [the girl with autism] SPEAKING!!" Now, I'm not sure if I've been clear enough on this point, but, the girl with autism HASN'T SPOKEN A SINGLE WORD in school. Not one syllable. She giggles from time to time, but has never uttered a lick of speech. I immediately said to the therapist, "I don't think that I want to hear it. It's just kind of weird. I mean, we've gone so long without hearing her voice that I'm not sure that I ever want to know what it sounds like - it would break the mystique." And I'm serious. It's a great unanswered question that I don't really want to have the answer to. Did I mention here that I had dreams last Fall that she would speak to me? And did I mention in these digital pages that I had a romantic notion that on my last day in Miles' class, before Christmas, the girl with autism would walk out of the room, then turn around and say, "Goodbye, Eric"?

Today was: Kind of hellacious

Today was quite crappy. I gotta tell you, I SO didn't think that I would be called this much for sub jobs so soon. I mean, their little automated phone system is calling us every evening [when the phone rings around 5:30pm, I know who it is] to offer me at least one job. I already have a 2 day assignment in a 3rd grade class at a school around the corner set up for Thursday and Friday next week. I'm going on a field trip with Miles' class tomorrow, so I had to call the sub system and tell them to STOP CALLING ME about jobs tomorrow. After the day I had today, I'd be LIVID if I got a call at 6am tomorrow morning.

So, I had to be out of the house at 6:45am this morning to make it to a school across town by 7:15am. Of course, I was WAY late - I rolled in there, SWEATY and flustered at 7:35am, ready to tackle a whole new Kindergarten class. Well, someone, EVERYONE, neglected to tell me that I was going to be subbing in a K/1/2 SPECIAL ED CLASSROOM. How do you not tell someone that they will be subbing in a SPECIAL ED CLASS?!? I got the key to the room from the office, went up to the room, and found NO LESSON PLANS. Ok, so now I've got to spend a day ON THE FLY in a SPECIAL ED class? How do I get out of this? Well, the regular classroom teacher came in the room just as I really started to panic and handed me what she called "lesson plans". I'm telling you, these were the sorriest excuse for Sub lesson plans that I have ever seen. ONE PAGE with some times down the left side, and single words like "LUNCH", "REST-TIME", and "COMPUTERS" down the other side. No mention of a discipline system, no mention of where the computer lab was, no mention of where I pick the kids up from, where I take them at the end of the day, where the lunchroom is, where the Teacher's Lounge or bathroom was located, etc. For Math she wrote, "Have the students do pages 55-65 in their mathbooks." What mathbooks?? Well, ok, I found some mathbooks, but it looks like there are at least 3 different mathbooks because you have students from grades K, 1, and 2, and not everyone is necessarily on pages 55-65. THANKFULLY, I saw on the SINGLE SHEET OF PAPER: "12:30 - 1:30 Charlie Brown VIDEO". Now, I watch TV more than anyone I know, but I think parking kids in front of the tube as a means of babysitting is HORRIBLE. [We were victims of the whole Echostar vs. Viacom debacle this week. The CEO of DishNetwork had a call-in show on the darkened CBS station and someone called to complain that since they weren't getting Nickelodeon they didn't know what they're kids were going to do. Um, how about you READ SOME BOOKS WITH YOUR CHILDREN! Or, I don't know, go out and take a walk with your kids! Play a board game! Go to a museum, the library, take a pottery class together, etc.!] That being said, though, I was SO RELIEVED to know that there would be at least one hour where the kids could just be parked somewhere and I wouldn't have to come up with something to do with them.

So, yeah, it was a SPECIAL ED class. 13 kids - 3 girls, 10 [TEN!] boys. It wasn't really a hardcore SPECIAL ED class, but, rather, a class of kids with, probably, mild to moderate learning disabilities. Sure, there were 2 or 3 students that you could look at and see that there was some genetic reason that they were there, but, it seemed like most of the kids were just the ones that the regular ed teachers just didn't know how to deal with. A sweet group of kids [on the whole], but there were defintely a couple of absolute hellions. One in particular, let's call him "Nate", was a real handful. I mean, this kid was a TERROR who could not sit still for more than 30 seconds. Plus, he VIOLENTLY hit, slapped, kicked and pinched other kids. He didn't listen to directions at all, either. His name was, by far, the most spoken throughout the day - and, as is usually the case, he's only one of 2 or 3 kids whose names I actually had a chance to learn. I'm not sure what sort of learning disabilites he had in order to get placed in special ed, besides, like I said, some teacher probably just couldn't handle him [WHO COULD??] so s/he dumped him in this class. I tried, wherever I could, to praise the little guy whenever he did the SLIGHTEST bit of good in the day, figuring that he must have MAJOR issues at home for his behavior to be this extreme. And, it was so sweet, when everyone was sitting quietly [the only quiet time of the day - I'm telling you, kids can really become zombies when put in front of the tube] watching the Charlie Brown movie, I looked over at Nate and he was smiling at me. Yeah, ok, it could've been a devilish, devious smile, but it seemed sincere. When he wasn't riffling through the teachers desk, running with big scissors, walking out of the room, screaming at the top of his lungs, or getting in an altercation with one of his peers, he hung on me and wanted to hang out with me. The kid CLEARLY just needs some attention...

I was supposed to read them a story called Farm Friends Clean Up. I read the first page and the phone rang - it was the office telling me that I'm supposed to take the kids down to a trailer in the schoolyard for a hearing screening. HUH!? Another thing that the skimpy, lousy, sucky sub "lesson plans" didn't mention. So, I round up the kids [Ok, at this point I should probably mention that there were 2 paraprofessionals in the class with me. They both kind of came and went, but were, for the most part, quite helpful, and I couldn't have made it through the day without them...], we walk downstairs to the yard, and I find out that another class had just jumped in front of us [because we were late - because no one told me about the screenings ahead of time]. We had to stand against a wall [well, actually, only a couple of the kids actually stood against the wall quietly the whole time - the rest were running around screaming and fighting with each other] for 20 minutes waiting for the other class to do their screenings. To add insult to injury, the hearing screening woman handed me a list which showed that only 5 of the 13 kids needed to be screened. Yeah, one of the paras could've just taken those 5 down and saved us all the headache.

At the end of the day, I saw the teacher in the office as I was leaving. "Be sure and leave us your request number if you want to come back!" she said. Yeah, right. For a couple of hours after leaving, I wasn't sure that I wanted to sub ANYWHERE ever again. I think I've convinced myself, though, that it was good that I had that experience today because if I can make it through that, I can probably handle any other classroom that is thrown my way. Hopefully, it's all about coasting from here until the end of the school year [sure... uh-huh...].