Wednesday, September 25, 2013 Today I pulled up to a new school...sorta. When I first started substitute teaching 2 years ago, I was sent there. I was green and not much experience. My first impression was OMG, what am I doing? But today I am better and I don't put up with much. Sitting in the office, I find out that I am not teaching in a class that I was scheduled for. I was being placed in kindergarten. As I sat talking to two other substitute teachers also waiting for assignments, I found out that another (horrible) school a few blocks away closed and those students were now at this one! I was just praying for the best but my expectations were pretty low. I went to the classroom and found it was a self-contained class with 4 students ranging from autism to downs syndrome. There was a nice aid in the room. Shortly after being in there for 5 minutes, another person comes in and sends me to the kindergarten, another room. THIS teacher wrote out my schedule with the students on construction paper, in marker. A parent comes in and says she's a volunteer....who proceeds to take complete charge of the room, restroom break and discipline. I stood there. Don't get me wrong, help and guidance especially when the teacher left no lesson plan, is helpful. But I am there to be the teacher...not her. In my head I bounced around the fact that I am getting paid and to blow it off but I needed to gain control early on or the day would be lost. I was glad when she left after an hour. I was left with no lessons so I took her 1/2-assed plans and read the story she left me, had student draw a picture of one of the scenes we read. We worked on daily routines and a little math. I was dumbfounded when I got to a science worksheet with no reading materials but they were supposed to fill in the blank! Several still could hardly read and write. Just didn't seem appropriate for their level. But I've saved the best for last. A boy...four years old...couldn't sit for more than one minute. Was into everything and was everywhere. I literally had to hold his hand everywhere I went: walking around the room, in the hall, etc... Then he would yell, "I want to go home!" Sometimes it was following up with fake or no tears. What was funny to me was when he would drop and say he was tired. I'd be tired too if I did nothing but run in circles around the room and disrupt the class. At the end of the day, I waited for families to pick up their kids. Do you think this little boy's family showed up? Nope. I had to take him to the office. I asked one guy working there why he wasn't in the preschool class at age 4 and "they were working on it" with the family. Discipline? Structure? I don't believe this child had any hyperactivity issues. I think he was young and being allowed to do whatever he wanted because he's little and cute. What a mess!