Doubled Subbed Kindergarten...

The Wednesday Kinder teacher I subbed for called me at home yesterday to ask if I would sub again for her today. I usually like a few down time days between Kinder assignments but she sounded so pitiful on the phone, how could I say no?

This school has only AM/PM kindergarten classes where two teachers switch off being the primary teacher while the other acts as an aide between the morning class and the afternoon class. Today there were subs for both the AM and PM regular teachers.

This is the rare opportunity where I can observe how “I do it” against someone else’s style.

This lady was good, REAL good. The AM kids were sitting politely, raising hands, and eagerly responding to lessons. She had those AM kids under control the whole morning!

Now it’s my turn in the barrel and I’m intimidated.

My Kinder class is a calliope of voices giving me unrelated facts related to class lessons about how many dogs they have, which tooth of the day is loose and a squirmy, wiggly, can’t sit still for more than a minute bunch of wild energy.

I experienced only half of the control the AM class had this morning.

The end of day arrives and that’s when I come to find out that the AM sub-lady was a veteran 1^st grade teacher at this school a few years ago and took time off to have a couple of kids. She just started back as a sub to earn a little income now that her kids are in school.

Ok I feel a little better now knowing that she is a pro.

She said I did great. She explained that, from the regular teachers’ reports, the AM class is usually better behaved than the PM class. She told me that I did much better than yesterdays sub with the same kids.

There is, evidentially, a teacher’s network at this school where they are plugged in to report back to each other on how the subs do in their classes. Freaky!

Since she’s an un-official part of that network and she had heard about my Wednesday session before I even got the school today.

So, I guess I’m doing “ok” or the sick froggy voiced Kinder teacher wouldn’t have called me at home yesterday.