The Unexpected

Walking into a school to substitute can be very intimidating. Even if you've been to the school before, it's hard to know what to expect. There are a number of questions that you will be unable to answer until you are there, in front of the classroom experiencing it head on.

What grade will I be teaching? Will the teacher have left lesson plans? If there are lesson plans, will they be enough? If there aren't lesson plans, what should I have them do? Will the class be rowdy or will they listen? Can I take the class out for recess? When are my prep periods? Where is the cafeteria? Gym? Lunch tickets? Keys to the room?

Even when I try to prepare myself, I am almost always thrown for a loop.

Case in point: Last week, I spent the first day of school teaching kindergarten. Without lesson plans left for me or even a vague knowledge that I would be teaching kindergarten, I entered Room 118 to teach the first full day of school that 21 5-year-olds would ever experience. Yikes!

As it turns out, I love teaching kindergarten. Even without any idea of what to do when I first walked in the door, Monday went terrifically and I was asked to come back for the rest of the week.

Throughout the week, we sang songs and danced. We practiced the ABCs and counted to a hundred. We read stories and told stories and we took time to "share". We built with blocks and played with puzzles and simply colored. And when recess rolled around, we PLAYED!

One of my favorite moments of the week occurred on Friday when I accidentally and spontaneously caused all 21 students in my class to turn into robots. One of the boys mentioned something about robots and I just couldn't stop myself from doing a little robot dance. Before I knew it, Joey was chasing his classmates around repeating, "I am a robot. I am a robot. I am a robot." When he caught up to one of them he would "push their button and turn them on" and another robot chaser would be born. When it was time to go inside I had to press a secret button on the playground wall to turn them all back into kindergartners!

In that classroom it felt incredible to be around so much excitement about learning and fascination with all things. It made me happy to be silly and creative and have the students eat it up without eyes rolling.

I also came face to face with an important reality about students that even from their first day of kindergarten, there is a HUGE difference in ability from child to child. While some students colored rain and dirt on their cut-out flower sheet because that's what flowers need to grow, others had a difficult time holding crayons correctly or colored everything green. The gap that I saw all the time in fourth grade starts so early, and teaching kindergarten would give me a great opportunity to help some of the students really get the extra help they need early, before it gets too difficult.

This is the first time I've really thought this, but I just might end up teaching kindergarten yet!

Wake Up Call

It's 6:30 in the morning. A woman I have never met is calling me again. She is about to tell me something incredibly important and through a sleepy haze, I must remember it all.

"Ms. Zurawski," she says my name slowly as a question, and it makes me sad to think she has forgotten me with just a summer apart, "Are you available to sub today?"

"I sure am!" I mumble, attempting to portray positivity and excitement despite the hour, because it must be tiring to cold call substitute teachers all morning.

She tells me the school name, its address, and a start time and with that our familiar morning ritual is complete.

Though it is only August, Chicago Public Schools has begun it's new "Track-E" year round schedule. And so, substitute teaching begins again!

Suspended Animation

I'm feeling pretty discouraged by my current situation. Today I went to the library to return some books and rather quickly found myself on the sixth floor enjoying the teacher resource section. I found some really interesting books including one entitled, "Should We Burn Babar?". It is a collection of essays about children's literature and "the power of stories in education." The essay I started reading is about classic stories that (beloved though they may be) include outdated messages in need of challenge. I am completely intrigued by this essay, and I am completely devouring this book.

So I'm reading this book and getting all fired up about educational questions and I'm thinking about how much I want to get into the classroom and teach. I feel like in a classroom I have the great potential to be a more entusiastic, more creative version of myself. I legitimately care so much about my students and their progress and seeing them finally "get it". And when I start thinking about how much I love teaching, I am filled with the frustration of my unemployment. Try as I might to send resumes, I have heard nothing. Despite my great efforts and my labouring over the exact phrasing of a cover letter, no one seems to want me. I just wish there was some way for potential employers to know that I really am exactly what they are looking for.


While at the library, I also checked out two other books. Books that I don't really want to read. Books that cause me to cringe with an undeniable feeling of failure in simply checking them out.
"Mastering the Art of Substitute Teaching" and "The Subsititute Teaching Survival Guide"

This is not what I want my life to be again this year. I do not want to have another year of standing still while my friends complete their second year of teaching. But what more can I do?