So as some of you may know, I have been on the sub list in the area since January, waiting to be called in. From then til last week, they had called me a total of three times, always in the late morning (like 10:30am) expecting me to get there by 11:00am. Well, last Friday morning I had my first call that I was able to do, and then yesterday and today this week I was also called in, so I’ve been working for the past three days. It feels good to finally be out there getting paid and getting some additional classroom experience. However, none of my assignments have been “normal” teaching assignments…
My first day (Friday), I was assigned to a school about 35-40 minutes away from my apartment. I was told to go to the high school, but when I got there they told me my assignment was subbing for a middle school Teachers Assistant (which I will henceforth refer to as a TA). So I went down to the classroom and discovered that I would spend the day working one-on-one with an autistic student. The student was very pleasant, and was not shy or over excited. We worked pretty well together. I taught him some basic math addition and subtraction through word problems (ex- if there are twenty students in the class and twelve are girls, how many of the students are boys?), helped him write a simple essay about Naruto, and read some books together. One of the best parts was when he pulled out a Simpsons comic that the regular teacher and him had been reading together! While I did enjoy working with him, as I have the patience to help him out, I did get kind of bored remaining in the same room most of the day. Granted, we got to leave the room when I went with him to art and chorus, but the majority of the day was spent in the resource room. However, I did enjoy it, and would do it again if the opportunity arose. With the difficulty I have with finding work, I’ll take what I can get.
