What caused me to write about my journeys as a sub is the fact that so many thoughts arise on my ride home besides how to circumvent late afternoon traffic or school traffic as school is out after a long day of subbing. My mind is thinking about how I did as a teacher and what to improve on for the next assignment, whether it is for the same grade or at the same school. I was fortunate to sub at a school in east Palo Alto for a record five days straight. I really enjoyed my long duration at that school because I got to know the teachers and meet the principal and secretaries.
I've compiled a set of forms to fill out at the end of the day when I sub. First, is the note I leave for the teacher updating him or her about how the day went, who was absent or misbehaving, what was covered and not covered and more importantly how I intend to improve on my next assignment.
At this point, two months into the school year and another six months left, I find that my first year of subbing has been a great way to get to know schools both as a visitor and as a learner. My travels have led me to being observant of many details from noticing how some staff lounges possess counter top stoves and oven ranges to how some classrooms have smartboards or others still have dry erase.
Perhaps this blog is a way of recording my travels and providing an outlet for me to communicate my own journey through teaching by using my words and then allowing others to provide feedback and comments that will allow me to grow as a educator. Perhaps it would help to provide a prompt of questions followed by a brief running record of how my day went. So henceforth this is what a typical post will look like:
running record of the day (time - description)
reflective questions:
What have you been through?
What are you going through?
What did you do that went well?
What did you do that didn't go well?
How will you improve next time?
Thank you for listening. Mahalo and Aloha.
