It's A Boy Sub!!!

 This is my 5th school year being a substitute teacher.  I started about 4 years ago near the beginning of the 2nd semester of the 2018-2019 school year.  In the school district I work in there, are 3 types of substitute teaching jobs.  Substitute Teacher, Long Term Sub, and Building Sub.  A substitute teacher is exactly what you think it is.  You come into a school and replace the teacher that is gone that day.  A long-term sub replaces a teacher when they are gone for 4 weeks or longer.  This is often due to maternity or paternity leave but these are not the only reasons.  A building sub is assigned to a particular school and is the first line of defense when teachers call in sick the day of school or perhaps leave during the course of school.  I spent my first 2 years as a regular sub, I have been working primarily as a long-term Sub since February of 2021 and last month started my new adventure as a building sub.

One advantage of being a long-term sub or a building sub over a regular sub is that the base pay is better.  An advantage to being a building sub over a long-term sub is that often times a long-term sub has additional duties like grading students and preparing lessons that a building sub does not have.  I really enjoy being a building sub because I get to know all of the kids in the school and my day to activities are extremely varied. The best part of my current position is that I work with my wife.  She is a School Psychologist in the district and I work at her school.  Most days we drive in together which is not only a great way to spend time together but also a great way to save money.

Most days I don't get my assignment for the day until I'm on my way to school.   Some days I'm subbing for multiple teachers due to meetings or trainings, others I'm in for just one teacher.  The latter occurred earlier this week.  I went into the classroom and was sitting at the teacher's desk reviewing the plans that had been laid out for me.  I heard a commotion brewing in the hallway.  On this day the teacher had come to school, realized she was too sick to teach, and left before the school day started.  She was not able to leave the building before being spotted by some of her students.  The commotion I heard brewing was the students discussing the prospect of who their sub would be.

The kids are supposed to sit by their cubbies until the teacher lets them in their room at a certain time.  Buoyed by their excitement at the prospect of a sub they kept popping up and looking through the glass window in the door to see who their sub was.  One by one I heard the delighted shrieks of "It's A Boy Sub!".  At that moment I knew what my next blog entry would be titled.

This is my 5th week at the school and most of the students know who I am by now.  So when the comments switched from it's a boy sub, to it's Mr. Roller, I met them at the door and let them in a few minutes early.  

While there are certainly more female teachers than male ones in my district, there are still quite a few men teachers.  What there aren't a lot of are male subs.  I've only encountered a few in the time I've been subbing. Even so, I didn't really expect that kind of reaction from my students that day.  I think that one of the reasons I like being an educator, especially a building sub,  is that most every day I experience the unexpected. 

Love, 

Dave

Januarying

 January 2023 is in the books, more proof that the calendar plays for keeps.  My wife thinks that this January would never end and was glad to see the back of it (Sorry, she had Downton Abbey on , and I couldn't help myself.). For me, January ended too quickly, I hadn't finished all my Januarying. 

I've always been  a little bit uncertain when it comes to  what I think about New Year's resolutions.  On one hand, I think that they are a colossal waste of time because we should always be trying to improve ourselves and we  don't need December 31st telling us what to do.  On the other hand, there are definitely things I like to try to accomplish every year and January 1st seems like a good time to start accomplishing those things.

Some of these goals (I do like goals better than resolutions) vary from year to year and many of them don't get accomplished.  I do spend quite a bit of time each January planning to accomplish them, which is why I call making a game plan for the goals, Januarying. 

One goal I have every year is to average 10,000 steps a day for the year.  2022 is the only year so far I have met that goal.  I had come close in 2021 averaging around 9,200 steps a day.  It really was a tale of two halves where I averaged just 7,000 steps from January to June and then averaged close to 11,500 to close out the year.  I made my goal for 2022 to be averaging at least 10,000 steps for the entire year (In 2005 White Sox parlance we call that going wire to wire). To that end I walked 26,122 steps on Jauary 1st.  We had a small party at out house on New Years Eve  and after our guests left, I walked our neighborhood for a little while.  Most of the steps came later that day when I got the job of patrolling the movie theatre where I work which means walking up and down 12 theatres every 20 or 30 minutes to make sure  the equipment and audience members are behaving appropriately.  

This year I decided to approach repeating my accomplishment differently. I made a calendar in my mind and decided in advance how many steps I wanted to get on the given month.  At the end of the year, If I make all my goals I will have again averaged  over 10,000 steps for the year.  In January, I set my goal for far lower than 10,000 but still beat the average I set for myself by more than 1,000 steps a day.  

Some of my other Januarying goals have to do with or are chronicled on my blog.  I will be posting more soon about my goals of watching 12 new movies (to me) and reviewing them here, and my reading goal for the year.  So. Ill just table such discussion for now, except to say that I have spent quite a bit of Januarying plotting out some of the books and films I want to consume this year and going about consuming them.  Each December and January I spend time redesigning my blog. I have especially enjoyed  linking some new blogs to mine in a space called Blog Try Outs. One such blog is called Laws of Gravity The caretaker of Laws of Gravity is a substitute teacher like myself.

At my advanced age of 58 years, 4 months, 1 week, 4 days and 12 hours (It's actually 11 hours, but I still have to edit this post.) , I am beginning to hear more and more about finishing well.  I feel like I might be a tad young for that, but Januarying has been instrumental in helping me start well.