Today.
The good:
The not-so-good.
D has told me many times that life will keep presenting the same lessons to you until you learn from them. "Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it" and all that. One thing I've been trying to work on is being less prepared. Over the last couple of years I've tended to over-prepare, probably to make up for all the years I just showed up for things without a clue :p Anyways, I knew what I was getting myself into when I chose this school and just like D said, these opportunities keep coming along...and I'm choosing to view them as personal development.
Tonight presented a wonderful opportunity to 'just wing it' thanks to the gross incompetence of certain individuals in charge. Yesterday I heard through the grapevine that another teacher had unexpectedly left town. Today I taught my classes, 4 PM - 8 PM, and at 8:05 PM, as my class was exiting the classroom, a member of the admin staff showed up and said "So-and-so left town and you're going to teach his class. It was supposed to start 5 minutes ago, at 8 PM. They're waiting for you in the hallway right now- I'll tell them to come in." I was like "Say WHAT?!"
I went upstairs to try to scrounge up at least the lesson material for the class and find out what the class topic was supposed to be. Turned out it was to be a 60 minute class on Personal Style, oh joy. The VIP in charge was up there and started blaming the absent teacher, saying "it's all so-and-so's fault this happened, blahblahblah" NO, IT'S NOT, YOU VACCA FOEDA! If I found out yesterday- through your grapevine- that this teacher skipped town, YOU KNEW IT YESTERDAY TOO and there's no reason you couldn't have spent ninety seconds on the phone with me to say "You need to teach this class. The topic is Personal Style. Goodbye." As a matter of face, this VIP in charge said "I meant to call you earlier and tell you....but I forgot." That's total BS.
So. We got through the lesson ok. It was good practice for me. In fact, by the time I'd been to the office and back to hunt down the class material, 15 minutes of the lesson had already gone by. Oh, I'm sorry students, were you paying good money for this class?
I don't mind subbing. I understand people get sick or have personal issues and I actually support the reason this teacher left town. What really pisses me off is that this was not a last-minute thing. The school knew they'd need to find a teacher for this class and they sat on this information for at least a day, hoping, I don't know, that a new teacher would appear through the magical 1-800-NEW-TEACH portal hidden in the coat closet. Uh no, come on you guys. What's truly frightening is that there's still a couple days left in the work week, meaning a couple more classes to be covered. Why don't they assign people now? Oh yes, that's right; because they're too busy waiting for the last minute. If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done around here.
The good:
 |
| Exhibit A: gigantic chocolate dog, gift from a student |
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| Exhibit B: panda balloon animal, a gift from D |
The not-so-good.
 |
Exhibit C: It just snapped off in the middle of class while I was in mid-sentence. Like a true professional, I just nudged the heel aside and continued talking. By the way, if you don't understand why my shoes look like they belong to the wicked witch of the west, you don't understand anything about Ukrainian style. |
 |
| Exhibit D |
Tonight presented a wonderful opportunity to 'just wing it' thanks to the gross incompetence of certain individuals in charge. Yesterday I heard through the grapevine that another teacher had unexpectedly left town. Today I taught my classes, 4 PM - 8 PM, and at 8:05 PM, as my class was exiting the classroom, a member of the admin staff showed up and said "So-and-so left town and you're going to teach his class. It was supposed to start 5 minutes ago, at 8 PM. They're waiting for you in the hallway right now- I'll tell them to come in." I was like "Say WHAT?!"
I went upstairs to try to scrounge up at least the lesson material for the class and find out what the class topic was supposed to be. Turned out it was to be a 60 minute class on Personal Style, oh joy. The VIP in charge was up there and started blaming the absent teacher, saying "it's all so-and-so's fault this happened, blahblahblah" NO, IT'S NOT, YOU VACCA FOEDA! If I found out yesterday- through your grapevine- that this teacher skipped town, YOU KNEW IT YESTERDAY TOO and there's no reason you couldn't have spent ninety seconds on the phone with me to say "You need to teach this class. The topic is Personal Style. Goodbye." As a matter of face, this VIP in charge said "I meant to call you earlier and tell you....but I forgot." That's total BS.
So. We got through the lesson ok. It was good practice for me. In fact, by the time I'd been to the office and back to hunt down the class material, 15 minutes of the lesson had already gone by. Oh, I'm sorry students, were you paying good money for this class?
I don't mind subbing. I understand people get sick or have personal issues and I actually support the reason this teacher left town. What really pisses me off is that this was not a last-minute thing. The school knew they'd need to find a teacher for this class and they sat on this information for at least a day, hoping, I don't know, that a new teacher would appear through the magical 1-800-NEW-TEACH portal hidden in the coat closet. Uh no, come on you guys. What's truly frightening is that there's still a couple days left in the work week, meaning a couple more classes to be covered. Why don't they assign people now? Oh yes, that's right; because they're too busy waiting for the last minute. If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done around here.
...and you're gonna do this how long??
ReplyDeleteUntil I can (literally) fly by the seat of my pants... then I'll be ready for life's next lesson :p
ReplyDelete