Teaching

Now, I don't entirely miss teaching, but I was reflecting on this today and thought I'd share:

One thing I liked about teaching was having my own classroom.  I realize that I had to share this room with students every day, but if you play your cards right, you still get your own space.  (Unless you have a mouse that crawls up in your metal desk drawers and eats your snacks--nasty.)  I got to decorate and rearrange the furniture to my liking so that I was comfortable.  Sure your stuff might get broken by the token punk in the room, but I was smart enough to not bring things in I really cared about.  Plus, you don't have to share everything.  You make your own rules and make up consequences for not following them.  You really have a lot of freedom as far as what goes on and how it goes on in your classroom (which is a huge flaw in our education system, but that's another story) and have the opportunity to make your plans for what happens every day.  How many jobs can you say that about?!  Now, through my careful calculations, I've also concluded by factoring time, effort, and continued schooling required, teachers get paid like poo.

So, since I'm not teaching, I decided that I can still be a substitute teacher in the Clark County School District on Fridays when Russell doesn't have class.  No big deal, right?  Should be easy, especially considering that the application was online, I already have my substitute license (attached to my NV teaching license), and I've just completed teaching for real for 2 years.  WELL, I did my application in September, waited for an email saying "We got your application, now register online for an interview time...and print out your application and bring it."  Seems like we could have cut out a middle man or 2 there.  Anyway, there were no interview times until mid-October and according to the interviewer, I pretty much aced it.  Tell me why, then, did it take until January for me to get my hiring paperwork?!  My fingerprints were done (just like they were taken for the city of Reno and Washoe County School District recently--can't we share?) and they take 4-8 weeks to clear, so we can add another month on.  I just got an email saying that I need to go to orientation on March 2nd.  In essence, it took 2/3 of the school year for me to be hired as a Substitute Teacher.  In conclusion, education is good.  Our system for substitutes?  Not efficient.

And now, for your viewing enjoyment and as a prize for making it to the end, here's Ty sporting a lovely Viking helmet that once was in my classroom:  

poop  (<--Russell wrote that.  Now we can't say he never writes on the blog.)