A Little Bit 'Bout Me

Last year, I was a substitute teacher. I became a sub because a now former friend told me that it wasy easy, better money that waiting tables, and most important for me, had a flexible schedule that would work well with me finishing up school. From Sept. to early Dec. of 2002 I subbed all around, mostly in elementary schools. Then, after spending a lot of time in one charter school, I managed to get myself a "long-term" sub job. For those of you not in the know, that means a sub job where I would go to the same school, every day, and teach the same class, for a certain period of time. This first long-term job was as a Spanish teacher for grades 1-6. See the really funny thing here is that I hardly speak Spanish. But the administrators at this school spoke even less, so I guess to them I seemed like a fluent professora de espanol (probably spelled wrong, don't yell at me). Heehee.

After almost 3 months of that, two more long-terms opened up. Long story short, I took a first grade position at the same school, and taught them Writing, Spelling, Math, and Science. I also taught a really wacked out reading program to a second grade class that was next to mine. So, from March to the end of June, I was a 1st grade teacher. I really loved that. I should have started writing about my experiences then, because according to my boyfriend, some really funny things seemed to happen at this totally disorganized, oh yeah, and absolutely broke, school.

This past summer I taught summer school at that school too. All along, my big "career goal" per se was to get a job teaching an elementary level class, somewhere between grades K-4. But, my big problem is/was that I'm not a certified teacher in my state or any state. In fact the school program that I was finishing was a dual MBA in Finance and Marketing. So, needless to say, that made getting a elementary position in anything other a charter school, darn near impossible.

So I applied to a high school, as a Business Teacher. I totally never expected to hear back. Especially since I'm 21, and graduated from high school in 2000. Ok, now you know. But, and I promise you this, I'm not a total dork. I almost flunked out of high school my junior year, I just didn't feel like going to school. But, parental threats, the help of a great community college, and wonderful matriculation agreements with the business college in my state, and I managed to finish an associates degree in business marketing management, a bachelor's degree in business management, and two MBA degrees by this past summer. Not too bad I guess.

However, all those degrees weren't helping me at all. But back to the high school. They actually called back. And, I got the job. So, now I'm going to be teaching high school. Wow, imagine that. Heehee, and you know what I realized? The kids that were freshmen when I was a senior, will be seniors this year. Too weird.

I just started my new teacher training with the school this past week. I'll write more about that tomorrow.