Who am I? What day is this?

Ack…needless to say, life has been busy. But as I’ve said, the life of a substitute teacher is good for my reading. Not to mention my grading for my evening classes. It’s kind of cool having things to grade while I’m subbing. It makes me feel like a real teacher. 😉

Last week, I subbed for the first time in a district that has three high schools; North, South, and East. I’ve now been in both North and East, and East is the weirdest school I’ve ever seen. It has no walls.

Of course, it has outside walls…but the classrooms have no walls or doors closing them off from the rest of the school. Partial dividing walls kind of create the space, and some teachers use filing cabinets, shelves and cupboards as partial walls as well. There are no real “hallways”, so to speak. I was subbing for a science teacher, and there were two classes that were lab periods. Since their regular teacher was out, they didn’t have lab. And I learned that when they don’t have lab (or whenever they finish their labs) they can just go wherever they want. This is information a sub really should have at the *beginning* of the day, wouldn’t you think?

Weird.

I’ve also subbed a couple of days in the Shangri-La of all WNY high schools. Oh my GOD. The school is beautiful, the kids are polite and well-behaved. I was in teacher heaven. Of course, it also got me to thinking about how unfair it is…these kids, by luck of birth, have parents who can afford to buy expensive houses in an affluent suburb and want for nothing, while other kids go to overcrowded schools that barely have money for supplies. I don’t know what the answer is, but there has to be one.