Substitute Heaven, and Month Eleven

This picture is of my Split Leaf Philedendron, the plant that would not die. I thought we needed some color.

Substitute Heaven is when you get to sub for a teacher that has a student teacher. During student teaching the “cooperating teacher” is supposed to remain in the room, since it is the law that a certified person must be in the room. Even when the student teacher (ST) graduates to teaching the classes, a certified person is supposed to be present. Therefore, if the cooperative teacher is sick, a substitute must be in the room. If the ST is teaching classes, then the sub simply sits on his or her butt and enjoys the show.

When I was student teaching, my cooperative teacher was gone quite a bit. I often had a sub in the back of the room doing nothing more than reading a magazine. They were getting paid. I was paying to be up there in front of the class, while they were being paid to sit in the back.

Well, today, I finally got a chance to enjoy the other side of the coin. I subbed for a teacher who has a ST. It was fun. It was her first day to do it, she had been observing until now. I think she did pretty well. Her advisor came in to arrange a time for him to observe the ST, but the cooperative teacher was gone, so he left again. When he was gone, I gave her one of my best pieces of advice for a student teacher: Bribe the kids to behave when he comes in.

I did that. I believe it was one of the other teachers at the school I student taught at who suggested it, and my cooperative teacher concurred. Whether the kids would have behaved if I had not bribed them is neither here nor there, but I felt it helped. It worked for me. It gave me one less thing to think about. It was cheap, simply a couple bags of candy. The result allowed me to then concentrate on the lesson. My advisor apparently approved.

Well, today marks 11 months that our paperwork has been logged in to China. Our adoption continues to flounder along at an agonizing pace. When we signed up, it was supposed to go somewhere between 18 and 24 months, the latter being on the outside. Well, now it looks like it may be 2011 before we bring home our little girl. It is hard, but there isn’t much I can do about it except fret, and that does no good. It is with grim determination that we continue. One day, we will have our Little Miss. In the meantime, the wait, simply put, sucks.