“Who are you today?” (updated)

If there is one thing that irritates me (not enough to tell anyone outside of this blog) more than anything else is the question I get almost every time I substitute teach.

The question is not, what are you teaching today?

They always ask “Who are you today?”

I honestly don’t try to memorize the name of the teacher I am replacing. Sometimes I know the person and will remember.

When someone does ask me who I am, I tell them “Steven Douglas”.

More often than not, they don’t like my answer. Especially when they don’t know who I am.

Updated addition –

During the last school year, as a Long-Term Substitute, I talked with many short term subs who were not regulars at Washington High. I asked them if they had similar experiences regarding “Who they were”. They had similar experiences in schools as a short term unless they were regulars. Lucky for me, I was filling in for a vacancy so no one had to ask “What I was.”

Well Organized Teachers are Best 2

Last Thursday I spent the day with the 5th Grade at Wright Denny Intermediate School in Charles Town. Overall, a great bunch of kids. Nice office staff. Met the principal only long enough to introduce myself. I had hoped that it was an invite but turns out the teacher has a regular sub who was not available that day. Ah well…

This was another one of those jobs where the teacher ran a very well organized room and had very detailed instructions on what to do. The kids were very cooperative which allowed us to finish things faster and allowed for me to add in some fun things including an educational lesson from Magic School Bus. Due to bad weather the recess area was wet so we did recess in the classroom. Time for another film which I let the kids pick. (Of course it was age appropriate).

Some pics from the classroom and one of the school.