Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Last Long Term Job this year


I had a long-term sub job at a local elementary school not too far from my LOST (Legion of Substitute Teacher's) lair.

Great kids! Ended up having about a half dozen who would stay after school and write on the white boards, record names of students who didn't clean up under their desks, and generally avoid going to A+.

The only trick the kids used time and again was the: I've got an 'owie' the size of a pixel on the tip of my thumb, so can I go to the health room? It got old quick, but I had a hard time refusing to send them. However, mentioning that they had a health card that was four pages long tended to make them quit asking quite as often. (Surprise! LOST's tend to figure things out pretty fast, since we're the brunt of 80% of students' trickery)

I got the distinct impression that there was a problem with misplaced loyalty amongst the permanent staff at the school. 'Mrs. A. did it this way.' Or, 'You don't understand our culture at this school.' (I've only been in the islands since 1974 and I'm married to a part-Hawaiian man, but, yeah,I don't understand how it works yet) :-{

However, it was an excellent learning experience and I did make a good acquaintance at this job. Having a steady paycheck for two months was a good thing, too. So, it was a positive experience overall.

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