A List of Things I Learned While Subbing - or

A List of Things I Learned While Subbing - or - Thank You

Teachers have fantastic taste in books.

Connecting with s difficult student will save a day's worth of arguing.

Colleagues genuinely want to help.

You all spend too much money on your classrooms. Case in point I remember subbing in a portable where the teacher had brought in table lamps, a few comfy chairs, and lots of cushions. It made the place glow with roomy warmth.

Field trips are insanely stressful.

Teacher's aides are the most valuable ally, and really underpaid.

So are teachers.

Dismissal time is like a brief daily vacation.

PE should be done every day.

There are many ways to format a discipline system, but without student buy-in the implementation of it is a waste of time.

This is also true when there is not consistency.

Kids want to learn.

I once taught in a first grade room where the students knew how to sing every poem in the book "Ride a Purple Pelican". I thought this pure cheese until I saw the enraptured faces of the kids. When they were done a starry-eyed little girl said "Our teacher taught us that." in the way you might inform your friends your are in love.

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And

I need to add to the list of things that could incite the world into peace. 3) Tortilla soup. The best I've ever had id a Guasalmex over on Holt. There may be other places that make as good a or better Tortilla Soup. God Bless Them. This soup may have been the only thing my ex-boyfriend and I agreed on. He liked it so much me went home and tried to make it from Campbell's tomato soup. The soup is made fresh each day (this is what the owner says at least, in his best "I'm telling you something very secret and important" tone) from fresh chickens that are stewed with spices and onions until they fall apart. When we asked what they did next we were refused. Whenever I feel sad or angry or lonely or sick this soup cures and comforts. I wish I has a picture to show you just how amazing it is.

Happy Ruination Day!

On top of being Good Friday this is the day Abraham Lincoln was shot, the Titanic struck an ice berg and one of the worst storms in the dust bowl hit. Gillian Welch wrote about it . For various reasons this has been the year I have needed the Resurrection to be real, which means I also need Death to be real. One with out the other is cheating. Today is the Day of Death. I used to wear black every Good Friday from my Holy roller days in college to my moody contemplative days during my 20s. I made Holy Week play lists and contemplated the crucifixion. The one Holy Week practice I have maintained is reading T.S. Eliot's "The Four Quartets" every Easter season. This year I have found an extra measure of comfort in it as I have read it as a love letter to suffering. Everything is transient. Nothing really sticks around and to get better first we must get worse. I attended a funeral of a respected spiritual leader recently and the man who gave the homily read from The D...

Summer

Oh. Its summer now. I have nothing to do. This isn't true. But I am finding it difficult to be honest these days. I actually have more to do than I can possibly imagine. However this summer was supposed to be different. I wasn't supposed to have this summer all to myself like I now do. So as I stare down the months ahead and hold myself in my hands I feel a bit at a loss. I spent the weekend grieving the loss of my imagined summer. Now here I am on Monday and I need to begin. But how shall I begin? I've been here before, so many times that I would suppose that it would feel natural to have my summer to myself. Instead it feels lonely and isolating. I have to go out and rebuild my life as a single woman. I hadn't been other for very long, so really it shouldn't be that hard to remember how to be this person. And there is the hope that I could always be better than I was with all I have learned in the past year. These are lessons I didn't want to learn.

Megan's Blue

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