Day 54- ABC123

Guess what I did today!??!?

If you guessed substitute teaching, you are right!

I have taught for most of my adult life and am in my first year of retirement.  My comments after today?  Teachers aren’t paid enough for the work they do.

I love teaching. I miss my colleagues and the kids (their cuteness, sweetness, and innocence make everything worthwhile). But today I was reminded of what a challenging job it is.  Between the standards to follow, the constant testing, meetings, parent conferences,  increased number of children with behavioral and learning problems, correcting, planning, and -YIKES-the LONG hours (don’t let anyone kid you that you are done at three) when you often can’t even take a bathroom break- it is a very hard job.  Rewarding- yes, but very hard nonetheless.

I was greeted enthusiastically by many of my former students and some of my parents too- I love that! And I laughed at myself when I started to pick up the stack of papers to bring home at the end of the day to correct- nope, I don’t have to do that! I am just a (mostly retired. . .) sub now!

Don’t ever let me complain again about the pressure of coming up with something to photograph for Project 365 . . .