A Brief Yet Triumphant Introduction

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ~Thomas Carruthers

Today, something odd happened. I stopped by another teacher's classroom to offer a few words of support to the sub who was there. The students were in their homeroom all day today, because a lot of staff were out, so this woman had to spend 6 hours with a bunch of ed/bd teenagers. The kids get bored, the teachers get bored, and everyone gets testy. To their credit, the kids were pretty good today. No problems in my room, and the rest of the school seemed pretty calm. I go to relax and just talk to students at times, which is nice. I wouldn't want to do this often, but today was ok.

I'm supposed to be talking about the sub. I've subbed a lot, and it can be a lonely job. Our school is especially challenging, so we try to be supportive of subs that seem good. So, I popped in to say hi and encourage her to return. We got to talking, and I mentioned the school I was at last year at the end of the year. Coincidentally, she'd taught the same students. A teacher had gone on maternity leave, and they hired her while they looked for an English teacher, who turned out to be me.

We spent some time talking about old students, and I realized I was having trouble remembering some of their names. I only taught them for 6 weeks, but they were important to me at the time.

So I'm starting this blog. I want to record what I do, so I can rememberthem in a few years. The kids are often amusing, sometimes intentionally so. Hopefully, this will help answer the question some people must ask: Why do I do this?