Deep questions

Yesterday, I made the trek over to school to chat with the teacher who has filled in for me for the last two weeks, gather up paperwork to sort and to do a general damage assessment. Overall, things didn't look to bad. My desk was piled high with stacks of paperwork, but that's to be expected after being gone so long. The floor was semi-trashed, which may correlate with the level of anarchy that happened in my absence. We'll see.

I had an interesting chat with my sub. I hate to use that word to describe him, because there are subs when you need a warm body to hit "play" on the VCR, and then there are people who are qualified teachers and experts in their field, and fill in because they like teaching. My sub I've had fits into the second category, and I am grateful for the time he was willing to give up to take over for me while I recovered. Unfortunately, a substitute could be the most qualified teacher in the world and kids will still see them as "just a sub", and take advantage of the fact that they don't know all of their names and are unfamiliar with how the school works. Grrr. Most of my sub's experience has been in small state schools for the deaf, and in the college level. I don't think he was quite prepared for high school. He asked me, "Is this class required? Half the kids want to be there and are motivated, and half of them don't want to be here. Who do I try to teach? The motivated kids or the ones who have fallen behind because they don't want to be there?" Mmm...Good question. I've been pondering that one since I started teaching. I know this sounds like things went badly, but overall, I think he had a good experience. I'll find out if my students had a good experience next week.