Bronchitis and Breaks

Well, I haven't written for awhile once again.

The first reason was the wonderful reason of BRONCHITIS. For some reason I've been getting this about every six months. I'm not really sure about the how or why but the what (as in what it feels like) I know rather well.

When I was absent I ran into the following problems:

1. Lesson plans: I may have called in sick every day, but I still had to go in to work out lesson plans. It was bad timing for me to be out because my sophomores are doing that independent book unit and my freshman are reading and watching Romeo and Juliet. To time out my lesson plan for the sub it took about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours when for me, I would have just done it since I know what my objectives and plans are that I wrote out at the beginning of the unit. That's only one reason it's sometimes easier to come in rather than call in. Number 2 is another real reason.

2. Subs: I was really lucky to have nice subs. I've been a substitute. It's not an easy job. One, though, I felt didn't really take enough initiative and the other almost took too much. (ME?!? Picky? Never.) First comes the freshman sub. From her, I got a really bad report, resulting in five phone calls to home to kids whose names were left. I admit, part of it was my fault. I had tried group work (with me including in the lesson plans the names of who would be in each group), but it really didn't work so well. When that didn't work so well, if I had been the sub, I would have just broken them up and had them do the work (maybe even twice as much!) individually.

The other sub worked with sophomores. I had given a differentiated assignment (tic-tac-toe) where there are projects listed and students have to pick a tic-tac-toe. That's the whole way the project is designed. It involves work with leveling and multiple intelligences. It doesn't work so well if they just choose the two easiest projects (which is partly human nature). So, even though the phrase "YOU MUST CHOOSE A TIC-TAC-TOE" was written in nice bold letters, he told them they could just choose three. Yikes! This is their final project of this unit. I feel mean since I didn't see them between Spring Break and tomorrow, but I'm going to break the news then. They really need to listen to the directions listed on the paper.

3.Stir-craziness: I like being secluded from time to time, but really. REALLY! I stank to never see anyone.

I was out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I came back in on Thursday, still feeling like junk, but I just had to come in for the day before Spring Break. Which leads me to my plans for this past week.

1. Shopping trip to outlet malls at a lake weekend with the girls from my department.
2. Cleaning, grading, and shopping for Clone 2's wedding.
3. Kansas City travelling.

All fun and all, alas, over as I return to school on Monday.