Easiest $100 I ever made...

Renaissance man that I am, I tried my hand at substitute teaching for the first time today in the Oakland Unified School District. Now, I'd definitely accept the label of try-anything-once-type (with the possible exception of eating something like a cockroach are taking any illegal drugs) but if you had told me a few months ago that I'd be a substitute teacher on a Friday in February of 2009, I would've looked at you like you were crazy. Unemployment will send you down some interesting roads indeed. I daresay that there will be sojourns down the less traveled in my immediate future. That's okay though. It all gives me interesting things upon which to reflect.

All these years I've wondered where substitutes come from. Well, actually, I haven't really, but that just sounded good. This is truly one of those things that I have given zero brain energy to in my 37 years. We've all had substitutes take the reigns in our respective classrooms at one time or another, but never did I wonder, "Hmm...i wonder how they arrived here this morning?" I guess I tend to save my curiosities for much more pertinent questions like, "How did she get all that into that?" I'm dangerously close to digressing here, so I'll right the ship.

Here's the drill. Subs must declare their availability for a given day either through some sort of automated system or by calling in for a job. Since my info is not in the automated system yet, I'm relegated to the call in method for now. The wind was almost totally out of my sails this morning at 630am when for the second day in a row I had not discovered any available assignments. I decided to attempt to take care of another errand after leaving the gym this morning, dipping over to the courthouse to make a 3rd (and unsuccessful) trip to straighten out this traffic ticket situation. More on that another day. I was at the front of the line, arguing with the volunteer information clerk about how absurd a process their process was that kept causing me to come back when my phone rang and went to voicemail. I called back as soon as I was outside heading for my car to discover that there was indeed a late assignment for me. Actually, there were 3!

It was already 855am, and school had already started, but they still had some openings. I had the choice of 3rd graders or middle school kids. I tried to quickly weigh my options as to which would be the smoothest transition for me as a newbie. To make a long story short, I went to the middle school. The funny thing is that the middle school is exactly half a block from my old house in East Oakland.

Boy did I stumble upon a cushy assignment. You want small class sizes? Twenty students in a class? How 'bout 25 students in the whole school!?? There were 5 boys in my first class and 4 girls in my second class. (For some reason, they separate the boys from the girls.) After those two classes, there was a Black History Month assembly/presentation that lasted almost 90 minutes and was followed by a soul food pot luck.

When all of this was done, it was after 2pm so they let the kids essentially have "recess" on the playground until school was out. How will any future assignment EVER top this. The bar has perhaps been set too high.