the rewards of subbing

Substitute teaching is not that rewarding to be honest. I like the fact that I get to work with students each day and that I am doing something in my field, but it pretty much sucks knowing that when I go home I wont see those students again any time soon and that my presence in the class did nothing to impact their life. I long for the day that I have my own classroom and students that I can come into school and see each day, getting to know them, and working with them.

Every once in a while I am surprised and subbing does provide some reward. The week before spring break this was the case. I had taken a job to sub for a class described on SubFinder as “Autism.” To be honest I was a bit nervous, I have had experience with special needs students in my class, all of which who are inclusion students, whose needs still allow them to be in mainstream classrooms. I knew that this group of students would be much different and that their needs would be much more severe than I have had to deal with in mainstream classrooms. I had an idea of what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of my expectations to be wrong. I expected to have one of the hardest days of subbing and it turned out to be the complete opposite.

I had four students and the help of two aides (which were a huge help). Each of the students had severe cases of Autism and brought with that a variety of needs big and small, mentally, and physically. Each student was one of the happiest kids I have ever met though and you could just see joy on their faces all day. They were a bit scared of me at first since I was a new strange teacher (and a lumberjack), but as the first few hours passed they really opened up to me. By midday we were having a blast. We hard art class, read books, watched some movies, had individual learning time, the whole nine yards. At the end of the day we took them out side and had our own little recess for an hour or so because it was so nice out.

As I was driving home I just thought to myself of all the fun we had throughout the day and what a great group of kids the four was. These kids would have medical problems for the rest of their life and they were as happy as can be. They showed their joy to each person they came across and were kind to each other, other students, and teachers. As I drove home I began to think about the day as a whole and how awesome it was. I thought about all the things we did with the students, the different activities, and the fun we had, and then I began to think, what awesome kids, these students were. I though of how much they could teach us about being open, caring, and joyful in ways we can sometimes find it hard to be. It truly was an awesome day.

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