Ever wonder where the time has gone? I am in that place right now. Where did the summer go? It seemed to last only a few weeks. Oh, wait, it was only a few weeks in duration, seriously! At this moment (I just checked) the temperature is 65 degrees Fahrenheit and we have had rain for the last few days. It was cool enough this A.M. that I donned a hoodie for my walk. Feels like October, not September.
It being September and officially back-to-school time in my neck of the woods I have gone from mostly fun stuff while on the computer to work. Over the Labor Day weekend I 'tried' to switch gears into checking Aesop mode. That is, checking Aesop over and over and over . . . You get the idea. What I least like about being a guest teacher is having to 'search' for assignments. It used to be that I was severely disappointed that I did not have my own classroom but Aesop had 'helped' me to get past that and dread the hours I find myself sitting at my PC, searching for a job. I call it "Office Chair Butt Syndrome" and hope I don't offend anyone with my coining of that term.
On Tuesday, September 7 our guest teachers had a chance to attend the District's annual Guest Teacher Inservice and about 170 of us were able to make it to the event. It was a lot like last year's inservice. We heard from Mary O'Rourke and K.C. Clark on working with student's with Autism and while it was quite similar to last year's presentation it was full of useful information for guest teachers. Patrick Hughes from Risk Management stopped by to tell us that we had to take a couple online tutorials then pass the accompanying quizzes within the next three months. Less Moore with Computer & Information Services took a few minutes to instruct us on how to change our email information in Aesop -- we no longer have district email accounts. (;_;) After the break Brie (Bruce) Stiller and Melissa Barbour gave us a lot of moral support by making us laugh about the nature of guest teaching and giving us some strategies to help make all of us successful; it is always a plus to have laughter and useful strategies. We finished up by taking a look at some of the technology we might run into in the classroom. A significant number of our guest teachers are less than comfortable with document cameras, Smartboards, Airliners and clickers so Marilyn Williams' presentation was, as always, well received. All we have to do now is search and search and search . . .
