Day 221: Subbing on Four Hours of Sleep

When I got to school on Friday morning, I was running on four hours of sleep, thanks to my birthday the day before. It wasn't that I hadn't slept because I'd been out all night partying and having so much fun. It was more that I had only gone out til 1:30 am and then couldn't fall asleep because I was too depressed about how crappy the night had turned out, save for my burrito and margarita dinner with Abby. :-/

On Fridays I only have two classes and am done by 12:30, so I wasn't really concerned about my lack of sleep. In no time, I thought, I'd be home and napping.

Yeah... No.

The headmistress rushed into the teachers office as soon as I walked in, myself, telling me that the teacher was still out and that I would be subbing for the third day that week. I'd have classes all day long with the 5th and 6th graders, preparing them for their English exam they'd be having on Monday.

Normally, nothing would have perked me up more than to hear I got to sub... But running on four hours of sleep and banking on the fact I'd be able to be in my bed, napping, by 1pm... Then suddenly being informed I'd have five classes all on my own and wouldn't get home til 5pm? Efffff... >_<

After being with these two classes for half the week on my own, though, we'd started to develop a nice repoire, and so, I thought to myself, if there are any classes I have to hang with running on a lack of sleep, it'd totally be these two. ;)

And so I threw myself into it all, taking the responsibility of preparing them for their English exam on Monday very seriously. Rather than just giving them the review worksheets and having them grade their own as a class, I had each kid complete them (while listening to music, of course, to help them focus and make it more enjoyable) and then turn them in to me. During my lunch break, I sat in the teachers' office and corrected every single sheet - 140 in total. After I corrected them all, I wrote the class a study guide and stapled it to the front of their packet of review sheets. Next, I highlighted the parts of the study guide each individual student needed to focus on based on their mistakes they'd made on the reviews. I wrote each one's American name and put a smiley on it and circled the number of mistakes they had.

When we came back from lunch, the students were shocked I'd not only checked every one of them, but had made each of them a personalized study guide, to boot! Kids came up to me and hugged me, thanking me for helping them prepare for the exam so well. They said they'd never been given a study guide or anything before and they all quickly got to work trying to fix their errors based on the highlighted info in their guides!

Even the girl who usually cries every class was all smiles, working hard and humming along to the music. And the students that are usually disruptive? They were hard at work, too! And when they needed a break, they came and talked to me about their taste in music. :)

When the day was over, everybody thanked me and wished me a great weekend. Their authentic gratitude was utterly adorable. <3

Before I headed for the bus, an idea popped into my head randomly, and without knowing why, I knew I had to do it. I decided I would write the headmistress a quick note, thanking her for the opportunity to sub all week and her confidence in me, as well as inform her of the things I'd tried with the classes (music, study guides, etc.) that they really seemed to benefit from. I put a golden star sticker on it, signed it cutely, and put it on her desk as I left. Little did I know how important that divinely in inspired idea would turn out to be...

Anyway, night was spent napping, and then being dragged out of bed by Abbg, as everybody was waiting to go out for tapas for my birthday. I went out for an hour or two, but I was so pooped from everything that I was the first to head home.

XOXO