floating

No, not the good kind of floating. The bad kind. For the first time in awhile, I was in a "floating" school (a school that doesn't have dedicated classrooms), a situation I haven't been in since student teaching.

Well, that's technically not completely true. When I do classified jobs, I often follow kids to all kinds of crazy places, but that feels substantially different because I don't need to carry quite so many things with me. (All I usually need is my clipboard, a binder or notebook, and something to write with and maybe a couple of pencils.)

Floating in a certified teaching situation is NO FUN AT ALL, especially not as a sub because you have no idea where you're going. Not to mention that you have no idea what all you need when you get there. And to top it off, you already have to carry way more stuff around than a regular teacher because you usually have nowhere to store your personal belongings and whatever props you tend to use on jobs.

On this job, I had to teach in 3 different rooms, and I had to carry a huge box of books to one of them. Thankfully they weren't textbook sized books (or they would have required team lifting), but they were still pretty awkward, and not something I wanted to lug up a flight of stairs while simultaneously searching for an unknown classroom. (If this were a student teaching situation, I could have totally bribed one of the students into carrying it, but I was in a school where I knew absolutely no one).

By the way, in case anyone out there in Teacherland is wondering, this is the sort of information that one puts under "Special Instructions" (when you're doing the telephone recording for your sub posting)...that way I will know to bring my handtruck or perhaps a pallet jack with me next time. ;)

sheesh.