Someone Else Doing My Job

For the past week, someone else has been doing my job, and it's weird.

When we came back from Christmas break on January 7, my student teacher, Caleb started, and this week he officially took over the whole class. This has been the oddest week of my life.

First of all, it was sort of a baptism by fire deal for Caleb already last week because I had strep throat and was out of school during exams. He did a very nice job of handing out the exams, and then collecting them. This week, though, he had to do the plans, the teaching, and the grading for himself.

Caleb is my first student teacher and it is most definitely a strange feeling. When I get to school in the morning, I don't have to worry about whether I have copies made or the lesson the board. It's equally weird DURING each class when I don't have to do the teaching. If you know me AT ALL, you know it's horribly hard for me to keep quiet about things that I am passionate about. That is a problem this quarter because Caleb gets to teach The Great Gatsby which is my FAVORITE thing about teaching American Lit. So to watch him teach is to bite my tongue CONSTANTLY.

Don't get me wrong, Caleb is fantastic! He knows his stuff, he's good with the kids, and he loves teaching...but SO DO I! I am finding out that I clearly have control issues. I feel guilty being at work and letting someone who is not being paid do my work.

On the other hand, I am freed up to work on my Master's Thesis (which I did today), the testing schedule for the juniors, and my lesson plans for next quarter. Plus Caleb has new and great ideas that I will clearly be steal...um, borrowing from...for the future. I think maybe next week I will have to make myself scarce and leave the classroom to Caleb. I think he can handle it. The question is...can I?