Welcome Back, Class

Bet you thought I was never coming back. Well....I had a long interval of non-teaching over the summer and simply was not feeling inspired to write. I could have blogged about my seemingly endless job search for the perfect teaching job - okay, any teaching job - but I didn't want to depress you.

Let me tell you what I'm doing this fall.

Tomorrow, I start teaching adults. That's right....adults, college students, people who have chosen to take the classes that I'm teaching. What's better is that they're international students learning English. That presents a new set of challenges, but more than counteracts the sarcasm and indifference innate to high school students.

Don't worry though. I haven't escaped teenagers altogether. Until they decide to hire me full-time at this small college or until I go completely loco, I will supplement my income by substitute teaching in Chicago's lovely public school system. Ah yes...let me tell you about how exciting that is.

Substitute teaching in CPS is obviously such a privilege that only the most die-hard self-torturers can get through the application process. Let me just give you a brief rundown of what I had to do to become an official CPS sub. You'd think, already being certified as a type 09 teacher and having a master's degree and having already student taught in CPS, that all I'd have to do is fill out a little extra paperwork. You'd think wrong.

Instead, after realizing that they'd never answer their phone or e-mail, I finally physically went down to the CPS downtown headquarters to get my questions answered. Once there, they gave me an application packet despite the fact that I already had two of them, made a copy of my driver's license, made me something called a "sub letter," and then told me to go out to the meat-packing district to get my fingerprints done? Huh? They can't do fingerprints at this location?

Nope. CPS Human Resources has its own building hidden among factories and butchers and auto repair places in the far west loop, nowhere remotely close to the main CPS building. That would just be too easy - CPS prides itself on its chaos. After wandering around for, oh, 30 minutes or so after getting off the train, I finally found the building. Once inside, I got to stand in line for another 30 minutes while the guy behind the desk kept yelling at everyone not to park in the parking lot. Apparently, that lot outside the building is not actually for CPS but for some other mysterious business nearby. That figures. It's street-parking for CPS employees.

So the finger-printing process was a nightmare that I won't horrify you with, but the next step was to return to HR a week later with my application pack, copy of my birth certificate, a physical and TB test, transcripts, and teaching certificate. After scrambling to get these items together over the course of a week, I presented my finished packet, which they looked over (not so easily - it took over an hour of waiting) and sent me off to the main CPS offices again to finish the process. Oh, did I mention they gave me a free "welcome to CPS" tote bag - that makes up for it all!!

At the main offices, I filled out more paperwork (what's the meaning of it all?!!) and then went downstairs across from Subway (?) to get my photo ID. Naturally, the photo ID people don't currently have any of the official IDs available so I have to get a temporary ID and wait six weeks for the real one to arrive in the mail.

I'm a sub now. I've gone through the process, and now I get the joy of waking up at 5:30 every morning that I'm available to wait for a call that may or may not come from sub services, asking me to baby-sit a bunch of teenagers. The good news - as a certified teacher, I get a buttload of money for this 6.25 hour gig, and during prep periods, I can do the lesson planning for my college classes. Woo!

Now I just have to await the crazy adventures that are sure to befall me this year, so I can continue to make you all crazy jealous in this blog. I'm excited, and I'm scared.