Something MUST be wrong with me....

Most teachers that I know love to go to workshops/seminars on school days. You usually get to go out for lunch, which is a treat that as a teacher, we don't usually get to do. The closest thing to going out to eat is to call and have something delivered for lunch from a restaurant. But unless it is a place that is opened early for breakfast, it is a problem. When your lunch period is 10:40-11:10, there just isn't much that will deliver that early.

But, I digress. Let me get to my point. To me, it has to be a REALLY amazing, outstanding workshop for me to go through all the trouble being gone and having a substitute teacher! This week I am going to a reading workshop for 5 days! I am feeling so frustrated! I not only have to plan for a sub. for 5 days - one who will more than likely not do anything I have planned (as my experience on more than one occasion!), but I will have to probably re-train my kids when I get back. Even kindergartners try to get away with as much as possible when I am not there!

Also, most subs. will only do "busy work" and don't want to deal with actually TEACHING. They don't know how to do literacy workstations. If they try to, everything in the workstations will be scattered, lost or all mixed up and moved to other places.

Do you get the feeling that I don't trust subs? This is one of the places in my life that as much as I want to control it, I can't! Yes, I am a control-freak! But if you know me, you know that! I know the best way to do most of what I do, and think anyone else doing it should do it my way! Don't get me wrong - I am willing to try a new way, but when I realize which is best, then I will do it that way and everyone else should to!! There needs to be a support group for folks like me!

My poor husband, bless his heart, has learned after 31 years of marriage to adjust to me! It is the rest of the world that I drive crazy!!! So whether you are in my classroom or my kitchen, you can expect VERY specific directions whether you think you need them or not! My poor mother, God rest her soul, used to tease me about the "books" I would write for her when she would stay with our children when they were young. She even saved some of them for me! Did I think she had never raised kids? Did I think I could do a better job than she? Nothing I do is simple to others. But the crazy thing is that I see my way,usually, as being the most time-efficient, the most cost-effective, the most beneificial for all involved.

I am so wierd...I get 5 days away from my job - wild and crazy 5 year olds and I am complaining! I sure am gonna miss them! They are going to have, in my eyes a wasted week of very little learning and lots of chaos! Who knows - maybe they WILL learn something this week - that all teachers are not like me and that their teacher loves them and wants the very best for them....which why I am willing to go to this #%*&%*#@ workshop!