Working for the Weekend

May 19 and 26, 2007

For those loyal readers who look forward to reading about my wild and wacky experiences at the unnamed educational service, it has been a while since my last post. And for that, I apologize. It has been a combination of factors that have lead to the hiatus, the main one being that I cut back on my schedule a bit in the last couple of months to one day per weekend with the occasional weekend off. I was burning out a little with the long drive and working 7 days a week thing. Needed to find some balance in my life, know what I mean?

That long drive has gotten a whole lot longer with the start of the Dan Ryan (my route through downtown to the southwest side) highway construction project in March. It has been an absolute backbreaker for me and has almost doubled my commute time to work each Saturday. Despite the fact that I only use it once a week, the Dan Ryan construction easily beats out the Chicago Transit Authority’s Brown Line (my train to work during the week) expansion project for #1 on Grant’s “Least Favorite Chicago Area Construction Projects” list. I drop more F bombs and shake my head in disbelief on that one trip to the southwest side more than I do all week if not all month on the Brown Line. I guess you could consider that an underhanded compliment for the much-maligned CTA.

The other thing going on is that I have been focusing on getting out resumes for teaching jobs and preparing for the various Illinois tests I have to take to be certified in the state. Related to that, I just found out yesterday via e-mail that I passed both the Illinois Basic Skills test and the K-9 Assessment of Professional Teaching (APT) tests that I took last month over one grueling day at McCormick Place. In the words of the great academic Homer Simpson: "I am so smart! I am so smart! I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T. I mean S-M-A-R-T." One more test to go next month – APT Content Area Exercises - and I have heard it is an easy one. Now if I can only find that teaching job…

So, I have worked the last couple of Saturdays and must say that they have been very pleasant indeed other than the ridiculous Dan Ryan traffic I mentioned earlier. For one, I have generally gotten a good group of kids to work with each hour, kids that are able to focus and don’t distract each other. The other thing that has happened a lot more the last couple of weeks is that kids who were scheduled to be at my table of three have not showed up, leaving me with two kids to work with instead of the standard three. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but trust me, it makes a huge difference in terms of the craziness/stress factor and allows me to give more attention to each child.

Before I wrap up, a funny story that happened today. I was working with a young boy and was trying to explain the difference between fact and opinion. I said to him “What is your favorite sport?” He said: “I don’t have a favorite sport.” So, I said: “Who is your favorite singer or musician?” He said: “I don’t listen to music.” Running out of ideas fast, I said: “What is your favorite subject at school?” Much to my surprise, this was the question that he chose to answer. “Math,” he said. So I went on to explain that his preference for math would be considered an opinion while saying that math is one of the subjects at school is a fact. Another fact: Kids will be difficult sometimes for no other reason than to test your ability to deal with it. Guess I passed that test, too.