All by myself

I've never been alone with the children for more than half an hour, but today I'll have them for all four sessions. This is because the teacher will be working with folks from our twin school in Sheffield, UK, and will thus be occupied for the majority of the day.

Luckily, I'll be more than the glorified childminder. The teacher--who's the school's bilingual program coordinator--has left lesson plans. More importantly, she's secured a sub, mainly to monitor. In a nutshell, to get things to calm down if it gets too out of hand. This is a particular problem with the bunch today, referred to by the teacher as "the naughty group." The children and I get along fine, but a) I suppose that I've been a tad too friendly with them this term, and b) I'm not the "real" profe.

I took down copious notes of how the teacher wanted the lessons to be presented and--as a last resort--I can send kids to the sub for disciplinary action. In any case, I won't let this bring me down.

After all, I'm going to Paris tonight.