The Case of the Missing Teacher

So I was thrust right into teaching today.  Yesterday, Ms. B and I decided to each teach part of the lesson for the next day and I planned a lesson and threw together a SMARTboard lesson.  I emailed it to her so she could look it over.  This morning, I got to school and found an empty classroom.  Ms. B was nowhere to be found.  I don't know my way around the school very well as this is only my second day, so I thought it'd be better if I stayed put.  I figured she'd be back in a few minutes.  But she wasn't.  So I tried to turn the computer on.  It didn't work.  I started to panic, but calmed myself down.  In a few minutes Ms. B would probably be in the hallway monitoring the students like we did yesterday; I could catch her then.  So I looked out into the hallway.  Nobody was there.  I waited a few more minutes... still no teacher in sight.  A few minutes later (10 minutes before class was starting)... no Ms. B.  Finally the bell rang and Ms. B came swooping in.  She had been at a meeting.

Within minutes, she had the computer up and running and checked her email.  But it wasn't working.  Thank goodness I had my flashdrive!  I had almost left it in my room this morning, but ran up to grab it at the last minute.  So I was able to get my lesson up and running, even if my mind wasn't completely ready for 7th graders.

Ms. B taught the first fifteen minutes of the 7th graders' science lesson and then turned the class over to me.  It actually went okay.  Sometimes the students got a little chatty and didn't raise their hands; I didn't know what to do so I basically ignored them and talked a little louder (that's how Ms. B handles it).  That worked pretty well most of the time.  I'm still looking for a better alternative.  Anyway, after I finished the lesson, the whole 1st hour 7th grade class started clapping for me!  I didn't think the lesson was that great, but whatever; I'll take what I can get. The other two hours of 7th graders I taught paid attention in class, but no one else showed their appreciation as much as that first hour. 

Tomorrow is a shortened day for the high school parent teacher conferences.  All our classes are shortened to about 20 minutes, so we'll see how the day goes.  I have high hopes... hopefully they won't be dashed!