Substitute Teaching

I subbed for Laynie's ASl 1 class at the HEAT Center, in Aberdeen, MD. The HEAT Center is a little place (one building) that offers classes from several local colleges/universities, and this one happens to be through Towson University. Anyway, I had to give them a quiz, video tape their embarrassing stories, and teach them for a couple of hours. The class is four hours long (with half an hour of breaks). Yikes! Actually, it was fine. I finished 20 minutes early. I would have finished earlier than that, but I had technical difficulties with the quiz and had to come up with a workaround. It's all good, though.

The class was so well behaved! I'm not sure how many classes I have subbed for (maybe 8 or 10?), but these guys were the best. They were like BYU students. Some of them had great potential to be good signers. Funny, they all assumed I was deaf. I did not correct them, because I know how ASL 1 students are: they would have talked to me every time they didn't understand something. About two hours in, they were practicing conversation and one girl asked me if I was deaf (actually, she asked me if I was home, but close enough). I asked her what she thought, and she said she wasn't sure. I joked around and told her I am both, and then I told her I would explain more about myself next time. Another girl was asking similar questions. I thought she was asking me how long I have been signing, but as I was driving home, I realized that she was probably asking how long I have been teaching signing. Her follow-up questions were whether I teach college classes, etc. I told her I do not teach college classes, that I am lazy. She said I am good, and I thought she meant good at signing, but I guess she meant at teaching. So that was nice.

I will teach them again on Thursday. Actually, I will give them their final on Thursday.