I suppose the blog can keep moving forward until things settle down. There have been a couple requests to keep it going. As the readership falls, I suspect I'll announce a last blog soon.
I went back to work yesterday for a half day (three classes). That left one Freshman band and a computer class with the substitute teacher. Students in the left-over band class were apparently upset that my return didn't include them. So today, I stretched my "half day" to four classes, seeing all of the bands. It was also a stretch for my stamina but I made it through and I can't describe how good it feels to get back.
There is a phenomena that is occurring right now with my band students at the high school. I've seen it before so it was completely predictable. When a teacher is gone for a long period, their value from the student perspective gets highly elevated. On the other hand, the substitute teacher, who has been fantastic is still labelled a "substitute" and will never measure up to the mystique of the missing, "wonderful" teacher. This is especially true for the 9th graders who don't even know me yet!
Within a couple days, they will discover that I work hard, I have passion to make them sound like a great band, but I'm really not saying anything to them that they haven't heard from their substitute teacher. The mystique will wear off soon and that's fine with me. My high school bands have been extremely fortunate to have a substitute who was in it for the long haul to make it work for the students. We couldn't have been more fortunate.
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