109- Planning Lessons

For the past three weeks now, I have had to plan lessons with Esther. I didn’t realize, until Caroline stopped coming to work, how useless Esther truly is. The woman does not plan. She pulls out worksheets from 1984 and suggests we give those to the children. Esther was definitely hired during that time period when you didn’t need a college degree to be a teacher; the only prerequisite was that you were a sweet woman.
I have basically come to the terms with the fact that I am solely responsible for planning all of the lessons for our entire grade. This will continue until Caroline either comes back or is replaced by a competent teacher. Esther is the gopher who makes copies and laminates cute charts. Caroline’s substitute is a part-time grad student with no experience with lesson planning. This leaves me to do all of the dirty work. I have been working overtime to complete the tasks that were previously split between Caroline and me.
At this point, I can only pray that Caroline will resolve all emotional problems and return to school. My workload makes me feel like I’m drowning.