I very seldom miss school because of illness.

Usually, I know well in advance when I’m missing class, and am able to go over the plan with students and with a “leadership team” for each class period (see Use ‘Compassion’ When Planning for a Substitute Teacher).

I’ve always wanted to videotape sub instructions for my classes. However, anytime I’ve been sick enough to miss school, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to anybody – much less make a video.

This morning, though, I woke-up with a sore throat and since I’m also recovering from sciatica, and some things are happening tomorrow that I can’t miss under any circumstances, I decided to take the day to rest up.

And I felt well enough to make this video, which both my student teacher and the sub say students thought was funny, but they also “loved it.” It’s not great shakes of a video, but I think the novelty of it had an impact.

Have you used videos when you’re going to be gone? If so, how did it go?

Absence instructions from Larry Ferlazzo on Vimeo.