A floater is a teacher who doesn't have her own classroom, but moves from room to room in a school. Teachers sometimes wind up working as floaters because the number of students at a school necessitates a certain number of teachers, yet there just aren't enough classrooms in the school to accommodate every teacher.

If you're assigned as a floater, it's vital that you beg, borrow, or barter the largest wheeled book cart you can find. Without a cart, you won't float; you'll sink. The cart is for transporting your teaching materials and personal items — never let it out of your sight and never let any child or adult touch it or rummage through it or borrow it for any reason.

You'll have to decide if you want to keep your wallet, purse, or keys on your cart or if you want to hand-carry the stuff around with you. If you choose the cart, keep your wallet, purse, or keys securely stowed under lock and key where no one can see or access them. At a minimum, your cart should also contain the following essential materials, kept constantly restocked:

• Three-ring binder containing important information on assignments, room numbers, roll sheets, etc.

• Two sturdy clipboards with ruled paper for general note taking, etc.

• One dozen black whiteboard markers and two whiteboard erasers

• Five reams (packages of 500 sheets) of grade-level-appropriate writing paper

• 12 dozen sharpened pencils with eraser tips

• Sufficient textbooks for students to double up if enough individual copies aren't available

• Class set (about 32) of rulers

• Class set of scissors

• Class set of glue sticks

• Umbrella, raincoat, poncho, gloves, muffler, ear-muffs, knit cap, for inclement weather

• Sunscreen, sunglasses, broad-brimmed hat or baseball cap for hot, sunny weather

• Five bottles of water, plus nutritious packaged energy snacks

Of course, you could add many items to this list: a laptop computer with extension cord (keep it locked up!), stickers, calculators, an overhead projector — the possibilities are almost endless. In the end, just remember that many pro teachers have survived the floating experience until they received their own classrooms, and you can survive it, too — because you're a pro. Keep a cheerful outlook as you visit students and soldier on like the pro teacher you are.