Subbing Olympics

Just got home from yet another substitute teaching adventure. Today it was babysitting 8th grade English students all day. Essentially I showed up for 7 hours, watched them do PSSA practice packets, and read 120 pages of a Jodi Picoult book. Apart from a kid leap-frogging over his friend - both standing up - it was a pretty unremarkable day.

But before you go using the words "substituting" and "babysitting" interchangeably - as I just so carelessly did - think again. I have taught every grade from kindergarten anklebitters up through apathetic eight graders, and I have been put through the ringer more times than I can count. Well, that's an exaggeration; for as many students as I've wanted to "push into traffic blindfolded" (credit: Sam Ail), I've had just as many attentive angels. It's just more interesting, in the aftermath, to share stories about the kid that stuck spitballs in his belly button than the one that asked to borrow a pencil.

Kindergarten's rough. If it's your classroom and your kids - they're still climbing the walls but at least you can develop some day-to-day routines. When you're a sub, they quickly begin behaving like rabid sheep and you're the shepherd expected to corral them onto the alphabet carpet. One of the only times I taught kindergarten was in an urban area. The kids were as high as my shins and had attitude coming off of them like cologne. The moment they realized their teacher was gone, it was like the Shot Heard 'Round the World. They spent the next eight hours throwing things, screaming, dancing, scribbling, running and bleeding. Yes, bleeding. During an exasperated lesson on triangles, I had finally gotten them calm for a grand total of 45 seconds when a little girl goes "AHHHHHH!!!" Turns out the kid "accidentally" stabbed herself in the eye. Under WHAT circumstances one drives the point of a pencil into her cornea is beyond me.

Another time, I was teaching first grade. Towards the end of rather stressful day, some loud noises went off outside. I knew for a fact it was a car backfiring. Either that or some shoddy construction work happening down the street. I tried to calmly relay this to the class, but they decided to opt for insanity and began sprinting around the room yelling "GUNFIRE! GUNFIRE!". That's fine, guys. I'll just be over here reading The Giving Tree to myself. Oh, and then comes the cherry on the top of this dysfunctional sundae. I say, "You know what, guys? You wouldn't be behaving this way if your teacher was here," and they stop misbehaving just long enough to shoot me a glance and go, "We know."
 

For purposes of horror stories, I'll skip 2nd through 5th grade cause those are always great days. They're quirky, they're independent, they know how to sit in a chair for longer than sixteen seconds, and I don't need to use the words that invariably slip out of my mouth in most other classrooms: "Physically.... close... your mouths."

Then the kids hit middle school and they all go crazy again in new, undiscovered ways. They're each a unique combination of awkward, giggly, hormonal and rebellious. Once, I showed up at a middle school expecting to sub for an English teacher and was directed instead to the cooking lab in the dungeon  basement. Thankfully I just had to review a syllabus with them and not demonstrate how to make the best creme brulee. But once my spiel was over, there was still about 45 minutes left in the period. So the teens use this time to expand their horizons, a phrase which here means:  raid the kitchen cabinets, call each other "gay" and showcase their budding graffiti careers on all the desks.

So in conclusion, I should probably find another field. Maybe marine biology? I could save the whales. Just kidding... contrary to all of the above, I'm actually a good teacher. These kids just need less sugar and more hugs.