Sub Karma

I have been hoping to have something to write about lately. Well today, I got it.

But let me start with Thursday. I substituted yesterday for a 2nd grade class at a nearby school. I walked in and the teacher said, "It's your lucky day. I have my student teacher here so your job is to make eyebrows at the naughty kids and let her take the lead."

Um...yes. Let me write your name down. I will be taking all your teaching absences from now on.
I had 2 "challenges" that day. The first was that the student teacher asked me to deal with the kid who just showed his butt to the class. Done. I like the tough ones and this kid just needed more supervision.

The second "challenge" was the realization that it is time to retire one of my old shirts. You see, at the end of the day, a girl said to me "Do you have a baby in your tummy?" And this is not denial...the shirt is the problem. It's not that I don't have some residual baby leftovers, but I am nowhere near the justification for being asked that question. I have decided that my cute, Old Navy, polka dotted shirt needs to find another to love. Goodbye old friend.

This second grade class was great. I had kids writing papers about me. One child handed me a picture they drew for me. The birds were singing and it was all rainbows and sunshine.

However...

I was just made aware of Substitute Karma. It's a rule in the stars where "A substitute is not allowed to have an amazing day. If said substitute does have a well-behaved class then the following substituting experience has to be equally opposite of said 'amazing day'." This is an actual rule.

Today I branched out a little farther from home - straight to the inner city schools. Ironically, it was still 2nd grade. Because of my experience yesterday I let my guard down. I believed for a moment that all children are wonderful and that I get to be the loving mother to 25 amazing children for 3 hours. Here is what happened:

I arrived 10 minutes before lunch (I like to do half days and usually work in the afternoon). I get the run-down from the teacher, who says that it should be pretty easy for the rest of the day. I get to take them to lunch and be the lunch duty, read them a story, teach them math, have them quietly read and then send them home. These are all my favorite things. It was looking so good....

And then she left.

I lined the kids up for lunch and a girl, whom I will call Naughty, tells me that I need to pick 2 VIP's and she asks if she can be one.

Me, the unsuspecting victim, says "sure" and she runs to get 2 badges that I was not aware existed.

 At the same time there is another boy, whom I will call Anger Management (AM for short), asking if he can be the other VIP.

Now, the teacher had warned me about both of these children but she only said to "keep an eye on them and if AM causes you problems then call the office." I have had warnings about many kids before and I usually seek the trouble makers out and befriend them right at the beginning. So far, this method has prevented many problems...until today.

So when AM is asking me for the VIP, I can tell that something doesn't feel right. 

If I needed to know what would start an outright cry for an injustice, it was handing Naughty and AM the VIP pass. Twenty other children declare that there is no way that those two are VIP's.

Seeing as how I don't know what the qualifications are for what a VIP is, or even what any of these kids' names or regular behaviors are, I decide that for today there are no VIP's. 

EVERY KID HATED ME after that. Both AM and Naughty went to the corners of the room and cried, yelled, and AM started banging his head against the wall.

Luckily another administrator walked in and sat there with them while I took the rest of the class to lunch.

 When I got to the lunchroom (keep in mind, I have been at this school for 15 minutes) another teacher was dropping her class off and she said, "You are so and so's sub? I heard you don't have VIP's today." 

Oh, I see my reputation precedes me.

I've explained that I love lunch duty but today they stole that joy from me. First of all, I am the only "teacher" or even adult in the lunchroom and I don't know anything about the lunchroom standards at this school. I swear that every kid is sitting near someone who is insulting them. "Teacher, he just said that I am dumb." "Teacher, she... she just said that...um, that she doesn't want to sit by me." "Teacher, he just said that he hates my teacher." I admit that this one I was curious about. I asked the boy if he said that he hates the girl's teacher and he said, "Yeah, she is mean." I can't argue with that. Carry on.

Eventually, AM and Naughty made it to lunch. The biggest concern for my lunch duty was Naughty. I walked by her table and she flashes me a gang sign with her fingers and says, "You want this?" 

This is second grade, people.

After lunch it was just bad. B.A.D. The highlights consist of me telling AM "No" and he picked up a chair to throw it at someone. (He didn't end up doing it.)

Another kid, (I'll call him Rebel without a cause, but Rebel for short) NEVER. SAT. DOWN. EVER. Rebel and AM talked and sang and made noises through the one page that I actually got to read during story time. They did this on purpose because they didn't want to hear the book. Rebel kept threatening the other kids if they looked at him or tried to talk to him. He tried to act like he was a gangster. "You got somethin' to say to me?"

Other teachers came in and yelled at my kids to sit down and listen at least 7 times but it didn't help. I had so many kids ask if I was going to leave a good report or if they were being good. I always said, "What do you think?"

One kid, I'll call him Slugger, needed to go to the principal early on for misbehavior but I couldn't even deal with him because the other kids were so bad. I couldn't leave the class to take him. Finally after Slugger hit another girl, a teacher walked in and I was like, "You gotta take him with you."

There were so many needs to deal with. At one point, I was consoling one girl because the other girls told her she was a bully. I had kids who wanted to whisper things in my ear because they didn't want the other kids to hear. One kid even offered to go get his dad, who works at the school, to come and deal with Rebel. I had kids who wanted to tell me stories about their lives but if I stopped to listen to them then Rebel would be starting a fist fight in the back of the classroom. And one kid smelled like pee. It was unreal.  

Oddly enough, by the end of the day Naughty, AM, and Rebel were sent to apologize to me for their bad behavior. I may have even gotten a hug from Naughty. I'm sure the other teachers sent them in because they knew I was going to have permanent emotional trauma from this experience.

So I am now rethinking my "challenges" from the 2nd grade class from the day before. If there is a Sub Karma somewhere out there I wonder if I can negotiate a deal where I can have a great experience if I just let them ask if I'm pregnant. I think I can deal with the personal insult if I can just leave a school without worrying that a second grader is going to strip the tires off my car...or worse. And what's the harm in getting mooned?

Mini substitute stories

I think I found my new favorite position. I'm not sure that there is an official job description for a lunch monitor but it is amazing!

"Yes, I will open your ranch packet for you."
"Yes, you can go grab a snack."
"Yes, that pizza was made in a factory."

The kids are all contained. They are happy. They are fed and I get to say yes to almost everything. Sign. Me. Up.
The only hesitation that I have is that I don't look like the kids or their teachers in this area so instead of one class staring at me, the entire grade level - who all eat at the same time - are noticeably staring at me. I frequently get asked if I am a substitute for whomever their teacher is - even if they have seen them that day. This can be a little awkward for me but I sweep my long hair over my shoulder, bat my blue eyes at them and pass out napkins like the best of them.

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I substituted for a music class this week too. This was fun because it was totally appropriate to bring my little bluetooth speaker and we played freeze dancing for the upper grades. The kindergarten class had a different plan on their agenda, however...

I know that "Annie" is a classic, but when was the last time that you watched it? Seriously. If you want to know why our generation is out of order, maybe we should look at the things we grew up with.

After a scene where Ms. Hannigan has yelled at the girls, I have some distraught children.
"Mrs. Miller, my mom says we don't say 'Shut Up!'"

Me: I cringe. "I know, buddy. That is not nice, is it?" Then I think, "I wonder how your mom feels about a woman who is visibly drunk with the alcohol bottle in her hand, immodestly dressed, and throwing herself at every man who comes to an orphanage? What are her feelings on that?"

This was an awkward situation as many kids were confused and upset. Freeze dancing, anyone?

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I substituted at a school where my son had some friends from 2 years ago (the school split) and I ended up in class where there were kids who knew my son. One boy was so excited that I was teaching him because he loved my son. He asked if he could write my son a letter.

He handed it to me at the end of the day. "Can you please give this to [your son]?"
"Yes, I can. You know, here is our contact information if you want to call him. Where do you live, anyway? It should be close by."

He hesitates and then says, "I don't feel comfortable telling you that."
Me: "Okay, that is fine." And I am thinking that his hesitation came from the other kids who were standing around him. You know, the kids who ride the bus home with him and already know where he lives. After he walks away I realize that I should be grateful that he didn't report me or start yelling "Stranger Danger!" I guess my supermodel status only has effect in the lunch room.

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A kid came up to me toward the end of the day and prophesied, "There won't be school tomorrow."
"Well, I don't know about that. It looks pretty fine out there right now."
"Nope. There won't be school." and he walked away.

Sure enough, there was a ton of snow that fell at 3AM the next morning and a snow day was declared.

I found it prophetic when I thought about this later...this kid's name was Mohammad. It still makes me chuckle. I wonder what else he knows.

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I have also been grading college papers for my other job. They have to come up with a business idea and explain how they would go about starting it.

My favorites:
A potato bar where everything is made with potatoes. In all seriousness, I would totally eat there.
Or customized swimsuits...
Most were just copycatting many trendy businesses that already exist.

And my "favorite"...tell me your thoughts on this... a restaurant/bar that you bring your laundry to. There are many questions I have for this business idea but the first one that comes to mind...
Do I want my clothes to smell like a restaurant or my food to smell like a laundromat? And do I get to choose that?

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This is what has been happening in the education world where I live. I am considering volunteering for a refugee center in my spare time. I wonder what stories await me there...

Tiny Dancer- A Substituting Story

I have another substituting experience. One that I hope won't come back to get me fired.

Let me start off by saying that the night before I started subbing, I looked up substituting helps and ideas as I had a panic attack over why I was even doing this in the first place. I came across a blog of an educator who told a story about her first year as a teacher. Her class was a little less disciplined than she would have liked and she didn't have a good handle on the class. She goes on to explain that one time when she had a substitute she was notified by the administration that her students had duct taped a kid to a chair and had posted it on social media. She hoped that no one else has an experience like this. By comparison, my next story isn't quite that bad but still...

So my experience is a middle school experience. At the middle school they are not allowed to have their phones out. I support this rule but the kids know that they can push these boundaries and have their phones on their desk (but not necessarily in use) because I am an intruder in their little lives. So unless I want to lecture and embarrass more than half the class, I just let this go.

I like to bring music to the classes I teach. I do this through the Amazon streaming service and find clean versions of the popular radio songs. Some kids grumble about this type of music so I use some passive aggressive techniques and then they get over it. So this one day I had the music out and the kids are working on an assignment (that lasted them 15 minutes, by the way. FIFTEEN. MINUTES. With no other assignment for the rest of the hour).

There is one girl, who I will call "Tiny Dancer" who is just loving the music. LOVING IT. She will not be confined to her seat. It holds no value for her. She NEEDS to be moving to the song. Apparently this girl is new and the other kids are being super nice to her but I am not sure they knew what to do with her. 

I said, "Tiny Dancer, I love that you like the music but you need to finish your assignment. I promise it won't take long."

Tiny Dancer: I know but I just can't. (And she is just swinging her hips and moving and closing her eyes and everything.)

"Well I might have to turn it off until you get the assignment done."

Tiny Dancer: Okay. I'll try to work. 

I walk around to another student in the room and then the song changes.

I turn back around after a minute and...

Oh. my. gosh. Tiny dancer is not in her seat or near her area at all. She is in front of the speaker dancing like she is at the club. 

And to make matters worse... half the students have their phones out and are streaming this to social media. I cannot even get to the speaker to turn it off without being in the picture.

I am not sure what to do. I have to say something, thus having my voice as evidence on the video and I can't just walk out... Or can I? I'm not sure. But I had to tell the class to put their phones away and that my little speaker is retiring for the day. 

So far, I have not been notified that I cannot sub at this school. Perhaps it is because this school has a hard time getting subs so maybe they don't care or maybe they don't know about it, I'm not sure.

I can't help but feel great compassion for the first year teacher and wonder if me finding that blog was meant to be a premonition for this day. I hope this never happens again but I feel more confidence in the fact that at least 2 of us teachers (and likely many more) have been caught not really educating the youth of this generation.