doing the substitute thing.

Tuesday was my first day of substitute teaching. I was going to be working with fifth graders. In an elementary. I had little to no idea what to expect.

It. Was. AWFUL.

I'm so used to working with almost-adult-although-they're-still-a-little-immature students that I was just completely flabbergasted when it came to handling these 10-year-olds.

The other fifth grade teachers in the hall (all women) were incredibly nice to me. They took me under their proverbial wings, showed me the ropes, and basically got me through the day.

There were kids EVERYWHERE.

I only wish I had as much energy as they do.

I've never wanted to be a yell-y sort of teacher, but these kids made me want to scream and shout, and tell them to stay in the seats, or that was it! they'd all miss recess! see if I cared!

But I didn't scream. I didn't shout.

I was too exhausted to do either one.

The first and third classes were eerily well-behaved compared to classes two and four. I arrived at the school a little late, having been misled by my unreliable GPS (it directed me to a VERY empty field), so the first class was already in full-swing. The kids were listening to an audio reading of The Summer of the Swans, and then we took a test over the novel. They were ANGELS.

They left, and I had 20 minutes of free-time while they went to PE. I thought to myself, ha! That was easy. This elementary thing is a piece of cake.

I was so wrong.

Second class came in, and I had them at the beginning. I introduced myself, let them know we were having a test, and all of the joy immediately drained out of them. I mentally patted myself on the back for taking the fight out of them so quickly.

However, as soon as that test was done, things got a little crazy. I had no idea that kids could be in so many places at once. Also, I had been under the impression that the need to cheat arose somewhere around middle school, but these kids were CHEATERS. I monitored the classroom the entire time they were testing, keeping an eagle eye on the especially suspicious-looking students whose eyes kept popping up over their neighbor's privacy folders. Needless to say, so much constant vigilance was a little wearing.

Third class was WONDERFUL. This was immediately after recess. They came in red-faced and panting and I think they were pretty worn out.

Those privacy folders that had no effect whatsoever on class two? Well, they did wonders for class three. When students finished with their tests, they just left them up! They started on their next bit of work, shielded from the prying eyes of their fellow classmates by those taped manilla folders. And they were QUIET. I was afraid to speak and break the spell. I was almost afraid to breathe.

I whispered to them the entire class, and they just stayed QUIET the whole time.

If it were Christmas, I might say it was a Christmas miracle.

The miracle died right after lunch.

Fourth class came in, and I immediately knew that we were going to have problems. The kids weren't BAD, they just had way too much pent up energy and were ready to get home. I would have been more than happy to get them on their way, but when they're 10, you can't really just shove them out the door and hope for the best.

As much as I might have wanted to...

I had one student in particular who was especially entertaining. He coudn't stay in his seat for anything, but his hilarity made up for it.

"Miss!" he dropped his head back behind his seat and looked up at me from his upside position.

"Yes?"

"Miss, you smell like Burger King." He grinned up at me and pulled himself into an upright position.

"I do? That's funny. I haven't been to a Burger King in ages. And I didn't even have a burger for lunch."

I walked over to a girl sitting beside Burger King Boy. "Do I smell like Burger King to you?" As only a 10-year-old would do, she grabbed my sweater-clad arm and took a long, exaggerated SNUFF! Then she shook her head slowly. "Nope. You don't really smell like anything."

I turned back to BK Boy. "I'm pretty sure you just WANT some Burger King, don't you? That's probably why I smell like Burger King to you."

Another girl at the same table giggled. "Like when I really want ice cream! And everyone smells like ice cream! And some people even look like giant, walking ice creams!"

We all stared at her, a little taken by surprise.

SNUFFgirl broke the silence. "Um, I've never had that happen."

BK Boy eventually told me that his REAL name was Michael Jackson.

By this point, I'd just resigned to having the class in chaos. "Michael Jackson, huh? Should I start calling you that?"

"Yep. Watch this."

He proceeded to moonwalk across the classroom. I was thoroughly impressed.

He asked if he could sign his paper "Michael Jackson." I said, "Sure. Why not?" I asked him to write his ACTUAl (but not REAL) name, and just put "Michael Jackson" underneath in parenthesis. You know, just in case the regular teacher wasn't up to speed on his REAL identity.

The truth is, the whole Michael Jackson thing wasn't too weird. While student teaching, I had a girl went by her middle name (which wasn't on the roster), and was so obsessed with the Jonas Brothers, that she always wrote her last name as "Jonas."

It was extremely confusing.

So, the fact that this kid wanted to be referred to as Michael Jackson didn't really bother me at all. By the end of the class, I was affectionately referring to him as "MJ."

However, as exhausting as MJ was on his own, there was ANOTHER student who was just plain ridiculous. He couldn't sit still. During the first 20 minutes of class, while the students were supposed to be testing, he COULD NOT sit still.

He wiggled from side to side, dumping himself out of his tiny plastic chair and onto the ground. Then he'd pop up, right himself in his seat, and began the whole process again. He couldn't keep his privacy folder up. Everyone else's seemed to be working fine, but his was up, down, up, and down again.

Eventually, he looked at me very seriously and said, "Miss, I don't work very well in the classroom. Can I do this out in the hall?"

By that point, I was ready to try anything. "Sure, kid."

Fifteen minutes later, a girl from the class across the hallway came wandering in. "Uh, Miss?"

"Uh, Yes?"

"Did you send Dusty* in the hall to do his work?"

"Yep, sure did."

"Oh, well, I just thought you should know he's not really doing it. He's just goofing around out there."

I sighed and followed her outside in time to see Dusty terorrizing three girls who were actually TRYING to do some schoolwork.

I towered over him. (Which is saying something, considering he was more than half my height.) "Dusty? You done with that test yet?"

He showed me the test. Only two questions remained blank.

"Why don't you come back in the classroom and finish that up?"

He reluctantly followed me back into the class.

Getting Dusty to finish those last two questions was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

He physically could not stay in his seat. I'd turn around for two seconds to help another student, and the next thing I knew, Dusty was at it again.

He kept doing this thing, where he'd run to the hand sanitizer dispenser. He'd pump it about five times, until he had a huge glob of it in his hand, and then he'd find an unsuspecting victim. The first unsuspecting victim was, of course, me.

He grabbed my hand, pretending like he was going in for a heartfelt shake, and all I can say is, THANK GOD it was just hand sanitizer. Anything else, I don't think I could have handled.

He'd almost punked another girl, but I stepped in just in time. "Stop!" I yelled to her, just as Dusty closed in. "Don't fall for it!" One student saved, at least.

When the day was over, I poked my head out of the empty classroom, feeling both drained and shell-shocked. The other teachers, standing by their class doors, grinned at me.

"So you survived."

"Barely. How do you do this every day?"

They just laughed and told me to go home.

NEVER. AGAIN.




*some names have been changed. for instance, Burger King Boy is not the actual name of the student in question.