"You. Him. I want him."

August 22

Current Place of "Residence" The Belden-Stratford
Subbed? Yes.
Grades Taught 4th
Subject(s) Taught Ran a homeroom, aka Math, Reading, and Science, aka babysitting
Total Times I wanted to say "fuck" Don't even get me started
How good of a teacher was I? Honestly it's hard to separate this one. I'm not sure if I failed them or they failed me but today was off the rails.
Was I asked why my ears were red? Yes.

Standing in a familiar office, I watched different people running around taking care of all things more urgent than my placement for the day. I stood and stared, the only one of the non-staff side of the counter. On my third day, I came back to the first school. I knew these faces now and they knew me. One thought kept occurring to me when I saw everyone around 8 in the morning: I need to get better at names.

The principal of the school, Dr. Trenton, walked to his office, located behind the main office, in a rush but stopped when he saw me. He turned to someone and pointed at me. "You. Him. I want him." It must have looked like a cartoon the way I looked around and figured out he meant me.  He went on, "I want him in the computer lab today." Turns out that wouldn't work out. "Well then tomorrow for sure." Looks like I'll be working tomorrow.

The class I ended up subbing for was a fourth grade class whose teacher had called in sick. The students filed in with their breakfasts and we managed to clean up and make it through to my first prep period with only a small pandemonium overcoming the entire class. I told them when they got back, things had to change or we were in for a very long day with each other. Oh boy was the day long indeed.

Loud does not even begin to describe it. About halfway through the day I read my class the note I intended to leave for their teacher. I'll share an abridged version.

"I regret to inform you that your class was extremely disrespectful when you were gone. They did not get quiet when asked, they did not accomplish work assigned to them, and they were mean to each other. With some notable exceptions, almost everyone in your class had a problem at some point today."

Let's just hit the highlights here:
Three students removed from class
Four times I got the class quiet to tell them how pissed they got me, only to get halfway through my speech before they started ignoring me
Six worksheets given to me.
One collected, under the pretense that it was a test
One student cried because of the headache he had from the noise in the room
Three times another teacher came in to discipline the class
One time reconsidering a career in education
Two fights broken up
About 40 pencils sharpened
One special needs student who wouldn't leave my side and became my angel for the day.

He just wanted to color, but had a knack for math too. He got taken from class a few times to work one on one with a SPED teacher. The class had completely gone off the wall, people were running around the room, yelling at each other, and talking shit to each other. But my angel for the day sat at my desk next to me, coloring and then looked up at me and asked me if he was being good. My heart melted and the only thing that could have made me happier was explaining to each of the other children's parents how their child had acted all day.

You win some, you lose some but there can always be a silver lining.

Lesson 4: Even at the bottom of a very deep hole, there might be something of value