DUDE! I'M OPEN!! PASS!!!

Today was a gorgeous Los Angeles day and I got to spend it watching dorky and uncoordinated teenage boys attempt to play basketball at PE, chucking the ball 10 ft. away from the hoop in hopes of impressing the thoroughly uninterested girls who spend PE talking to their friends and avoiding a ball to the head. Good times.

I don't get health insurance as a sub, so I stayed far away. No head injuries, please. They do enough damage to my brain without sports equipment.

Room 25

At this point in my career, about half my subbing jobs are requests. I like requests because I know the kids, they know me, and it makes it a little easier to deal with them. I always welcome requests, except for one: my best friend’s class. (and she’s probably reading this: Hi Friend! :P)

My best friend is an amazing teacher who works with a special day class of 4th and 5th graders. She has 12 students. I am not a psychologist but my amateur diagnosis for several of them is they are just a serious pain in the ass. You remember that movie, Problem Child? The crazy ginger kid with the bowtie, Junior? Okay, 3 of her students are Junior. (That’s ¼ of the class for you non-math majors.) Another 3 of them are like Junior at age 4, still learning how to be total hellions, but getting there. Every time she requests me, I cringe, and accept, only because she’s like a sister to me.

And that makes those kids like my sister’s crazy children. I kind of have to like them. Normally, if I thought a class was like a pack of wild hyenas, I wouldn’t leave my sub number. Problem solved. But this is my best friend, my BFF since we were little kids. She knows I don’t really have a doctor’s appointment that day she needs me to come in, or a day flight to Utah, or the 24 hour flu. I’m not really helping my neighbor’s godson’s cousin install his water cooler. She's pretty sharp. I’m just avoiding her little Juniors.

But I have good reasons! When I sub for room 25, I have to say things like “Get off the bookshelf!” “don’t cut your hair!”and “put your shoes back on!” I have to confiscate things like a kazoo, a flashlight, toothbrushes, and a recorder. I have to yell at kids for painting their own faces or their neighbor’s arms during a painting project. I have to put a stop to impromptu classroom sing-a-longs to “Smack That” or “Yellow Submarine” (the only lyric they know being “We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine…. Repeat 6,000 times) The thing is, my best friend LOVES her kids. She thinks they’re funny and she does all sorts of involved projects with them and deals with the chaos and noise and I listen to her stories and just do not get it at all. If I were their full-time teacher, I'd be a raging alcoholic. But a recent experience would change my mind a little.

I got a last-minute request by my BFF to come back for 3 days for her, since her beloved grandma passed away. I was happy to help. I would bite the bullet, have lots of coffee and Advil, and take one for the team. I had no idea that spending 3 consecutive days with her motley crew would make me kind of like them more. They are funny, and they do funny things. I lost my voice on Day 2 of my stay and they were so excited, and then imitated me in whispers, which made me laugh. We did art projects that took way too much time and energy, talked about the food chain and I managed to survive each day, giving them a farewell fist-bump as they left (my BFF high-fives them, gross. I'm not there yet). They’re total stinkers. Unbelievably frustrating, loud, obnoxious little turds, with endearing quirks and bright smiles. We went to a school awards assembly, and when they won the classroom attendance award, I was beaming with pride. Even though every time I am there, I pray 3 of them will be absent, I was so proud they got their award for unrelenting attendance.

So yeah, they have kind of grown on me. Like a weird rash that stops itching. It’s not so bad.


But next time she requests, I’m having emergency toe surgery that day.

portrait

Apparently I have caught a cold, probably from one of the darling little germ factories I work with every day. I am in a rotten mood so I wanted to share this, since it cheers me up.



What I look like to a 7 year old.

I have big eyes but man, I didn't know they were THAT big.

names

What people might not realize about being a Professional Substitute Teacher is that every day, I have to quickly memorize a whole new class set of names. I have an awesome but oddly selective memory, which allows me to remember things like all of Brangelina’s kids’ names but completely forget what I ate for breakfast this morning. And with a memory like that, student’s names can get tricky, especially since none of them are ever Brangelina’s kids.

I’ve developed a method for addressing kids so no one is ever “hey you!” Smaller kids go by one of two names: Sweetheart or Honey. So I will say “Sweetheart, can you collect those papers for me?” or “Okay Honey, I need you to sit in your seat right now.” And those little nicknames make me sound like I absolutely adore them and just need their charming little selves to listen. Which I don’t, and I do. It also works when I run into those kids out of school, who are OMGZ SO EXCITED to see a teacher at Target (fyi, the feeling is almost never mutual, Target should be a Teacher Safe-Haven) that they rush up and hug me, and I don’t look like a horrible human being in front of their confused parents when I forget little Erica’s name and just say “Sweetheart!! So nice to see you!”

With older kids, I will not use the terms above because middle-schoolers are hardly sweet, scowling at me with their snarly little faces as they walk into class, and with high schoolers, it’s just creepy. I do have nicknames for them in my mind though, but those are more along the lines of “rude little jerkface” or the HBO version of “nasty turd.” For older kids, I find myself calling out to them based on the color of their shirt or the style of their hair. i.e.:
“Hey, Blue-Shirt---I need you to sit down, please.”
“Spiky-haired gentleman in row 3, please be quiet.”
“Girl-with-the-red-skirt, I need you to pass back these papers, please.”

There are 2 ways to be instantly name-memorable to me: Have a totally weird name, or act totally weird. So I will never forget little Aragorn, Elecktra, Lovve, Chardonnay, Jamiroquai or Pants-on-Fire.
(I’m kidding, I’ve never had the last two. Yet.) Oh, and Alyssa (pronounced “Eliza”. I KNOW. WTF).
And I will never forget Diego who shredded my nerves for 3 weeks in his 2nd grade class I foolishly accepted as a long-term sub, or Jaden who brought his sister’s panties to school in his pencilbox, or Malik, whose hyperactivity made me so nuts every time I subbed for his class I took a pre-emptive Tylenol at 8 am.




So, as you can see, this job is not as glamorous as it seems.

Pizza?

In an amazing display of stealth and coordination, a 7th grader managed to change my name on the front board to MISS PIZZA without me noticing. His class was supposed to write their names on the board when they borrowed a marker and I guess he thought I needed a name change. At least he didn't put MISS PIGGY or MISS BUTTHEAD, right?

I always knew...

When I tell people what I do, I always hear a similar response of amazement and awe, like I train circus lions for a living or do acrobatics off of mountainsides: “Oh, I could NEVER do that! I have so much respect for teachers, what a hard job!”

And yes, it is a challenge. It’s definitely not for the weak of heart (or bladder). But when you enjoy something, it’s a challenge you happily take on.

I knew I wanted to be a teacher from an early age. I was the oldest child in my family, and also the oldest of the large group of cousins we were raised with, so true to form, I was very bossy. I also thought I knew everything, which even if I didn’t, I would make it up and be confident the smaller ones were too dumb to figure it out. I did well in school and loved being there. I enjoy reading and writing and I have a strange affinity for school supplies (further intensified by working for an office supply store during college), and of course, I love teaching and helping people learn. (The most important part, right? :P)

But there is definitely a teacher personality. I’ve been told I have it, and that’s a huge compliment to me. I’m not sure entirely what it entails, but I assume it means I am flexible, patient and get a slight buzz from the smell of freshly Xeroxed worksheets in my hands. I don’t flip out at being asked the same boneheaded question over and over, and I am not too cool that I don’t think school spirit is a not a Big Deal. I am immune to teenage nonsense and I save every sweet little drawing an elementary child does for me. I know that saying “this will be homework if it’s not finished in class” means NOBODY will finish in class and there is never such a thing as “talk quietly to your neighbor,” because like self-serve ketchup pumps at McDonald’s that somehow make you feel like you need 8 cups of ketchup, that kind of request is just TOO MUCH to handle.

So yeah, I am a teacher. I guess I always knew I’d be.

knuckles

Today a 4th grade boy in the SDC class said to me:

"Miss, you have big knuckles. They're nice. I like your big knuckles. Do you fight?"


And that marked the very first time anyone has ever complimented my knuckles.