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Thursday, April 27, 2006

Kids these days...

Sometimes when I go to pick up Jamie from school in the afternoons I get to her classroom and she's off on one of the many necessary errands of a four-prep high school teacher. I usually go in and wait around a bit, but a lot of times the janitor comes by and we talk about (a) the weather, and (b) disrespectful children. As per my previous post, I would at any time take all the inclemencies of (a) over the weakest sprinkle of (b). That being the case, I probably shouldn't be a substitute.

My classes earlier this week were a mixed bag; when I'm subbing for the junior high band, I get a lot of free periods and a subject I enjoy. Monday and Tuesday of this week, however, I was in charge of a high school BCIS teacher's four preps, and there turned out to be a lot less break time. I'm not particularly good at classroom management, and when an intended two-day assignment is finished in ten minutes it can cause some discipline problems. But it's not really the teacher's fault at all; the classes I had the most trouble with were the ones whose assignment actually lasted the entire two days.

My favorite incident from this experience came shortly after lunch break. That particular class was supposed to be copying notes down from the projector screen, and had done all right before lunch; however, when they came back from lunch we had some difficulties. One student who had been giving me trouble in several different periods all day came running by my classroom on top of another student; I suppose the technical term is "roughhousing" since they didn't look angry, but it was enough for me. I demanded that he come into the classroom, and since the bell hadn't rung yet the kid wasn't too happy about it; he stormed into the room complaining, walked around in a brief circle, and socked the classroom laser printer as hard as he could.

Seriously, who punches a printer?

As I was writing his discipline referral (mildly shaking with rage), both he and several other students started mimicking and laughing at me. That's hard, and I hated that it was hard. I was in the right, but they were the ones making me feel ashamed of myself.

In the end, of course, I got over it and ate some Chipotle. Few worldly pleasures soothe the troubled soul like a giant burrito.

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