Blog List (January 18, 2013
January 25, 2013
One Person’s Headache is Another’s Ecstasy (Short Story)
February 22, 2013
I wrote this essay in relation to my part-time job as a substitute teacher at the local school. Always a fun experience.
Word Count: 954
Just Another
Glorified Babysitter
One of the things I’ve been doing lately to pay the bills
is working as a substitute teacher at the school here in Silverton. Always an interesting experience and the practice is definitely a great pool of inspirational fodder for my craft as a wordsmith. The witty comments young folks seem to make while you’re attempting to mold their minds has made for some memorable source material. Creative writing instructors are wrong when they say you should only write from what you know. In my case, I can also obtain semi-origin information from what I’ve heard. Technically it isn’t plagiarizing so I’m safe in that respect.
The teacher I usually sub. for also happens to be the husband of the lady who owns the hotel where I work. He’s a great guy and I feel very fortunate that he asks for me to fill-in on a regular basis whenever he’s out. Unfortunately the lesson plans he leaves for me are one very small step above being indecipherable Egyptian cuneiform. Figuring them out before the students’ walk in for the three classes I sub. gives new meaning to the word “panic”.
What happens if the students show up for class and I’m unable to tell them what to do? Simply because of the fact that I’m incapable of reading the lesson plans and explaining what my friend wants the kids to undertake in class that day? Life does indeed contain a multitude of obstacles. Is this one of those moments when you seriously contemplate moving to a remote island in the South Pacific?
Fortunately my background as a KGB intelligence officer came in very handy in this situation. Prior to the first class walking into the room I was able to figure out what my buddy was trying to put forth in his lesson plans. Even tried to look like an adult authority-type figure as the students sauntered in the room; I boldly told them what they needed to do that day.
Then I confronted my next conundrum. Right as I was reading out the lesson plans to the students, it suddenly dawned on me. Gee, I really don’t have much in the way of knowledge concerning this latest set of material I’m trying to administer to these kids. Sure I know as much as any other well read college educated American when it comes to science and current events. This is mathematics though, which wasn’t exactly my strongest suit while in school. As a matter of fact, wasn’t Calculus I the only course I flunked in college? This is high school algebra so get a grip Swanson you can handle it.
The students more or less knew what they had to work on in class that day. This resulted in me only having to go over a few things. It also meant the probability for my screwing up was decreased by a factor of at least twenty or thirty points (this being a subjective thing?). The rest of that first class passed in uneventful fashion. Things drew to a close, the kids got up, walked out, and it looked like I’d actually fooled them into thinking I knew more about the subject than they did. Who knows what they said about me once they got to their lockers though. I wasn’t able to anchor those microphones to the backs of their jackets like I’d planned.
The second class was a group of students studying at the next highest Algebraic level. You’d think my panic level would go up even more with this group, but luckily it didn’t. Primarily because of the fact that these kids were also a quiet bunch, knew what they were supposed to work on, and went about completing their assignment. Once again I’d managed to fool them into thinking I was much smarter than they were. Couldn’t attach the radio transmitters to these kids either.
The final class school administration asked me to sub. that morning was a group of Science I students. These kids were also a pretty good group, but I had this nagging suspicion one or two of them might take a mile if I offered them an inch.
Sure enough that’s exactly what one kid did when I mentioned that the assignment the class was required to work on happened to be open ended. Basically in terms of how much my buddy required them to do that day. After the kid had opened his bottle of whiteout five times in a half hour to blot out three sentences he’d written I started developing some doubts.
Some people accuse me of being a pushover when it comes to all sorts of things. Rather than violently chastising the student in an attempt to get him to intensify his efforts, I quietly asked him to concentrate more. We only had fifteen minutes left before lunch since I’d already told the group I’d let them out five minutes early. Good behavior on their part, or me being a lightweight? You be the judge.
So are this kid’s study habits a mild example of me passing the buck onto my buddy? Technically yes, but I’ll sort of justify my actions. I won’t lose any sleep if the boy gets further and further behind the rest of the class as the year progresses.
One might think all this anxiety I put myself through whenever I substitute teach makes me think twice about wanting to work at the school again, on the contrary. I really enjoy this whole substitute-teaching gig and look forward to another opportunity popping up in the future. Whether or not they like having me fill-in is another open-ended question?
