All-in-all, being a substitute teacher is a pretty simple gig. A lot of times I'll just take attendance and pop in a movie. Every once and a while you'll be thrown into a lesson you feel like you're not capable of teaching but most of the time it's very manageable. Moving back to Boise I signed up to be a substitute in the Caldwell School District, they pay certified teachers almost $25 more dollars a day than Meridian School District! Sounded like a good deal to me. While I was student teaching, I felt like I had a good mix of kids, one class gave me a lot of trouble just because the sheer fact that it consisted of 21 eighth and ninth grade boys and 4 girls, so I felt very prepared for anything.
I got a text from my roommate one day asking me if I could watch her class for two days while she went to Utah for a funeral last minute. I felt bad my roommate had to go to a funeral and wanted to do something for her, so accepting that job was a no-brainer. She teaches first grade in Caldwell. Oftentimes she'll come home late and talk about how much she hates teaching out there, but it's never really anything more than that. Before I went in to sub, she told me she had three bad kids and wished me luck. I had no idea what I was in for.
The day started out with a frantic duty in the room looking for Miss Harris. Upon discovering I was the substitute, she just looked at me and said, "Trea kicked Victor where it counts! Victor is in the nurse's office, he might be back soon." Great, Trea must be one of the "bad kids" I was warned about. The students came into class and worked fine. I didn't know who was supposedly "bad", they all seemed like normal first-graders to me. One student's parent came in to help. As the day progressed, the class got more and more unruly. I asked everyone to put theirs heads on their desk for punishment, after asking several times to quiet down. Nate refused to put his head down. Honestly, he wasn't talking, so I was just going to let him be, but the parent came over and kept persisting that he put his head down, he kept getting more and more defiant. As a consequence, he had to stay in during recess. At recess time, he bolted for the door. I was able to follow him in the hallways and pull him back into the room. He was grabbing onto anything he could in the hallway to stay out there. Once he was in the room and everyone came back from recess, he hid under the teacher's desk for a while, which was fine with me. As students filtered in, I was informed that Victor peed at recess, I asked if he peed his pants, they exclaimed he peed in the grass. Great. A kid pulled down his pants during recess and peed in the grass! What next? After about 15 minutes under the desk, Nate ran out the door. I was in a predicament, I can't run after him and leave a class full of first-graders here by themselves! Luckily, the parent was still there and she found him outside and took him right to the principal's office where he stayed for the rest of the day, thank goodness. After next recess, I learned that Victor was touching there some student's butts and they kindly demonstrated how he touched them, which was highly inappropriate. I somehow finished the day without any other major crisis. A few kids cried, but kids always cry.
I didn't want to come back the next day. I was dreading it, actually. The only reason I did come back, was to tell the school counselor that Victor both exposed himself and touched other students. Luckily she came into the classroom first thing and I was able to explain what happened the previous day. Class went pretty well, the kids were behaving better, I was getting this first-grade thing down pat! One student, Devin fell asleep, woke up, and cried. I helped him catch up on his work, but he was being really rude and defiant to me and other students. As a result he had to stay in during recess, which disappointed him a lot. After that, it was the same old stuff, the kids weren't angels by any means, but a heck of a lot better than they were the previous day. When it was finally time for the kids to line up at the door and wait for their buses, Devin decided not to get in line. He argued and argued with me and the class was getting restless and I finally said they didn't earn any candy today, which set Devin off. Something came over him and he started screaming, throwing his backpack on the ground, kicking it, picking it up and throwing it some more. I was worried for the safety of everyone, he could have easily turned on a student. Luckily he stayed in the front of the room where he kept screaming and throwing things. I got the backpack out of Devin's hands and dismissed the class before the bell rang. I was genuinely sacred and totally unprepared for this. He turned his attention on the classroom chairs and threw them everywhere. I was trying to talk to him and calm him down, but to no avail. I opened the door and asked a student to go get another teacher and then the principal. It was some time before another teacher could come to the classroom with me, but she just stood by me and told me not to worry, this has happened before. Shortly thereafter, the principal, behavioral specialist and counselor took over. By this time Devin had tipped over a desk, thrown books on the floor and made a total mess with the chairs. I was told by the counselor to please leave. I was interested though, I wanted to see what they did to calm him down. As I was leaving, the principal was restraining him, and Devin was still just as angry as ever.
Man, what a busy couple of days! I can't believe my roommate goes through that regularly. Teachers in Caldwell should definitely get paid more, in my opinion. I later found out Devin is in foster care, I feel bad for him. He is by far the cutest kid in the class with his perfectly round face and white-blond hair combed into a part, but like always, looks can be deceiving. The home life for these kids isn't so great, there are more poverty stricken and low-income families in Caldwell than what I'm used to in the Meridian School District. It breaks my heart to think of what some families are going through in these hard times and the effect it has on their children.
I'm not totally done with Caldwell though, I have since been back to substitute at both middle schools, and I'm waiting to be called to sub in one of the high schools, I'm curious to see what it's like. In the meantime, Meridian suits me just right.
