This might be an ode post.
I need to vent a bit after this week of subbing a couple of 8th grade days. I’ll admit it: it was rough.
I’ve been subbing at the same district for seven years now. March and April are usually booked solid for me, so I am worn thin.
All the anecdotes and stories, tidbits of info, trivia that I usually have at the front of my brain are buried deep under weariness and the present behavioral encounters of the days.
I’m dealing.
Big sigh.
It’s Good Friday, so I have a day to breathe in.
But I am tired. Kids these days…
I wonder if you have experienced the disrespect that I have. Being laughed at—not with—for having issues with being able to hear, for what I’m wearing (no matter how blah) and for any slip of the tongue or old-fashioned idea.
Yesterday I used the word “endure” and a girl loudly (disrespectfully) called out “What does endooooor mean?”
They insult our intelligence.
I know that the covid experience changed and affected our worlds. I get it. Kids are affected by the culture, global culture, internet, communication trends like never before. Many parents have thrown in the towel in dealing with their children’s behavior.
The parents send the kids off to school so teachers can occupy them for a few hours.
Teachers develop relationships with the students and deal accordingly. A sub comes in and it is fresh meat. A feast ensues.
I’ve know these 8th graders for seven years. They may remember days I’ve cried. I’ve been through a lot these past seven years.
Still, they show little compassion, for the “office” of a substitute teacher, nor for me personally.
There are always a handful of sympathetic sweethearts who may apologize for their classmates’ bad acts at the end of the period. It is a balm, yet the problem persists.
The bad taste of failure as a teacher to connect and inspire stays.
One kid asked me why I became a teacher. Clearly I was beleaguered.
My answer: “I became a teacher 40 years ago. I’m sixty now. It was a different world then.”
He nodded in response.
Subbing is not for the faint of heart.
I’m planning to be back in the classroom next week.