I’ve literally been called in for every day for last week and next. I think teachers have a lot of sick days to burn or something. I even have a full day at the high school, which is a first (every HS assignment I’ve gotten has been half-day).

Right now I’m in the middle of my first four-day stint. I was initially excited about the prospect. One of the frustrations of substitute teaching is that you get to know the kids a little bit and then you’re on. I get excited when I see repeats. So a four day assignment? Awesome! Then I found out it was special ed, which lessened my excitement somewhat. But it was special ed at the middle school, which I’ve done before. Different teacher’s name, but the special ed room is chalk full of teachers, so it could be the same students regardless.

It wasn’t. It was, of course, the worst set of students I have ever had. I was warned. The teacher referred to them as “little pieces of…” {ask the student who arrived early to cover his ears} “shit.” Her expectations were basically null. Take a standardized test. They get as long as they need. They should finish in two days, but they have all four. Here’s the science lesson. If you get through this lesson, meant for one day, over the course of your tenure, you did okay.

The “special ed” in this case has a few kids with some learning disabilities, and surely a few others with disabilities I can’t see (a couple of them I had in regular classes and it never occurred to me that they would be special ed material), but mostly kids that needed to be put somewhere and for some reason not to the alternative school. Most of them seem not far below average, though a couple are. One student in particular had to answer a question about his opinion on evil corporations cutting down the forest and disrupting nature so that they can make evil profits. The “correct” answer was in the question (“I think it’s bad.”) but he couldn’t answer it. So I said, “Just put down what you think.” To which, he said with great exasperation, “I DON’T THINK!” He’s one of my favored students, along with an awesome girl who is Daria Morgandorffer with Aspergers. The rest would prefer throw stuff at one another or hit each other with rulers. I do what I can, but it isn’t much. Can you send a whole class to detention? A couple kids did get detention. One for throwing something right after I told him not to (easy to single that out) and another (not one of the few with obvious retardation, though clearly a kid with issues) for dropping his pants and farting in the face of another student. That was Day One. Day Two said kids refused to do their work because “I have detention this afternoon. I’ll do it then.”

So I’m two days in and dreading tomorrow and the next day something fierce. Fortunately, I had a weekend to unwind. But I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

Almost any time I sub and talk to one of the other department teachers, they say “Look, if you have any problems, send them over to my room.” I got no such offers this time around. Over lunch I was asked by a teacher that I knew from having subbed for her before how the day was going. I told her it was a challenge in as diplomatic terms as I could. Another teacher – who is next door to me – said, “You’re just doing fantastic. I don’t think that they’ve ever been this quiet!”