October 3rd, 2001.  Wednesday
 

 
    I had my first substitute teaching experience today.  It was very interesting. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing.  I wasn't sure what to expect, or how the kids would react to me.  Things started ok at first.  But I quickly lost control.  As expected, they just saw a substitute as a vacation day.  As I'm sure we all did.  Out of 24 kids in the class, there were probably 4 or 5 that were ok and actually interested in going over their homework or reading in class.  Some just sat there and read quietly when they were supposed to, but most of them were just little bastards.   I wished I'd written down some of the things they said.  Some if it was just hilarious.  But a lot of it was just annoying.  A lot of sassy little kids.  It was an odd situation.  I was pretty sure I knew what to say to them to make them behave, but for some reason the thought of saying those things didn't feel right.  It just felt stupid.  Even the kids who were behaving, and would try to tell me how to make the bad kids behave, I just thought of them as little snitches.  I spent most of the time just trying to get them to be quiet.  Harsh discipline was all I could come up with.  I was a little confused as to how to go about it.  I don't know what's acceptable these days as far as discipline and what you can say to kids.  I remember my first grade teacher spanking the hell out of a kid once, and that scared us all in line.  Of course, that's unacceptable these days. Too bad.  There just no way you can reason with little kids.  It was a 5th grade class, so i suppose they all thought they were the shit, being the oldest kids in the school.  When I talked to the some of the other teachers, they seemed really jaded. Like when i got ther a little early, one of them was like "You still have five minutes. You don't want to spend any extra time with them if you don't have to."  Or "How was it? You want to hit them, don't you?  Just say you do, I'll you'll get hired again."  That was both comforting and disturbing.  I think a lot of the kids would benefit greatly from a little paddling.

Anyway, there's a lot to write about, but I'm just too tired.  I sub again tomorrow at the same school.  Only tomorrow, I'm subbing for the gym teacher. I don't know why, but that's really funny.  And everytime I tell that to someone, they crack up.
 
 

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