Corinna, the substitute

Finally, a non-parental thought! Here goes...
I started subbing a little bit this past month, and I have to say, after being out of schools for a while, it's eye-opening going back. I sure hope this doesn't become a "what has our world come to" kind of entry, but it was a bit of that kind of experience for me.
Day 1 - My first half day of subbing was spent replacing the new "me", the person who took over my position at TCI. Her position is slightly different as she does some drama, so my afternoon was a grade 10 French class and then a grade 9 Drama class. It was great to go, after having spent the morning in my pyjamas until 10am, for just the afternoon, chat a bit in the staff room with former colleagues and see some of my former students as well, all grown up and smart looking. That was a definite highlight, seeing my former students...they were all just smiling as big as ever and were so glad to see me and seemed so smart and full of potential. I have to admit, being the high school basic French teacher you do get the cream of the crop, as it's an elective and usually only the ones that want to be there are. So most of my former students are truly lovely and were a ton of fun to teach. So there I am, feeling on top of the world, students love me, staff loves me, how great is this going to be?!? Ah yes, that lovely, ignorant arrogance of the moments before actual substitute teaching begins. How quickly that feeling faded! Actually, the first class was quite nice, but when I told them to go pick out magazines to read for the first few minutes of class, one girl said to me, boy, you have a quiet voice! Teacher voice, right! I forgot! Thankfully I had this class first because boy did I need teacher voice for the next class. The French class went well, nice kids, not too many cell phones or head phones that I saw and not an insane amount of noise, so all in all, a decent class. The next class however, was grade 9 drama. Now technically this class is an elective but all grade 9s have to take a certain number of electives and a lot of them just need to fill up a timetable, so let me tell you, they were not all there to be enthusiastically playing drama games. Which they were supposed to be doing for 70 minutes. Lovely. For starters, the school doesn't have enough space in their building so the class takes place in an adjacent school in a massive room with risers, a few chairs, and lots of room to roam. Taking attendance was an adventure in and of itself. Kids cannot be quiet for more than 10 seconds in an environment like that it turns out. Anyway, we got through that and all the other activities I was supposed to do, but not without a couple of ipod confiscations and one cell phone confiscation and threats of more. But the main thing that got me that day was these girls...dressing so provocatively, acting crass and saying things I wouldn't have dreamed of ever saying out loud. I had just finished reading the book "The Cross and the Switchblade", an old autobiography of David Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge. I was so glad I had just read that, because instead of seeing obnoxious, inappropriate girls, I really saw a lot of brokenness and kids just not knowing how to cope with life and the culture that's been thrown at them. I prayed for as many kids as I could remember names of for several days after that, and by God's grace I hope some of those girls find some more self respect before it's too late.
Day 2 - half day, morning, doing Guitar, grade 10 and 11. Not much to say here, except that never have I loved long-haired, band-loving, rocker-type boys so much. As geekish and out of touch with today's lingo as I may sound, they were the best, so into practicing. You could see a real love for guitar, or maybe they were just imagining themselves being rich and famous and idolized by teenaged girls everywhere someday when they make it big. Regardless, that day I loved them. I did not, however, love the cute girls who were just there to look at the boys or (yes this happened!) show them their blue panties. Again, what's going on with these girls?!?! Please, Hollywood, find some self-respecting women out there that stay that way for some duration of time so that these girls at LEAST have that to compare themselves to. I don't know what the answer is, but again, I was shocked by their clothes, their attitude, their crassness...unbelievable. There was this one girl, though, who sat for almost the whole period with another girl and just strummed away on her guitar, so I know there's hope. Mostly, however, the morning was an exercise in boredom, and how to pretend to not look bored in front of 20 kids at a time. Wow, fascinating poster of a trumpet, must of stared at that for at least 5 minutes. The next time I brought a book.
Day 3 - Full day Math subbing. Pretty good day on the whole, major thought from that day was, if Luke grows up to be one of these boys, which one would he be?!? I was hoping for many examples of intelligent looking, witty, interesting young men eager to take on the world. I found a lot of ipods. It turns out girls chat, guys listen to music. Not many gleaming examples of male teenage greatness, but there was one grade 12 IB English class that I subbed for that day as well which had one example of the kind of boy I was looking for. One in about 100 faces I saw that day...do I really like those odds?!?! Lord have mercy!!!
All in all, the subbing world is definitely interesting and I pray that in some strange way God will be able to use me with these kids. It's so tough when I know exactly how kids view subs...low life teachers who can't get a real job and aren't the real deal so they don't really deserve respect. With all that being said, I still know that teaching is in me and there were parts of each day that I did really love, something about seeing kids on the brink of making future life decisions and feeling like they really can do something important in the world that makes me hope that they will, and that maybe somehow I will too.