Sooo, yesterday I went to the LP Untalan Middle School for my first day as a substitute outside of the GCC system. I arrived bright eyed and ready to work with the fine little children. I left, eight hours later, ragged and old, in pain and covered with sweat, my brain dull and my eyes glassy with fatigue. My throat was on fire and my voice was shot. Behind me were the rotten devils happily ignorant of my condition, ignorant of my attempts, possibly even ignorant of my presence. I came, I saw, I was defeated! And I was cheated by the school system.

You know, it is impossible to impress children in that age group. By middle school, for those who do not know, I'm talking about grades six, seven and eight. These kids are between eleven and thirteen years old, full of energy, impressed only by celebrities, violence, drugs, and anything else they can see in the movies and on TV or hear in their music. In the chapter on government they saw a sentence about how the executive branch executes laws. The only word they focused on was 'execute' and they immediately assumed the government was executing people! Their mouths are continually spouting words. They cannot be stopped. They have no volume control. They have no behavior control. They cannot process any words that restrict either their movements or their behavior. They were out of control and I was outnumbered.

I had a great time.

What a challenge. I need to do some thinking over this next week. I need to come up with a way to connect with them. I need to figure out how to get their attention and, more importantly, keep it.

And I was cheated out of two hours time as well. At the end of the day, as I was filling out my time card I listed my actual time at the school. I was then told that the system only pays for six hours for substitutes. My lunch time didn't count and there were two break periods I didn't have time to take. Grump!

The experience would have been much better if I had been given something to work with. I had not lesson plans, not explanation of what class I was working in, no attendance sheets, no support at all. The sheet they gave me had a list of rooms and what period I had to be at what room. There was no map to tell me where the rooms were. And the sixth period was to be in either Room T9 or 19 and that is what they wrote on the sheet. I guess it was up to me to decide where I wanted to be for that period. Plus it was a double period featuring something called Step 2.

It turned out that was the only time I had a lesson plan. It was an effort to teach the kids how to deal with insults and bullies. We were supposed to work with role playing but I didn't feel comfortable leading a role playing event where I didn't know the kids. Instead I chose some empty desks and used 'George', 'Morris', 'Alicia', and 'Margaret' as my demonstrators. It seemed to have worked. I had as much of their attention as I could seem to get.

When it was over the substitute organizer asked me to come back on April 18. That is the next school day. School is out next week for Easter Break. Thank God I get a chance to recuperate.