I did it. I subbed my first day. In PE. High school
PE. Surviving this makes me think
I can handle anything now. Almost
an invincible feeling. And here's how it went:
Upon arriving to
the high school, I was feeling pretty good about being ten minutes early and
having found the staff parking lot with incredible ease. I was feeling so confident, I didn’t
even bother drinking the last fourth of my coffee (now that’s
confidence!). I waltzed right in
the doors and found my way to the office.
And when I say “find my way,” I actually mean, got lost on the wrong
floor and eventually found my way to the office at the exact moment I was due
to arrive (good thing I had that 10 minute buffer).
When the
secretary handed me a hefty lanyard of keys and told me she didn’t know where
the locker room was (and I wondered how could that even be possible), the
principal generously offered to escort me there. During our somewhat long and uncomfortable walk to the
elusive locker room, he asked me some questions:
Principal: “So
do you teach PE?”
Me: “No…”
Principal: “So
have you been in high schools to substitute?”
Me: “Uh… no.”
Principal: “….”
Me: “But I love
high schoolers!”
I’m sure at this
point he was thinking I was about to have an interesting day. I was just very thankful he didn’t ask
if this was my first day subbing.
Because it sure was.
Before classes
began, I decided to scope out the premises. There are locks to EVERYTHING. This is, as I found out, the reason for the key-laden
lanyard I was given. (This
lock/key situation was a constant battle throughout the day.) Apparently the “righty-tighty,
lefty-loosey” motto is NOT a universal law.
First period
came and along with it came Ultimate Frisbee. Not one of my better athletic skills. Thankfully, I was mostly in charge of
getting cones and Frisbees out of the supply room. One student broke out a bowl of Fruit Loops. I told him this wasn’t a good time for
that. He said he was
starving. How do I argue with “starving?”
Second period
came with tennis and the instruction for me to “teach students a basic
serve.” I did my best to explain
what I have grown up watching Venus and Serena do and then asked “so who wants
to demonstrate?!” Surprisingly,
there were no takers. I
volunteered someone wearing a “Varsity Tennis” shirt.
Period three
came with the weight room and a workout with things like “hex bar dead lifts”
and “quick snatch lift” on it. To
which I instructed, “if you don’t know what one of the lifts is, I suggest you
move on to the next one.” I also
attempted to use the sound system to “pump up some jams.” After the first CD skipped and made odd
sounds, I told students this was my dubstep version. That wasn’t funny.
So I put on oldies instead.
That was frowned upon.
Period four was
like period three.
Period five was
my “prep,” which really means nothing for a substitute but “shoot, shoulda
brought my sudoku.”
Period six was
back to the tennis courts. It was
now pretty warm outside and me asking students to run two laps around the
tennis courts was apparently totally uncalled for. PE is NOT for sweating, little did I know.
It was a good
day. I might even say I had
fun. I would even dare to say I
would do it again. Aside from the
humorous recollections of the day, I really do love working with students. I love being the listening ear for
their stories they so desperately want to share. I can’t imagine doing anything else. And I can honestly say I can’t wait to
take on my next sub job: middle school PE!
A simple summary
of observations:
1. Any time is a good time to eat Fruit
Loops. Even during the warm-up for
PE.
2. Analog clocks are a thing of the past and
an unbreakable code.
3. Billy Preston’s song “Nothing From
Nothing” is not a cool song to listen
to in the weight room (I was thinking it was great until I noticed the
disapproving looks on the forty faces staring back at me).
4. When the word “hustle” is yelled, that
means, “walk slower, please.”
5. When asked to “run” that means, “just
walk around at any pace you’d like, preferably really slowly.”
6. Having to stay in the locker room until
the bell rings is absolute torture.
7. Run for 5 minutes?! You might as well make me run a
marathon.
8. It’s totally unfair to mark anyone as
“tardy” for only being 20 minutes late.
9. Having to play tennis in the PE class
called “racquet sports” is a crime and unreasonable.
10. The stranger the name, the less likely
the nickname will make logical sense.
(Ajuhdareev=Sam, Quishaw=Andy) …but for real, these names are solely
made to make substitutes calling role look ridiculous.
