Substitute FAIL

One week ago I was in a 6th grade classroom, teaching math, of all things.  I knew that his particular class had a few lively kids sprinkled throughout, and this coupled with the fact that the intervention specialist would be in there to give her kids extra support made me a little nervous.  Plus, it was MATH.

But it turned out to be awesome.  I totally brought it when it came to finding out the volume of a triangular and rectangular prism and a cylinder.  We had to redirect the kids a little, but it ended up being a great lesson.  The intervention specialist even complemented me on my explanations and how I was able to bring the in kids who were a little more challenged.  Plus, it's always nice to be around people who share your Hunger Games obsession.  I went home that day on a substitute high.

So you would think that being in a kindergarten classroom would be cake, right?  I mean what's a bunch of cute little 5 and 6 year-olds compared to rowdy pre-pubescent 6th graders?

Little did I know.

It was a full-day kindergarten class, so there's one strike right there.  I know there are benefits to it, but that is a loooong day for those little kiddos.  They were dropping like flies by 2:00.  "My head hurts."  "My stomach hurts."  "I'm hungry."  (This in response to my direction for a child to stop gnawing on his shirt sleeve.)  "I'm tired."

And this particular class is chock full of personality and all the issues that come with it, both diagnosed and undiagnosed.  There were chatty girls who could not focus on their assignments.  There were kids who tattled on someone every 5 minutes.  There were kids with behavior charts that I forgot to finish filling out and send home because I was so busy moving everyone from green to yellow and back again.  And then back to yellow.  There were kids who had their arms wrapped around another kid (most of the time without protest) every time I turned around.  There was the kid who loved ending every sentence with the word "butt."  And then there was the precious little darling who asked when my baby was going to be born. 

My only consolation is that several regular teachers reassured me that this is typical and not just a result of poor behavior management skills.  The music teacher hard a hard time with the kids today too, and when she saw Brooke later in the day correctly predicted, "Those kids are going to wipe your mom out."

She wasn't kidding.  I've been a zombie since three o'clock.  I brought myself around long enough to take Andrew to a friend's house and pick up Brooke from school, and when Glenn unexpectedly showed up at 4, I told him he could pick the girls up from track practice and I high-tailed it to bed.  Dinner was mac-n-cheese for some, cereal for others.  And the ironic thing is that my four kids were in strong competition with those 25 kindergarteners for the "Biggest Contributors to a Headache" award.

In spite of all this, there was one success today.  I learned for certain that a full-time kindergarten teaching job is not in my future.