The WorkGroup

I went into the middle school thinking I had a cake Social Studies assignment that I’d discussed with the teacher the night before. Give a quiz, watch a movie, collect the work, and work on my grad school homework while the kids worked. It was supposed to be a beautiful day.

Substitute teaching of the kind I’d arranged is what we call “warm body work.” Any substitute teacher, good or bad, can probably pull it off without incident. Hence, all we need in the classroom is a warm body. At the last minute though, the middle school principal assigned a “warm body” to the job I’d signed up for, and gave me a job I dreaded more than any other… Junior High physical education.

Subbing for gym isn’t so bad, if you’re prepared ahead of time. You get to wear sweats all day, and get a lot of exercise if you choose to. It was the seventh grade part that scared the crap out of me.

Seventh graders are like little hormones with feet. Especially the boys. I don’t know why we even try to teach anything to seventh grade boys besides industrial arts [/tag, [tag]study hall and hitting each other. I don’t mind 12 and 13 year olds individually… I have one of my own, but in packs, in gym class, they’re sheer terror.

It also didn’t help that the teacher I was subbing for had no control over his students. He was apparently a pretty good football coach, so they kept him around. They moved him down from the high school because he’d been accused too many times of sexual harassment with students and other teachers. Accused, sadly, but never convicted. He was a crappy teacher at the high school, and worse at the middle school.

Despite any other intellectual limitations, these kids must have been whizzes at math, because they could figure out the exact opposite of whatever came out of my mouth in seconds.

“Line up in a straight line” became run around the front of the locker room.

“Say here when I call your name” became absolute silence and kids giggling as they exchanged names, a very old and dastardly sub trick.

“Walk out to the gym in a straight line” became, run, at full speed, across the wet floor, to the gym, pushing, shoving and hitting each other.

Today’s lesson plan.. Volleyball Instruction. Volleyball is fun to play, but trying to get seventh graders to stop every play and rotate positions is a lesson in futility. Someone opened up the ball bag, and all of a sudden there were 20 volleyballs flying through the gym, and the kids were going crazy. I got beaned in the head twice, once knocking my glasses at least ten feet away.

At that time I wasn’t or haven’t ever been a “yeller” when things go adrift in the classroom. Things were so far adrift that in a single yell, all the students were sent to time out. They had to stand on the side of the gym for two minutes while they chilled out.

I was surprised they went along with this, but it only served as a way to recharge their batteries. When they emerged from time-out they were more obnoxious than ever.

I’ve never been one to fight futile battles in the classroom, so I resigned myself to letting them do whatever the hell they wanted, as long as they didn’t mutilate each other too badly. By the end of the first class, I’d nearly lost my voice.

I was sweating like a pig too, and instead of gym clothes I had a shirt and tie, a nasty reminder that I’d come to school preparing to give a quiz and show a movie.

I was exhausted by the end of first period. Only seven more to go.

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