All In a Day's Work.. Or Something :)

So, for the past few months, I've been working a few days a week as a substitute teacher.  A few days, mostly because it's kind of hard to get jobs and even harder after snow days!  I thought I would share a little about how that's going.  I'm not quite as mean as that teacher in the picture, but there are times when I'm close to that.  ha ha.  Actually, the first day I subbed was probably one of the worst days of my life.  Seriously.  

My Facebook status after that day was: 

"So I survived my first day of substitute teaching yesterday. Started out being called a sweetheart by one of the boys.. & then, it changed to "you don't like us very much, do you?" With about an hour left in the day, the entire class was in timeout. Ended the day being the target of a paper gun shooting. Took it away & the kid started destroying the room. All in a day's work, I guess."

I was pretty floored that a group of 1st graders could be so devious and manipulative.  And I'm a school psychologist, which means I've had a role in schools where I've heard a lot of crazy things.  Anyway, at the end of the day, none of the children were hurt, and even though most of their work didn't get done, it didn't really matter.  One of the biggest issues was that they also locked their in-class bathroom, and I've never seen so many kids need to go the bathroom.  Or so many upset stomachs.  Or so many children needing to go the bathroom badly.  I also didn't know that children with asthma had special needs to go the bathroom.  I finally started refusing to let anyone go to the bathroom.   These kids also kept getting in little arguments and fights over the smallest things... and were tattling on someone using profanity about every five minutes.  At the end of the day, I was so tense that I had to cry it out.  Not because I took it personally... but more because I had just been fighting 18 little monsters all day.  No exaggeration.  I really thought I might need to throw a piece of furniture or something... and I'm not sure if I've felt like things were so out of control!  :)  


Anyway, since then, things have been a little easier, give or take a few hard days in there.  I'm never going to that classroom or school again--hah!    


Oh--and going back to the picture, I do have to use my frownie face a lot.  And yell.  And with some kids, I just have to "out mean" them.  It's not really a desirable strategy, and it makes me feel so sad because I know that these kids must be so mistreated at home.   But I just have to do what works for a short time.  Oh well.  Hopefully, they have regular teachers that can give them the love they need.