The Worst Job Ever

When you’re unemployed, there are times you feel desperate to find work. You consider doing unthinkable things to make money, performing necessary but gruesome tasks, all to make a quick buck to pay your student loans or buy that trench coat you saw at Banana Republic that everyone says makes you look like Inspector Gadget. They are obviously mistaken because you aren’t wearing a hat, your dog’s name is not “Brain” and you are not the sole guardian of your niece “Penny”, who’s parents are obviously deadbeat alcoholics because why else would she be hanging out at your place all the time! Some of these jobs include: sanitation worker, pest control specialist, Charlie Sheen’s publicist… the list goes on and on, but there is one profession that I dread more than any other…substitute teacher. 

You first begin to realize that substitute teaching sucks when you are a student. In elementary school, you have a tough time realizing that your teachers are, in fact, humans and that sometimes, they get sick, or use their personal days to go to go out and buy 30 Rock: Season 4, a box of Entenmann’s Chocolate Covered Donuts, and a gallon of milk so they can hunker down in the nest of blankets they made in their living room and escape from having to sing John Jacob Jingleheimer Smitt on more time. You begin to discover that the blackboard (or Smartboard nowadays) does NOT fold down to reveal a bed, much like the ones you see in prison movies, with the chain supports coming out of the wall and a thin uncomfortable mat for them to sleep on. You become offended that they are doing something else and they left you with this STRANGER!!! Did they not pay attention in the “stranger danger” assembly you had last week? 

If you were a good student in elementary school, this doesn’t really phase you and you spend the entire day making the substitute fall in love with you by answering the questions or offering to help them, or sitting right next to them during the movie they are sure to play. You’re lucky if you have 2 or 3 of these kids in a class, and while you’d rather be texting during “Land Before Time XXXXVII: We’re Still Not Dead Yet!”, you appreciate their thoughtfulness and hunker down, trying not to think of the fact that you paid for 4 years of college and are sitting in a 3rd grade room making $70 for a whole days work. Not all of your students are so inviting. Most are indifferent and are happy to be watching a movie instead of struggling with fractions or mourning the fact that Pluto is no longer a planet and trying the shake the feeling that they’ve been lied to. Then, there are the usual trouble makers who view this as a field day of trouble without consequences. If the teacher you’re in for is not an asshole, they usually tell you who to keep an eye out for. They tell you which kids are not allowed to sit together, which students will eat the paste, that sort of thing. Then, there are the teachers who have obviously never subbed a day in their life, so they don’t bother to tell you if you give Aiden scissors he is going to try and cut his neighbor’s hair, or that Annie’s favorite pastime is kicking other students when you’re not looking. It’s these teachers that you hate and don’t for a second regret hiding their last dry erase marker and using the change in their top drawer to buy a soda in the faculty lounge. Thankfully, I am 6’3”, so kids don’t usually mess with me, or with each other when I am in the room. If they do, I have the intimidation factor on my side. I make them come to my desk while I am filling out the sub report so that they can watch me write down that they misbehaved. One of my teachers in college told me that kids need to be told what they did wrong and see that there are consequences to poor behavior. This is how I accomplish that. Most of the time they are horrified that I am telling their regular teacher and visions of losing recess, having to sit in the time out chair, or their teacher holding them in a choke hold flash through their heads and they are not a problem after that. 

Subbing at the middle school level is torture. Come to think of it, everything at the middle school level is torture. I subbed for 8 weeks at the Junior High level and have never filled out so many referrals in my life. The administrators must have hated me, but when a student tells says “bite me” in front of 30 of their peers and you’re not allowed to actually bite them, you have to call in the big guns. Middle schoolers think that they are the shit, instead of smelling like it, because at that point, they are still blissfully unaware of anti-per spirant and deodorant. In addition to thinking they are the coolest thing since Disney’s Camp Rock, they also think that they’re smarter than you. You catch them in lies and they keep insisting they are telling the truth, despite the irrefutable evidence you’ve gathered that suggests otherwise. And of course, there is the “drama factor.” Subbing consistently in a middle school is like being popped into a real live version of “Days of our Lives”, only there is no one famous, no one is in a coma, and little old ladies aren’t sitting there watching you. There is deception, cheating, gossip, and hidden agendas. Middle school students are manipulative, especially the girls. And all middle school students operate under the assumption that you can’t hear them, so they talk about Gavin dumping Taylor and kissing Maddie at an inappropriately loud volume. When you tell them that Gavin can wait and that they should be filling out their sheet on New Orleans Jazz Musicians, they look at you with the look of utmost betrayal and anger and, when they think you can’t hear them, begin talking about how much they hate you and how there is no such thing as “Dress Crocs”, even though your shoes OBVIOUSLY have suede on the top!

High school students are the best to sub for, because they naturally want to do nothing, so when you announce that they are watching a movie, you are instantly their hero! That is, unless you make them do work. Some teachers decide that their being out is no reason for class not to continue as normal. They leave you a lesson to teach and an assessment to give. They are under the assumption that you are knowledgeable in their course subject, which is pretty bold of them because these assholes usually teach something like “Contemporary Russian Literature” or “Aboriginal History and Culture”. Once, I proctored for an Honors Chemistry Final for a high school and the students were having a great deal of trouble. If you have ever been in this situation, you know what it feels like. Naturally, they raised their hands and pleaded for you to help them, knowing that their entire future rests on the successful completion of this exam. And there you, fresh out of college, where you skipped any class that nothing to do with music, managed to fulfill your science credit by having a friend sign your name on the list in Ancient Life, and frantically prayed you could pass the tests on the days when you absolutely had to show up. Then, you have to look that poor knowledge starved kid right in the eye and admit that you was dumber than he/she is. Yeah, we all took chemistry in high school, but we haven’t used it since. I don’t have the periodic table app on my Droid and I am certainly not concerned with the chemical make-up of my large Caramel Iced Latte from Dunkin’ Donuts. We all know Chem is important, but really, I spent my days teaching days playing piano, reading “Opera News”, and practicing the Curwin Solfege Handsigns. Yes, it is true, I have no marketable life skills. I could probably tell you more about the information about the current Met season than I could about the Israel Palestine conflict and I realize that that is pathetic, but no one really wants to hear about the Arab Peace Initiative in Music Theory from their teacher that gets most of his news from The Soup and Conan O’Brien. 

There you sit, at the front of the class, as the students who now know that they’re smarter than you lament your pathetic existence and make a mental note to not throw away their lives like you obviously have. When their normal teacher finally enters the room to answer the questions that you could not, you slip out of the room to the faculty bathroom where you splash water on your face to cool you down after that savage ego beating and let a few soft sobs escape your now chapped lips before you shuffle back to the scene of the crime. You now look at the clock more than the kids do and cope with the fact that students only raise their hands to ask to use the restroom, which is the only thing you are qualified for anyway. You then have to flag down some poor hall monitor to escort the kids to the bathroom because, as we all know, kids have to pee under direct supervision because they might have written the atomic number of Rubidium on the elastic of their underwear. The exam ends and they actually trust you to collect it as the students leave, avoiding you like they do the kids who get to school early to play Magic: The Gathering. 

At the end of the day, you turn in your badge, your evaluations of the class, which include Bobby rubbing a booger on Suzie’s overalls, leave the school, and go home to lick your wounds, wait for your dignity to return, and do it all again the next day when you get the call at 5:30am and are asked to teach Arabic and hope that it is similar to those 2 semesters of French you had in college.

Out In Public

Being a teacher is like being a celebrity, but it’s far less glamorous and your annual salary is equivalent to their Thursday night bar tab at a place probably called “Mood” or “Puzzles”. I am talking of course about the fear of going out in public. Celebrities are constantly bombarded by fans, paparazzi, and people that want to kill them and wear their skin on their face. They have the luxury of employing 400lb body guards with biceps the size of tree trunks and have an army of lawyers that will destroy anyone who so much as sneezes in their general direction. Teachers face an even greater danger while venturing out into the real world: their students. Unlike their famous counterparts, teachers enter this world without protection. They run the risk of being accosted unarmed and without warning. Any teacher will tell you that they hate seeing their students outside of school. We already have to spend all day with them, we don’t want to have to speak with them on our personal time, during which we would rather be nursing that 4^th glass of wine or weighing the pros and cons of purchasing another pair of elastic waist sweat pants. Your students always seem to find you when you want to see them the least, like when you’re buying underwear, or dandruff shampoo, or Gilmore Girls Season 6 on DVD. 

Once they spot you, they want to talk, and, if they are younger, they are most likely with their parents, which means you have to talk to them too. I NEVER want to talk to parents. That is the worst part about teaching, because every parent thinks the sun shines out of their kids ass. Don’t get me wrong, some kids are really great. Teachers always have their favorites and I am no exception. In those instances, I am more than happy to chat with their parents about how wonderful their child is and thank them for not implementing what I call the “Dina Lohan School of Parenting.” This was the case at my last school, great kids and great parents. But there is a snowball’s chance in hell of you running into one of those students while out on the town. You always run into the student that you don’t want to see, the student you yelled at yesterday, the student who lost recess, or didn’t turn in their homework, or hasn’t showered since school started 4 months ago. What the hell do you do in that situation? I feel like colleges should offer a class called “Teaching- Outside the Classroom.” That way, they can introduce nervous undergrads to what they should expect when becoming a teacher. This situation should be on the course syllabus with several location addendum such as, “The Grocery Store- What you should do when your student/parent sees that all you are buying are 3 frozen pizzas, a gallon of ice cream, and a margarita bucket”, or “The Mall- What to do when your students see you shopping with your sister and they ask if it’s your girlfriend.” I feel this would both adequately prepare the future educators of our great nation as well as dramatically reduce the number of people who actually follow through with teaching.

Since no one taught you how to deal with your students or their parents outside of school, you do the only thing you can do: Lie. When they finally take you down, like a lion takes down a gazelle, and they begin polite small talk with you, you pepper in short little phrases about how talented and well behaved their son/daughter is and how it has been the greatest pleasure and highest honor of your teaching career to attempt to impart your knowledge on their brilliant and charismatic 6 year old. …And the academy award goes to… Then the parent asks you how you are and you think to yourself, “I have family sized bag of Doritos, when I clearly live alone, and I just rented Gnomeo and Juliette…yes, I am living the dream (Insert eye roll here).” But you answer politely and say that you are doing well, despite the fact that it is laundry day and you are wearing mesh shorts, flip flops, and the shirt you wore when you painted your living room. When the conversation ends and you say your goodbyes the child and their parents leave excited, because seeing a teacher outside of school is like “seeing a dog walk on its hind legs” (Mean Girls, circa 2004). You, however, leave with the need to move to another county and the desperate fear that they are going to tell their peers, which they ultimately do, because you weren’t humiliated enough. 

Even though I didn’t ever live in the same community as the students I taught, I did run into them quite frequently. They pop up out of nowhere, like those 2 girls from The Shining that want you to play with them forever. You just want to ride your tricycle around that creepy hotel in peace, but no, you’ve got those bitches cramping your style! I happen to always be doing something embarrassing when I run into students. When I went to go see Harry Potter 7, Part 1 with my parents, we decided to go to the nice theater across the river so that we could be more comfortable and see it on a bigger screen. While we sat there, I sitting in between my parents like this was my big day out with the grown-ups (I was 23), we saw some people enter with Icees the size of my torso. They were huge! The three of us made eye contact and decided we had to have them. I volunteered to go get them because no one would try to steal my seat in the middle of them, and made the ½ mile trek back to the concession stand. I purchased 3 child sized (and by child sized, I literally mean they were the size of a child) Icees and after the poor concession woman wrestled them into a carrying container, probably made of reinforced steel to support the weight of these monstrous iced treats, I turned around with a grin that I usually only possess on Christmas morning. Sure enough, one of my high school students is standing there, eyes wide, looking from me, to the 4 gallon icees in my hand, and back…I stutter, making a lot of nervous guttural sounds before blurting out, “THESE AREN’T ALL FOR ME!!!!” and then run as fast as I could while carrying the metal drums filled with cherry ice, back to the theater. Sure enough, that student told people on Monday, but the joke was on her, because I devoted 5 minutes of class time to tell my students the story so that they could hear it from my perspective. Clearly it was an excellent use of instructional time. In the end, we all got a good laugh out of it, and while that Icee was delicious, it came at an awful cost. 

I also had the great misfortune of running into a student at Wal-mart. I believe that, to be a successful and beloved teacher, you need to care about your students. I always do my best to keep the mood light, have some down time, and enjoy being there as they learn for the 40 minutes or so that I had them. I love holidays and so I try and give the students a little something to show them that I care and that I appreciate their efforts. It’s usually candy, or if it is a smaller group, delicious homemade baked goods. I was at Wal-mart, right before Christmas, raiding the candy isle, dumping bag after bag of 3 Musketeers, Kit Kat, and Milky Way bite sized bars (because none of those have peanuts in them…yeah, I am even conscious of the peanut allergy, THAT’S how thoughtful I am) into my cart, thinking to myself that I will use the self-check-out register to avoid judgment from any cashier. Then one of my 9^th grade students rounds the corner. She is with her mom and they are also looking for some reasonably priced holiday wrapped chocolate confections, when she spots me and comes over. I politely say hello and ask her if she has any exciting plans for break? (this question is perfect around vacation times because it is small talk, but not obvious or awkward, unless they say that they are going to their Dad and Step Mom’s house because their Mom wants some alone time with her new boyfriend…oh yeah, that happened to me.) When she looks in the cart, she sees all of the candy and I explain to her that it is for school tomorrow and she gets excited. She knew I was bringing in candy because I told my students I would in class earlier that week. Awkward moment averted, right? If only it were that easy. At that point, the girl’s mother is having a shit fit in the isle, digging in the back of the shelves looking for a particular candy. She gives up and, as she walks over to us, loudly says “HOW CAN THEY NOT HAVE ANY KIT KATS!?!?!?” She says hello and then looks down in the cart to see, what looks like, every bite sized Kit Kat bar in North America in my cart. To be fair, I taught over 250 students, so I needed a lot of candy, and who doesn’t like a good Kit Kat? The Mom then says “…Oh…” I smile weakly, feeling like I am being crushed by the cumulative weight of the candy overflowing from my cart and graciously part with 2 bags, as if making a peace offering. As they leave, I book it for the check-out area, only to find that none of the self-check-out registers are open, so I wait in line and suffer the judgment of the 18 year old girl checking all 457 bags one at a time.

Sometimes it is nice to see your students, but it is only nice if you see them on your own terms. The best is when you spot them and they don’t see you. Then you get to make the decision about whether or not to approach them. Oh, what power! High school students usually don’t want to see their teachers, especially not when they’re with their friends, so naturally, I always choose to approach them in these situations. I was at the mall one time and I saw a student sitting on a bench outside one of the stores. I never had this student, but I did work with him on the musicals that we did. His name was AJ and he was on the sound crew. Because I was wearing jeans and looked like a hobo, he didn’t recognize me, so I walked up to him when he wasn’t looking and said, “You look like you’re up to no good.” The look on his face was priceless. Aside from the fact that he almost fell off the bench, because I scared him, he didn’t immediately register that it was me. The poor kid thought some stranger wanted to make some creepy small talk and nearly died of fright. That will teach him to do his Christmas shopping there!

That situation was perfect, but sometimes, the approach backfires. Sometimes it backfires so bad that you wish the backlash had killed you, instead of leaving you socially wounded. I was at the mall (I really need to find a new mall) and I was shopping after Christmas with my Mom (can you tell I have no friends?). We had gone our separate ways and were going meet for lunch in the food court. I was early, so I walked at a leisurely pace, burdened by bags filled with new sweaters, sharpie pens, and all 5 Percy Jackson books, when I saw Joe, walking with his parents. Joe was in my period 3 Music Theory class and he always tried (unsuccessfully) to out humor me. We would go back and forth making fun of each other until I got bored and delivered a crushing blow to which he had no retort. He would then smile, laugh a little, and shake his head and say, “Whatever!” or “O.K!” This was my moment. Joe was with his family and I had met his Mom several times. I figured he would be embarrassed if I said hello and struck up a conversation, so naturally, I navigated straight over to them. After apologizing to the Chinese food sample lady for nearly killing her as my bag of sweaters came dangerously close to forcefully colliding with her face, I loudly exclaimed “Joe! How are you?” He turned around with a half smile and said hello as his mom enthusiastically jumped into conversation with me. She said “Oh, Joe is just doing a little after Christmas shopping with his Mom!” Joe looked tortured. Every high school boy LOVES to be seen shopping with his Mom. I gave him a smile that said, “hahahaha…BEST.DAY.OF.MY.LIFE.” when the unthinkable happened: My mom walked up. 

Catching the tail end of that conversation, my mom decided to add, “So is Kyle!” “I’m in hell”, I thought, “This is what hell is like.” I was shocked at how quickly the tables had turned. I saw Joe’s face light us as mine fell, contorting into a look of sheer horror, as his turned to one of deepest joy. In that moment, the power had shifted. Joe owned me. I practically saw his hand fly into his pocket, dig out his cell phone, and text everyone at the school. Not only did my mom embarrass me to the point of near death, she called me Kyle, killing any professional distance I had worked to maintain. I said a hurried goodbye as I furiously wheeled my mother around and dragged her to a vacant table. Needless to say, I had to devote another 5 minutes of class time to telling this story, during which all of the students laughed and Joe chimed in with his reactions and interpretations. Joe handled it well and didn’t publically humiliate me anymore than I deserved. The moral of this story: Get some friends and stop hanging out with your parents in public. It never ends well.

Interviewing

Interviewing sucks. There's no way around it. If you're lucky enough to get an interview, you have to dress up, sit there for a half an hour before they take you, and pray you don't screw up when you get in there. And even then there is no guarantee that you get the job because there are probably 30 other candidates that are going through the exact same thing. When you have gone on as many interviews as I have, you start to get the hang of it. You put on your suit, you know, the one that you have worn to EVERY interview, the one that is obviously your "Lucky Suit", pray you can find the school, sit in the office and wait. They tell you to get there early to give a good impression, but my question is, "a good impression for who?" The people you are interviewing with NEVER finish early, so they are not going to see you unless you start a fire in the lobby and they rush out the door to escape, to find you patiently waiting there, portfolio in hand, grinning broadly. Better yet, you should be assisting in the efforts to put out the fire, so that they know that you can keep your head in stressful and dangerous situations. This most directly applies teaching middle school.

Then, when the door to the interview room opens, you're faced with one of the 2 most awkward situations that you face that day: The previous candidate exiting the room. You're forced to watch as they shake his/her hand and thank him/her for their time. They are still trying to desperately make a good impression, so, they are throwing their whole body into that hand shake to be sure that the other person can feel sincerity seeping from their sweaty palms. You size up the previous candidate, focusing on their faults (weak ankles, hook nose, went to a crappy college...yeah, you can just tell) and decide whether or not you could take them if this came to a throw down. Then, they walk by you. The grin they had seconds earlier is a distant memory, their eyes narrow, and they give you a look that says, "Bring it Bitch." It's even more intense if you know the person. Yeah, that happens. Music is such a focused content area and there aren't many jobs (no fucking kidding), so you're bound to run into someone you know. When that happens, every memory you have of that person flashes in front of you and you desperately scan for something you can use. As they leave and your face contorts into the unnatural grin you practiced in the mirror at home that morning, you sigh with relief, thinking to yourself, "If they get the job, I will just anonymously mail the school the picture I took of them at Phi Iota Mu's Cinco Di Mayo party, and we'll see how long they last there."

At last, after the drive there, the waiting in the lobby, and the awkward "I"m gonna cut yo face" look, you meet the interviewing committee. If you're smart, you asked the secretary who would be in the interview when they called so you know who to play your strengths to. You block out the fact that the Principal has a weird face mole, the Assistant Principal has lipstick on her teeth, and the other music teachers in the room all went to Ithaca, and you try to do your best. They ask you all of the standard questions, one of them being, "Tell us about yourself", which is, in fact, not a question at all. You tell them where you lived growing up, where you went to school, your major, other places you taught, and all about that summer you spent in a 3rd world country curing the natives of their malaria with your badass piano skills. After all, it really is "all about the children"

Then, they throw you a situational question. It's something like, "What do you do if you're in the middle of chorus and you see "Kenny" punch "Bobby" when he thought you were not looking?" You immediately suppress the urge to make the joke, "Well, that depends, do you like Bobby?" and dive into a lengthy response in which you perfectly handle the situation and it ends with the two boys hugging while the resolution music from "Full House" plays in the background. You nailed it!

Then they ask you about your philosophy on your subject area. Of course, you think your subject area is important, so you want to tell them all of the statistics you know about how music helps kids learn and tell them that without music man would cease to exist. DON'T! They don't care. They want to you answer with something that resembles "music is for everyone" and for you to explain how you can relate to the kids with your superior educational prowess and expertise.

And then, almost without fail, some jackass, usually an administrator who didn't even know who the previous music teacher was because they have never attended a concert in their life, asks you, "So, what 'modern" tunes are you going to do?" If you successfully resist the temptation to leap across the desk and shake them until they develop some musical taste, you say that you are "open to anything as long as it is appropriate and has an educational value." There is nothing else you can say. Administrators love the word "appropriate" because that means Suzie's mom isn't going to call them about their daughter singing a Ke$ha tune where she was given "the bottle of Jack" line as a solo. This also means that if you get the job, you're going to have to order every "Glee" arrangement ever published to placate the administration until you have tenure and tell them to shove it.

As the interview concludes you try desperately to find an opening in which you can show them the beautiful portfolio that you have constructed. My portfolio is in a 1 1/2 inch black binder, filled with teaching evaluations, recommendation letters, sample lesson plans, instructional adaptations for students with special needs, and pictures of me teaching. If you construct your portfolio correctly, it will have taken you hours, everything will be sealed behind plastic page protectors, and you will end with feeling like you are the best thing to happen to education since they arrested Mary Kay Letourneau. Your blood, sweat, and tears went into this thing and, half the time, they don't even look at it. They didn't budget for "portfolio time" and you bitterly shove it back in your bag, wishing that you could slam their head between your PERFECTLY PLACED PLASTIC PAGES. If you are lucky and they do look at it, it is usually a 30 second glance during which they look at your pictures, scratch their head at the sample music you included that they can't read, and then pass it to the next sorry bastard who takes it like a grenade, because, they too, have no idea what any of this crap means.

There is a 50/50 chance you'll be allowed to demonstrate your skills in an interview. Sometimes you get asked to play or sing, or both. And really excellent school districts have you give a demo lesson and interview you afterwards. That was my last district. I taught 2nd grade for a period, during which I taught them a song, a hand percussion part, and we began a 3 note Orff xylophone ostinato pattern to accompany the piece. Boom, roasted! In the interview, I sang my aria (Candide's Lament from Candide, so that I could show them my emotional connection to my art form) and then I played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata starting on page 2 because one of my hard ass interviewers wanted to make sure I could stop and start in the hardest part of the piece (which I could, because I am the white Ray Charles...that can see). In my most recent interview I asked if they would like to hear me sing or play something. They looked at me like I had 3 heads. Apparently the committee was oblivious to the fact that there is a performance aspect to music that doesn't involve turning on the radio and lip syncing to the latest Rhianna single. This showed me exactly how much they valued their music program, as did the fact that the general music room was in the basement, next to an old art room and the shop wing. I was thrilled at the prospect of discussing sonata form accompanied by the scream of the jig saw in the next room. Maybe I would get lucky and could get in on some of that spice rack making action (not a sex joke).

As the interview concludes, they ask you if you have any questions for them. In my experience, people love to talk about how awesome they are (i.e. this blog) so I usually lob them a few easy questions like, "What is your program's biggest asset?" Again, this is not a sex joke, it is an opportunity for them to brag about their wonderful school and they will remember your interest and how good you made them feel. When their heads have deflated (for the last time, this is NOT a sex joke), I usually follow up with something like "Are there opportunities for cross curricular collaboration (say THAT 5 times fast)?" This shows that you have an interest in the other subject areas. This, of course, is a lie, because those bastards never get cut from the budget, so you don't give 2 shits about them. However, this makes you seem cooperative, like the other teachers can come to you and give you ideas and help you relate to what they are going in class. The day someone comes into my classroom with an idea about what I can do to relate to THEM, is the day I burn down the school, starting with their room...yeah, I'm talking to you 7th grade science.

Then after 25 minutes of you answering their questions, smiling politely as they spit on you when they talk, they bid you good day and almost never tell you when you should expect to hear from them. You give them each a firm hand shake and call them by name (oh yeah, you're supposed to remember these assholes' names. They can call you Keith instead of Kyle, but God forbid you forget that is "Anferony instead of Anthony" (yes, that is from Mean Girls)) and turn to leave. Cue awkward moment #2 when you see the person interviewing after you. Even if you fart while laughing at one of their jokes and it gets really quiet, or you ask the woman if she is pregnant and she is not, you walk out of that interview like you were the shit (hopefully not from that fart you may have made in the room). You NEVER want to give the person after you the impression that you didn't dazzle them with your personality and qualifications. You want your look of happiness and joy to haunt them as they entered the room you just OWNED for the last 30 minutes.

Then you drive home analyzing everything you did, and the longer you drive, the more faults you find. You should have laughed harder when he made that joke about the ukulele being a midget guitar, or not have looked so appalled when his hairpiece slid off as he stood up. And once you're home, you wait...and wait...and wait...for your phone to ring. Of course, it DOES ring, but it's just your Mom calling to see how it went and to scold you for not returning the 37 missed calls she made while you were in the interview. But in my experience, they don't call. They choose the teacher with the masters degree, even if it is from Devry, or the younger candidate that you don't have to pay as much, or the hot one, because some people are not smart enough to see that having a big chested woman wave her arms in front of a group of adolescent boys could be potentially problematic. And then, you do it all over again, waiting for the interview where they ask you "what happened on 30 Rock last night" or "how do you correctly conjure a corporeal patronus" so that you can really show them what you're made of.

Here's to hoping!

What's In A Name?

In teaching, you encounter a large number of students each year, some new, some old. I have taught as many as 200 kids in one year. In a number that large, you are bound to have some "bad eggs", and by "bad eggs" I clearly mean students that make the Children of the Corn look friendly. I have heard teachers say that after having terrible students, they eliminate that name from their baby name list. At this rate, I am going to have to name my children Tugboat and Pillow, and we all know, that only works for celebrities, and even then, they look like assholes.

I would rather spend an evening with Chuckie than see any of these students again...ever. Here are a few of the names, and the reasons why I wouldn't even name my dog after one of these monsters...(I'll do this in installments so that it doesn't get too long)

Christopher- Christopher was in 2nd grade when I had him, and he was well on his way to becoming a regular on America's Most Wanted. If we had had superlatives at the elementary level, I would have voted him "Most Likely to Burn Down an Orphanage" or "Most Likely to Kick a Puppy". This kid was just naturally evil. It reminded me of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore visited young Tom Riddle and he said "I can make them hurt if I want to..." That was Chris. His heavily freckled face contorted into a menacing smile was more than enough reason for you to wake up in the middle of the night and make sure your doors are locked.

For the 3 months I was at this school, Chris was a living nightmare. I wondered why his classroom teacher was always so relieved to drop her class off at music. It didn't take me long to realize she probably used those precious 40 minutes to cry and pray for the sweet release of death. Like all bullies, Chris had a cronie, Jack, and a punching bag, Joey. Jack and Chris were not allowed to sit on the same side of the room. As much as the 2 liked each other, if there was no one else to pick on, they would start on each other. It wasn't enough that these kids were separated by an entire classroom of their peers, they needed to be separated from society by barbed wire fences, several feet of concrete, and titanium bars. Poor, Joey was at least 6 inches shorter than everyone in the class, even in second grade. His olive skin, thick black hair that met in a widow's peak in the front, and his shorts that didn't meet his knobby knees made him look like Eddie Munster. This kid never had a chance.

Chris would TORMENT him and most classes ended with Joey crying over Chris simply looking at him. Their poor teacher would show up at the end of music, hold Joey's hand back to class and pull Chris's red card on the board, meaning no recess. I think that it would have been more productive to put him in "The Chokey" from Matilda, but this was public school. One day, Chris decided to hide his sneaky tactics and he and Jack decided instead to make an all out assault on poor Joey. All class they picked on him until I was forced to speak with them alone after staring the kids on the song. I told them that I would be calling home and that they would spend their recess in the Principal's office for the rest of the week. Jack cracked like Humpty Dumpty and said that he was sorry and that he didn't mean it. Chris however, glared at me, his eyes attempting to pierce my soul and and he said in a gravely voice no 7 year old should possess, "I. HOPE. YOU. DIE." Now, I had decided early in my career that I wouldn't let my students get to me, because, ultimately, their opinions of me were already biased because I was the authority figure. We weren't on equal playing field, so they were not able to see me in any other light. Also, I didn't care. I bent down to his level (something they tell you to do so that the kid will really be engaged) and said to him in a forceful tone, "NOT TODAY, CHRIS!"

He was shocked that his words didn't kill me, that I wasn't writhing on the ground begging for mercy. He lost all privileges that week, spending his hour of recess in the main office lobby, torturing the poor secretaries no doubt. His bullying of poor Joey continued during the rest of my time there. On my last day there, I let the kids color and watch Fantasia. Chris drew a picture of a shark eating Joey while he (chris) dropped a million pound anvil on his head. I met the school psychologist that day and when I handed her the drawing she sighed, shook her head, and said "I'll put it with the others." Oh, REALLY?!?!?! THERE ARE OTHERS?!?!?! This kid belongs in an asylum, not a school...thankfully, I got the hell out of there!

Jimmy- Jimmy was a sweet talker. He's the kind of kid that could call you a bitch (yeah, he swore, charming right?) and then try and convince you he never said it. I saw right through that facade and called him out on everything. In 4th grade, we played recorder, and, if you didn't behave, you had to finger along on a pencil, while all of your friends played. Jimmy called the boy behind him a dick, so naturally, I handed him a pencil, a pink one, to add insult to injury. He spent the period whining that I was unfair and that I just hated him for no reason. I was teaching the students the 4th song in the Recorder Karate packet, in the Dojo that was my classroom, when Jimmy finally snapped. He screamed at the top of his lungs, ran to the back of the room and picked up a rhythm stick. He wielded it like a light sabre, and charged at the boy who got him in trouble. Thankfully, with my Ninja speed (I can play ALL of the Recorder Karate songs) I intercepted him, scooped him up in one arm and started towards the office, with his legs kicking behind me. I told him once we got there and I sat him down that I would be calling his Mom and Dad and he looked at me, unblinking and said, as if to show me who's boss, "Oh yeah? Well my Dad's in prison." Awesome. I have disciplined a convict's kid. He is probably going to issue a fatwa to kill me and I am going to end up dead in the street after trying to buy some oranges at a farmer's market. Unlike Don Coreleone, I don't think I will be as lucky...

Crystal- I never understood people's need to name their children after "pretty things". Crystal, Diamond, Ruby, Most Precious (yeah, I went to school with a Most Precious). It has been my experience (and of course, there are exceptions) that the prettier the name, the more awful the kid. Crystal was no exception. She would have been more appropriately named Samara or if she was a boy, Daemon. Hell hat no fury like a 5th grade girl. They think they know everything, they're always on the offensive, and they don't like change. I was filling in a maternity leave position for their regular teacher and Crystal was one of her favorite students. She felt threatened that I was there and was determined to make my life hell. The joke was on her, I was teaching elementary school in the middle of nowhere NY, this was my hell. The whole time I was there, she never shut up. She hated the music I did, she didn't like the warm-ups, she didn't like her spot on the risers, and she asked me every day when the other teacher was coming back. "Not soon enough", I thought to myself. A few weeks in, Crystal started skipping class and I started getting really great at writing referrals. I called home and there was never any answer and my messages went unreturned. I thought it was no surprise that Crystal had earned herself a failing grade in chorus (oh yeah, I fail people. I don't care who you are, if you don't do the work, you certainly pay for it later on). The day report cards came out, Crystals mother called my Principal demanding a meeting with me. I met with Crystal's mother and the Principal later that afternoon.

Crystal's mother was a lovely woman, and I expected nothing less after having the pleasure of teaching her daughter. She came into the meeting, guns blazing, calling me a racist, a hack, and insulting my profession (This is JUST music! It doesn't even matter!) After refraining from insulting her occupation, which was most likely sanitation worker, prison lunch lady, or professional Publisher's Clearinghouse applicant, I calmly explained that I had contacted her several times to talk about her daughter's behavior in my course. I brought in a log of the phone call dates that I had kept (something I learned to do while student teaching) and presented it to her. Her large bejeweled sausage fingers closed around the print-out and her eyes went as wide as the dinner plates she gave to the inmates. She claimed she never received any messages and after I confirmed her phone number, the crushing realization of what had happened finally overwhelmed her. Apparently, she got home after Crystal, leaving her in the care of her older brother. Crystal must have caught on early and deleted my messages before her mother got home. Long story short, Crystal never missed another chorus class again and I think she learned not to mess with me.

To be continued...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

As a teacher, it is my job (or rather, WAS my job)  to convey the knowledge I possess to my students through various means in an accessible way. Since I don't have students, you guys will have to do. Now, going through school I was the student that always asked questions. I know what you're thinking..."I HATED that kid". You're probably picturing some little boy in a short sleeved collared shirt, buttoned to the very top, with an accompanying olive green sweater vest, khaki shorts, and socks that reach mid calf hidden at the feet by ugly shoes that probably weren't tied correctly. His hair is probably either slicked to his head or wildly untidy and his arm is raised so high that you fear (and perhaps hope) it will burst out of his socket...you've got it all wrong. I didn't develop my affinity for sweater vests until much later. So there!

Moving on! I have never felt a great sense of self pride when it came to education. If I didn't know the answer to something or didn't understand, I would ask a question. This is probably because I am pretty shameless to begin with. I wore a Mr. Incredible costume to school, complete with tights, gloves, and a mask..as a TEACHER! Asking questions didn't phase me at all. I did pretty well in school and because I was nice, my teachers didn't really mind and humored me. It wasn't until I got to college that my shamelessness bonded with my growing wit and sass, and then, there was no going back...


 I brought my habit of asking questions to my teaching, preferring the Socratic method. I am (was) always asking my students questions to keep them on their toes and to ensure that they were learning. However, this did not always work to my advantage. Sometimes there are questions that are better left unasked. I learned that the hard way!


It was my first teaching job, an Elementary maternity leave in Northern New York. I was responsible for teaching grades k-5 general music and 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade chorus. I also had to lead the school in morning assemblies for all grades, singing a new month or holiday song...needless to say, it made me hate my life. I taught in a classroom that was down a dark staircase and was literally the only classroom on that side of the building. It was located next to the old gym that was never used. Nothing says "let's get excited for music class" like a mile long walk and a room where no one could hear you scream...or sing, which they were under the impression was the same thing.


The one good advantage of teaching in the boiler room from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, was that there was a bathroom close by that the students could use. I hate it when students would need to use the bathroom in the middle of class. I understand that not everyone can hold it during an entire class, but at the elementary level, bathroom usage is contagious. After one kid asks to go, suddenly the entire class is struggling to contain the contents of their bladder and are desperately waving their hands to be the next one to go. I found that if I waited until the first kid came back, usually the other students would forget their desperate need to use the facilities. 


One day, one of my second graders, Billy, asked to go to the bathroom at the beginning of class. I was grateful because I would much rather a student go before the start of class than them ask when I was just getting to the lesson. I sent him and started class...we were singing our November song, complete with a tribute to Thanksgiving, where we gobbled like turkeys, and pretended to catch footballs...clearly, my finest moment. Billy came back to the lesson 30 minutes in, which I found suspicious. I had another student leave class to go to the bathroom earlier in the year and the aid caught him in the hallway playing his gameboy. I couldn't believe it...I never skipped class until I was in college, and at that point, no one cared! And I was smart enough to have my friend Joe sign in for me...I think I only went to 2 full classes of Human Sexuality, but I managed to squeak by with a pass. I was completely offended. I planned engaging lessons. That was the day we were singing our friendship song and I came up with a fun dance with a do-si do and...oh...come to think of it, if I had a gameboy, I probably would have gotten the hell out of there to play it too...


Being the great investigative detective that I am, I asked Billy where he was. He guiltily replied that he was in the bathroom... A LIKELY STORY! I asked if he was in the bathroom the whole time...little kids like to wander too and it would look great to my first employer if there was a 2nd grader smoking in the hallway with his other T-bird buddies. He said that he had been in the bathroom the whole time. My mind immediately flashed to a bathroom covered floor to ceiling in toilet paper, the mirror graffiti-ed with swearwords  in spray paint, and a fire in the trashcan. I smartly asked him what took him so long...I could feel it...he was about to crack...his resolve was crumbling under my interrogation...I OWNED HIM! He looked at me, wide eyed and nervous and quietly said "...I had to poop..." 


If there was a couch near enough, I would have crawled under it and died. Thankfully, none of the other kids heard him and were quietly talking amongst themselves. The aid, however, did hear it was was doubled over in rioted fits of laughter. I was horrified. Billy returned to his seat and after what seemed like eons of awkward, I resumed the lesson. When the lesson was over, the teacher came to get the class, the students followed her out of the room in a single file line, and the aid gave me a sad knowing pat on the shoulder as if to say, "you poor bastard, no one saw that coming." I had a prep period to recover and reflect on the horrifying situation that transpired and hope that I had not caused some unknown damage to poor Billy, cursing him to a life where he is shamed by his bowel movements.


I wish I could say that this was the first time something like this had happened to me at that job, but I would be lying. Not one month earlier, I had had another shocking episode that was again a direct result of my own curiosity. The month was October, I know that because that was the first lyric in the song we had learned that day. "The month is October, there's so much to do...play football and hockey, and pick apples too...The month is October and we will all play...we'll go trick or treating, on Halloween day..." Seriously, I am obviously educational GOLD! Why do I NOT have a job?!?!?! 


Anyway, before I taught this brilliant song and introduced the xylophone part (yeah, go big or go home), I asked the kids to identify things that we only did in October. I had a little easel with a white board on it and I had to sit in a little kid chair to write on it. We were instructed to introduce the kids to reading and writing as much as possible and I was simply obliging. They clearly didn't care that to do so, I had to sacrifice all of my dignity and squat in this dwarf chair. I wrote their responses on the board and they came up with things like "go pumpkin picking, eat apple cider donuts, rake leaves, make jack-o-lanters, eat pumpkin pie.' Maneuvering around my knees, which were inches from my chin in that chair, I managed to successfully get all the answers on the board. I asked for any final thoughts and one girl raised her hand. I called on her eager tiny hand and she proudly said, "visit grandma." I thought that that was an odd response and prompted her, "but you don't only visit your grandma in October, do you?" She said "yes" and I thought to myself, what kind of parents only let their kids see their grandmother once a year. Maybe she was a trashy alcoholic, or a hoarder, or was the bearded lady in the circus and they only came to NY in October. Who knew?


Because my curiosity was not yet satiated, I asked, "Oh, where is grandma at?" Without skipping a beat the little girl happily replied "at the cemetery." All of the color drained from my face and there I sat, mouth gaping open like a river trout, crammed into that tiny chair, ass hanging off the sides, cursing my curious nature. It would appear that songs about the month never yield good results for me. In both situations, I would have been fine had I not asked the final, fatal question. Kids really do say the darnedest things...