Working as a HS substitute teacher gives me the opportunity to meet a lot of people. Some days are so stressful I just stare at the reflection of myself in my dress shirt, tie and briefcase and ask myself why the hell am I setting the bar so low. Other days I have so much fun that I feel pleased and a little smug that I feel pleased that I know quite a few adults that couldn’t handle ‘putting up with teenagers for seven hours a day’.
Depending on the students, teacher, and quantity of instructions, there are some times when I’m told simply to ‘wing it’ in the classroom. Since little gets done when subs are there anyway (unless I was told to assign material) I would ‘rap’ with the students about mundane things, like graduation, clothing styles, etc. I’m not there to be a motivational speaker or anything, but because I’m still young in teacher years (as students often exclaim to me, “You’re hella young for a substitute”) they seem to like talking about day-to-day stuff with me.
Some days this ends up being a question-and-answer session with the students, varying from the thoughtful to the downright rude. I tend to be careful what exactly I disclose- the though of students telling the teacher “We had a substitute that spent the whole hour griping about his ex-girlfriend” rather mortifies me. When I first subbed, I was still living with my mom and her boyfriend. I had been self-concious about this for a long time, and honestly scared I was going to admit it then get teased for it. So when they asked about my living arrangements, I lied. I had this assumption that being high schoolers, especially high schoolers in sheltered English or special-ed classes populated by students with purely behavioral problems and not learning disorders, they’d use something like that to make fun or generally try to get under my skin.
Last week some students told me that they had a sub in his 30’s who, during similar chats admitted he still lived with his parents and never had a girlfriend. I was really surprised anyone would admit that- obviously I’m way more self-concious about it, but honestly I kind of felt that there’s no reason to give people ammo if you’re worried they might act mean-spirited.
I don’t consider myself a terribly private person, but I’m increasingly more careful about what I talk about/admit about myself, since it often has a tendency to come round and bite me in the ass later. Sometimes being frank helps me connect with students, but I’m always on alert about stuff that might be going overboard.
