Various Subbing Anectodes

... from the nearly concluded current school year. (Names and circumstances altered to protect and deflect the privacy concerns that might otherwise come forth ...)

Students had to do an "Earliest Memory" assignment.

I told the students of the following ...

I can remember the actual 2nd birthday when I got my dog Raffles. I remember looking out the door of my aunts house.

I can also remember some table scenes growing up that my parents confirm, that I really would go around to everyone and eat their leftovers or sometimes just steal whet they were eating. And, I can remember getting out of bed and dealing with a door gate to my room and ending up with the frig open trying to get to food in the middle of the night.

These memories were not prompted. I asked my parents to confirm them.

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Kindergarten class. This boy would not stop kissing this girl and she just looked exasperated, but informed me that he cannot resist her with a disgusted expression.


A kid was carrying around a Mountain Dew bottle one day, which in and of itself was hardly a big deal ... it was a 2 liter bottle though ...

I still get this question virtually every day, even when wearing a tag that says that I am a sub, "are you subbing today?"

Angry 7th grade girl on the way out to class to a boy, "I will pay someone to pee in your lunch."

A 4th grader was reading a book about MLK and told me the following, "It evens tells you everything that they did on their wedding night."

Sign outside a door, "If you say you can't do something what you are really saying is that you don't know how to use Google".

Students ask, "Do you have change for a $20?" I try not to laugh but some of these kids have more money than me.

During a tag game I actually had to institute a specif "no noogies rule" since I had told them no poking, etc ... and had not spelled it out. Apparently, knocking someone on the head is not obvious enough to be not allowed.

The Bobby Rule - Some students were working on creative writing and apparently because one of them had "has a really big imagination" there was a rule about bodily functions.

I was starting an in class group reading and picking up name cards to choose who would go first. "Do I read the first part?" the student asked. "Yes, since yours was the first name called."

With great power. It is funny how just walking around the room or the library suddenly shuts down the volume of a group. They are chatting and glancing, so I get up and walk over and it gets silent. It is an awesome power. It works to sit in a different spot in the room too.

A female teacher tells me she is tired because, "he always wants to stay up and TALK." She said it like a guy about a girl. Then, "I'm the guy in our relationship," followed when I had not yet said anything in response.

There was a Spanish assn to learn to ask certain questions, like asking for a phone number. I tell the kids to write it out as a full conversation. "What if a girl says no?" a student asks. I tell him to pretend and play out the scene. Disgusted, he mutters, "It happened yesterday." I had nothing for him.

I wear this really nice old leather jacket that gets a lot of comments. One middle school aged boy stood up and yelled, "Wild Hogs!" when I put it on. I have not worn it as much lately.

A girl walked in and asked what smelled like pickles. At first I was afraid I had been gassy, but it turns out it usually smelled like that.

"We're going to try and get strippers for prom."

"When I was in 4th grade I had to have a parent conference because I was farting all the time." - Apparently a teacher had a really strict bathroom policy but was paranoid about a kick doing number 2 in the class so every time a kid would fart he would send him to the bathroom so this kid farted all the time to get out of class.

"You are the f'ing worst speller I have ever seen. It is like every other word."

"He'll watch the tape." There was a camera in class mounted on the wall. For real.

I gave Pre-K kids an important discussion about staying on their feet to avoid being a speed bump in the gym, a boy raised his hand, "My mother has allergies," he said. Non Sequiturs like that happen all the time. Also, a fifth grader during a nutrition guest speaker raised her hand and started describing her favorite Subway sub. Every time the guest speaker tried to shy away the girl would add another comment, "Then I have them put on tomatoes," and she just kept going, "because I like mustard." It would not end.

My right front tire. It wobbled. It was scraping. I thought it was my brakes again. I went to check and was missing a lug nut and the other 4 were loose. I could have been killed or killed others. I tightened them. Was this sabotage? I do not want to be paranoid, but given my livelihood it is plausible and possible that someone did this to me. I know teachers that have had car damages. The plausibility is scary.


At various schools we have some dramatic kids, and you get to sense their patterns if you are there enough. I've had kids that would melt down more than once a day. You kind of stop responding if nothing is on fire. Therefore, to these kids I am the Devil. Well, I went in to give a sample lesson at a school recently and there was one of those drama queens, with my professional life in her hands. Imagine having to kiss up to a kid like that. That was my day.

I had an afternoon where my class merged with the class next door for a video. We got them in and mostly settled in and the teacher looks at me and says, "Do you have the video?"

I love little kids. You can be talking about just about anything and you get a hand raised. He's patient. You finally call on him and he says, "My mom has allergies."

Or you go to a parent night and you can see which parents are the enablers ... and from there you can tell which teachers are paying attention to try and make sure that they know the name of the parent so they can try and keep from getting that kid to deal with them.