I Fully Support Corporal Punishment

I just watched The Bank of Hollywood, that show where people ask famous millionaires for money. They just gave a woman over $4,000 to buy shoes. Shoes. Um, excuse me, I could use four grand and I would do more than buy shoes thank you very much. I mean, I’d buy shoes, just reasonably priced ones and then donate the rest to world peace. Can you just write “World Peace” on a check and then toss it in the mail? Probably.


My work just recently cut my hours. Just like everyone else, they are trying to make every penny count and that has luckily had little effect on me in the past…but now…mucho effecto.

Which means I’m going to have to start substitute teaching again. Boo. I really hated that. Right after I got my credential and was all gung-ho about teaching I started to sub and very quickly realized I hate children. Kidding. That’s a gross exaggeration. I don’t hate kids. Kids are great. It’s just that trying to control a different group of them in a classroom setting day after day can take a toll on one’s mental well-being.

I wanted to preserve the well-being of my mental so I stopped submitting myself to the torture that is the public school system and now, after 7 glorious months, I have to return.

I imagine myself, in uncomfortable teacher-clothes, marching up to the school office at some ungodly hour like 8:30 and asking the disheveled secretary for a key to the classroom. Then I walk, slowly, to the multiple lines of children on the playground trying to figure out which class is mine for the day. I see a nice, straight row with smiling faces and the look of academia written all over them and pray they are mine. No. It’s the kids in the crooked line, chewing gum, pulling hair, and participating in general acts of tomfoolery. I’m all for tomfoolery but only with people who are of legal drinking age.

I try to be the cool sub, the strict sub, the nice sub. The whatever sub that keeps them from destroying the classroom and setting me or anything I own on fire.

The funny thing is, my rookie mistake: I actually try to teach these kids something. I have actually gone hoarse (no joke) trying to convey some sort of knowledge in my short time as their temporary teacher.

Why do I do this? I should know better. I tortured subs as a child. I switched name tags thinking it would be hilarious if the sub called me Amanda all day but then I forget after about 30 minutes in which the sub calls out “Amanda” twelve or so times before I get elbowed in the side and go, “Ow! Oh…here!”

I like to teach. I think knowledge is wonderful. Teaching, an art. Learning, a treasure. Let’s just say if I could be a fan of “The Pursuit of Knowledge” on Facebook I would totally click that button! But trying to do it in one day with kids I don’t know (or like very much) is just plain torture.

When I think of hell I picture florescent lighting and the smell of dry-erase markers.

(picture stolen from here)

-Age