FNF: No Substitute for Class

After I graduated college, the job market was bad. Very similar to how bad the job market is now. At the time, I was able to find a part time job working at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.

The job basically became a dead end, with no hopes of going to full time or movement anywhere in the company. So I needed to leave and find something else. But what?

Then I thought of going to become a substitute teacher. Nice flexible hours, easy to cancel if I had an interview. A prime job for someone to look for a prime job. My Mom had substituted before with great success, so it was time for me to give it a try.

My first assignment was for Physical Education. A bit of a disappointment since PE was never my kind of class. In point of fact it was the class I hated the most. Still, I took the assignment thinking that the kids would be doing most of the actual exercise, and most of the coaches I had growing up that taught PE were chubbier and more out of shape than I.

The challenge though is this PE class was at a place called the Family Children’s Center (FCC) in Mishawaka Indiana. It was a facility for troubled youth, with serious behavioral problems. Again, not really daunted by that either.

So I get there to teach PE, and was told where the gym and the coach’s office was. Walked into the office and found the notes the coach left. You’ll never guess what sport they were doing: DODGE BALL.

OK, let’s take some behaviorally challenged junior high age students. We are dealing with severe emotional problems as well as hormones causing their system to go completely bonkers. Now we are going to give them inflatable balls and actually telling them to smack each other with them.

Plus lets give this to the new substitute whose first day of teaching. Ain’t gonna happen!

So I talk to the other coach as well as the teaching assistants telling them no dodge ball. One suggests they use the weight room. First, I had no training in what to do with weights myself and felt uncomfortable. Second, the prospect of these emotionally challenged kids having access to large metal objects didn’t seem like a good idea either. If you can imagine how I felt about one of them throwing a rubber ball, I am sure you understand my fear of them throwing a five-pound weight. Again, ain’t gonna happen!

They wound up doing basic calisthenics and running around the gym. Safety first!

Later I had a discussion with the teacher, and he was apologetic. Apparently there was a regular TA (teaching assistant) that actually ran the class in his absence. That TA was out that day too. While they did do dodge ball apparently it was only with three balls, and it was a set of oversized ones that couldn’t really be tossed with much velocity. Apparently these larger balls were locked up too so I could have only gotten the smaller ones, most of them under inflated and could reach almost terminal velocity.

I would wind up teaching Junior High, and Special Education classes a lot, and had a lot of assignments at the FCC. Though that was the last attempt I made at PE at the FCC.


Later on, there would be another assignment at the FCC. Special Education from the substitute teacher’s perspective is extremely boring. A lot of the time the students are just doing deskwork and no real class to teach. Once in awhile the occasional question. I found myself doing a lot of reading.

The Special Ed classes would always have TAs to help with the discipline issues, of which there were many. Sometimes children would need to be physically restrained because they were in danger of hurting themselves and others.

OK, so I am in a class and the students are doing their deskwork. A student asked me for a pencil because he had some math to do. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I mean if someone asks you for a pencil, don’t you give them a pencil?

I go to the teacher’s desk and find a pencil. I then start making my way to the kid’s desk and start to hand him the pencil. Out of nowhere I hear a shout of “NO!” and one of the teaching assistants jumps up and grabs the pencil out of my hand.

Later on, I heard from the TA that the student once took a pencil and jammed it into a substitute’s arm for no apparent reason. What is this? Hannibal Lecter Jr. High?

After that my fears on the PE class seemed entirely justified. If a pencil is a weapon then so are metal weights and rubber balls.

After I got accustomed more to the setting and the rules, my days teaching at the FCC were very enjoyable and rewarding. While the kids had some serious emotional control issues, they were interested in learning, and there were some brilliant young minds there.

But the hilarious story was not at the FCC, but at a regular Junior High School…

See once they find out you are willing to substitute teach Jr. High and Special Ed, you become a very busy person. Not a lot of substitutes want to take those assignments.

As luck would have it a teacher was out for a whole week and I got the assignment for that whole week. Money is good, and after my experience at the FCC I was ready for anything.

I forget his name, but we will call him Jacob. Jacob was a bit of a problem that week. He had this thing about spit balls. He loved to hit the other students with them. Of course I tried telling him to stop, caught him several times, even sent him to the Principal’s Office. The other students were relieved because they were tired of it.

So it’s my last day at this assignment, and other than Jacob it has been a model class with no problems. And the last day there are a series of tests. I warn all the students that there will be no talking or interruptions of any kind during the tests. If there is, I told them I would confiscate the paper and they would have to talk to their regular teacher about a retake of the test.

Jacob actually was doing his test work… when suddenly THWACK!
A spitball hits Jacob. He starts to turn around in his desk to see who it was. To which I tell him “keep your eye on your own paper”.

Again he goes back to work… and then suddenly another THWACK!
Right in the back of the neck! Again he turns around, and this time complains that someone is hitting him with spitballs.

I respond, “I will keep my eye on you and if I see anyone shooting spitballs at you, they will go to the Principals office”.

Again, back to his work…. and another THWACK!
He jumps up and asks me if I saw anything. He then accuses two other students that were behind him of spitballs. I didn’t see anything and told him that I think he wass imagining things to cause a disruption, and if that is his game he can go to the Principal’s office.

The next three times… THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! He just sat there and took the spitballs.

At that point, I gently put the hollowed out pen I hid in my right hand back into the teacher’s desk. And discarded the remaining spitballs I had made.

Apparently no one ever suspects it was the substitute teacher that would do such a thing.
Revenge was mine and justice was served.

I would find out later from Jacob’s regular teacher that Jacob had stopped with the spitballs. So apparently it taught him a little about how it felt to be on the other end.