I am a Southern Baptist, born and raised. I have attended Baptist churches all my life, even a Missionary Baptist church complete with sweating, screaming preacher.
But today my proudly Protestant self is in need of a little absolution.
It's a safe bet that we're all familiar with the idea that if you sin in your head you might as well have done the thing outright. Friends, yesterday I sinned in my head quite a bit. No, I didn't lust after the one good-looking male teacher in the school: nothing nearly so beautifully bad.
Yesterday, I committed murder [in my head]. Over and over... and over.
I love my job. Really, I do. I love getting to know the students and getting to observe a different classroom everyday. Indeed, I get a kick out of the tiny paparazzi that screams out at me as I walk down the hall (with each "Miss Hays!" I picture a little flashbulb going off and foresee the next People magazine cover). But yesterday... Oh, yesterday...
I started the day off with a bang: my first referral. Let's get something straight: I like to be liked. All my twenty-two years I have been a people-pleaser and sometimes too desperate to be accepted. So I enjoy that kids tell me often that I'm their favorite sub, and, while it's no skin off my nose, I'd rather not put a little stain on their school record. But when you-- a 6-foot 8th grade bully with a chip on your shoulder-- trip a 4'8 6th grader, I am called to action. You have the misfortune of a sub that has been bullied, and I won't stand for it in my classroom. So there, you brought this on yourself. Have a nice day.
And then I apologized... because I don't want you to write mean things about me in the bathroom stall.
Fast forward to the end of my day: rare ground for any sub, I was asked to actually teach. That's right: teach. Most teachers just pile on the worksheets, but not this one. Oh no, she wants me to stand at the front of the room and draw on a projector and teach these excitable minds about how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers (oh yes, that was the cherry on top-- teaching math). So there I stand, drawing dots on a transparency, when I look up to see one child hovering over another's desk, shoulders drawn up to his ears, saying over and over again, "Tell me to shut up again." The rest of our conversation went like this:
Me: "Derek, go back to your desk right now."
Greg: "Yeah, Derek, go back to your desk."
Me: "Greg, I don't need your help."
Derek: "Yeah, Greg, she doesn't need your help."
Me: "That's enough, Derek. Be quiet."
Greg: "For real, just be quiet."
It was then, as all the other students jumped in with their echoes of "Be quiet," and "Y'all shut up" that it all started falling into place in my mind... Me, snapping little children in two... Me, forcibly shoving them away from my desk where my personal bubble was being dangerously tested... Me, kicking and screaming on the floor until they all stared in shocked silence, because then and only then would there be silence.
This morning, I walked through the halls to Mrs. Womac's class to the familiar shouts of "Miss Hays is here!" and "Who are you subbing for Miss Hays? Yes!" and I felt a little bad about how just yesterday I had craved to do harm to one of those sweet children. But now, as I sit in second period planning, having had a group of sixth graders just last period, I feel considerably less bad...
Because they are monsters. Precious, adorable monsters who make me feel bipolar as I flip between violent anger and lovable gush from one of their idiotic phrases to the next.
Thanks for the therapy session. I feel better. Then again, I have 5 periods ahead of me...
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