A Blink of School Life

The bell frightens me as it dings loudly, singling the end of this period and seven minutes until the next. Seven minutes until the calm serenity is sucked out of this room and replaced with loud annoyances. A day like this I wonder why I wanted to be a teacher. Yet, as the room fills with teenagers I am reminded once again. Their energy seems to fill me with my own and I am instantly ready for whatever the day may bring. I am nearing the end of my short two and a half week stay in these challenging classes, and weirdly enough I am getting sad. This feeling has caught me completely and utterly off guard because the first three days I was here I thought I would never be able to make it through. My seventh period was going to eat me alive. I would never be able to teach them the materials right--after all it is science. I guess I should just be glad it's not math. I went home exhausted after the first week, wondering how I was going to make it through the next two weeks. Yet here I am, almost there and wondering what my next step is going to be.

I have been subbing for three years. Sometimes I see the same classes, sometimes the students remember me, but mostly I am a nameless sub and they are all nameless students. I do my best to be fair, to be stern and to be me. They seem to like me enough, yet as the bell rings and they dash home I am forgotten, as they are for me. Emptiness slowly filled me. Not over a day or a week or even a year, but as the third year began, I realized how hollow I had become. I was just a replacement. And if I couldn't fill in they would find another replacement. I have no responsibility, no knowledge of what I teach, no relationship with the students. Although sad, after school I was glad I could leave at the same time as the students, glad I could visit coffee shops during my off periods and read book or write, glad that I never had to take home a single thing to grade. My nights were me time--free time. I could do whatever I wanted on the weekends. I could even take a trip and not have to worry about missing days, I made my own schedule after all. Yet with all of these things that I love, all of the freedom and time, I still wasn't fulfilled. The hole was still growing.

It wasn't until I landed this two and a half week science job at my old high school did I realize what I had been missing all along. Students saying, "Hi Ms. D! Bye Ms. D! Thanks Ms. D!" (well, they say my full name, but for blog purposes I will just leave it at that). Students recognizing me when they walk in, talking to me about their life, feeling comfortable in my classroom. No more "Oh we have a sub today?" Or "Who are you?" No more just nodding and smiling at teachers in the hall. Now I could stop and talk to them, laugh in an office with them, get to actually know them and learn from them. I didn't even care if students wanted to come in for help (well, if they ever did) because I didn't mind helping them. I actually wanted to help them. I was beginning to feel good about my decision to be a teacher again. I wasn't wavering in the right and wrong, I was happy with the responsibility of grading and figuring out plans. I was happy with anything that would actually give me a name. I was happy not just being "the sub". Of course there were the challenging students that made me happy I didn't have to stay past this week. But even they couldn't take away this new fulfillment I had. Even they couldn't turn me away from this job. I wasn't going to let them defeat me, I was going to let them challenge me, test me and make me the best teacher I could be. Now, if only I had a little more time!

But as things always do, this job will soon be coming to an end. My freedom will return to me in the form of fall break where I will jump joyously throughout the town until the week is up when I realize that I no longer have a place at this school. Or any school for that matter. From there I can sadly sink into myself or know that sometimes that's just the way things go. And I will do everything I can to get back into my own classroom someday, to get back to where students know me and I know them, to get back to my true passion. Each day is a step in the right direction, even if I am a nameless sub, I have to know it will all work itself out someday. Well, maybe it won't magically work itself out, I'm sure I'll have to do some work :)