a tale of 22 2nd-graders and a 22-year-old substitute teacher without the capacity to control them

A little girl named Cielo sits on a chair in the front of a classroom, explaining to twenty-one of her peers that the little stuffed teddy bear on her lap is her fourteenth favorite toy. Though my mind is fettered with the anxiety of a long, miserable day in the clutches of an unruly, disobedient, and disrespectful room of second graders, I allow myself to appreciate, briefly, that in this moment they are cute. Though difficult, they are not evil. This day has probably been the most miserable working day of my life to date, but if nothing else, it has provided me with this: the reconfirmation that I just don’t really like being around little kids very much. And I sure as hell never want to teach them.

With my interview for an English teaching job in Moka City, Japan coming up on Friday, I lament that my first experience as a substitute teacher provided only prolonged torture, rather than any recognizable insights on classroom management or pedagogical theory. All I did, it seems, was stand in front of a classroom for five hours and yell at children to be quiet, stay in their seats, stop calling each other names, and use their markers to color on paper, not on each other’s faces. Certainly, this one disastrous day does not compel me to toss out all at once my ambitions of being a teacher. But I wish there had been something—anything—positive about it.

If I ever sub for early elementary school again, it will only be out of extreme benevolence or else financial desperation. Fortunately, the program in Moka involves teaching at the junior high level. Preteens, I can relate to. Seven-year-olds who scrupulously serialize their favorite toys and run to me every five minutes to tell on each other, not so much.

THE END

P.S.: I hope that this blog post will not leave me misunderstood in terms of my feelings towards kids. It’s not that I dislike young children or that I don’t believe they can do or say adorable things from time to time. I also think that polar bears are cute. But I don’t want to be trapped in a classroom with twenty-two of them for five hours. Yes, it's the same thing.