this sounds a bit strange...

...but it has occurred to me that there is some benefit to negativism: perhaps if you are continually envisioning the absolute Worst Case Scenario, it won't happen. If you constantly paint the picture of the most direst circumstance imaginable, and it does  not occur - surely you will be very pleasantly surprised.Well, it pretty much happened with my substitute teaching experience today. Not nearly as bad as it could have been - which means pretty good overall.

I knew it would be art class, so expected it would be older kids - elementary but the higher grades. I think I had third and fourth, which to my way of thinking is far more agreeable and manageable than sixth graders, which is 'way to close to middle school age and hormonal drama for my liking. They were mostly a pretty amenable bunch. The art teacher was actually there when I got into the classroom, to provide some instructing and direction for what the day would be.

Kids, with some guidance, would be drawing a picture of a 'blimp'. They had color illustrations, as well as a  page of sketches, a  basic how-to, and a oval shaped pattern to get them started.  The instructions were, to my way of thinking, pretty plainly stated, but they obviously: a) don't listen, b) disregard what they are told, c) completely fail to pay attention and d) could not care less what the instructions are for completing the project. I told them to write their names on the paper, along with grade and teacher, then turn it over to start the drawing. Did they do that? No. Well, maybe, about 40%. And you have to tell them over and over and over and over to get their attention.

By the end of the day, when I had better figured out what to tell them to make the assignment more likely to be a success, some of them really did a good job: using imaginations, and going on to be pretty creative. I'd drawn one on the white board, decorated the shape to look (somewhat) like a cat. Whiskers, tail, stripes, catty-looking eyes; all the things you notice that make a feline look like a feline. Then I used paper, and put several on the same page: actually pretty funny. One had stars and stripes, one was rainbow stripes, one that was colored like a watermelon. I was amused, even if no one else thought it entertaining.