...at the time, it was a profoundly poor decision to scratch around and find a sub. teaching job for today. I went to a elementary school to replace a first grade teacher. If you know me, you have heard the expression: 'I would rather drop a brick on my toe than (fill in the blank)'. Today was most definitely one of those 'rather than' days. More than once I found myself opening the connecting door to the adjacent class room to ask the teacher who knows all the students to come in and help me get it under control. She was most willing to get them settled down again, but it did not seem to last.
I don't know what the problem was - and guess it was at least fifty percent me. I could not manage them. There were about two dozen six year olds - how difficult can that be? The answer is very. By the middle of the day - not even yet noon, I went to get the next door neighbor and said:' I don't think I can do this'. She said: 'they go to lunch in ten minutes.'
So I thought to myself that I can stand anything for ten minutes. Which was possible, but then that left the rest of the day to wrangle them into submission. I told them after lunch that if they could get their work done, we could go out on the playground for a bit - which would have been as much a kindness to me as to them. But we never got there, so were in the classroom until they finally left in drips and dribbles for walking, car riding, or bus pickup, the last of them leaving at 3:10.
It started raining before I could get home, at times so hard it was difficult to see the roadway - good weather to go to bed and pull the covers up over my head.
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