Steady Work

I havent posted in a while, but I have found a steady substitute job. Here is what I think....

I have landed in a permanent sub position at my old school. It is a
good enough job, in that I get work every day and I know where I can
park. I am also among friends of three years and that makes a large
difference. I run the "In-House" detention. It is where wayward
students are placed as punishment. In a perfect world they would sit,
feel shame and do work work work. In a perfect world there is a
frictionless slope as well. My job is pretty much to keep them in the
room, out of the hair of the students and faculty. I have found that
if my room has the door closed and the students don't make any forays
to the hallways (except for bathroom breaks periods 3 and 7) I am
pretty much left alone. The hardest part is keeping the kids quiet.
The culture here in the Bronx is not one given to quiet introspection.
Students have great difficulty sitting still and quiet for more than
40 minutes at best. That is when I have to stand in front of the door
and explain that I will not let them out. Some behave and sit at this
point, others choose to question my lineage, marital relations with my
mother, or request fellatio (seriously, a 13 year old girl told me to
"Suck My Dick" and that was 10 am. Nothing like that with your
morning coffee to realize that you aren't in the suburbs of Boston any
more) or just play with my name in increasingly inventive ways. Mr.
Bacon-Egg-an'-Cheese is a popular one. This, of course as a
professional educator, I am required to let roll off my back as rain
from a mallards brawny shoulders. Sometimes they say things that just
make me laugh, and sometimes they just sit and shut up, but those are
the rare days.

Another contributing factor to my day is the ratio of Special
Education students in the room. The population is difficult enough to
deal with when you are a trusted teacher in a familiar surrounding.
When you are seen as the Antagonist, in a non-familiar and threatening
room, all bets are off as to behavior. I have had ceiling tiles
broken, my laptop molested (she picked it up as if to throw) and more
horrifically my knitting torn off needles. Students have tried to
call the police department to report a kidnapping (because I was
giving them PB&J for lunch, not pizza) and all manner of other
disruptive behavior.

Did I mention that I consider this a good job? It is steady work with
little BS (no lesson plans, bulletin boards, observations following a
BS curriculum) and I get out by 3:30 every day.