More Adventures in Substitute Teaching

[no_hypocrisy]

Last Thursday, I signed up to work with preschool kids with special needs. But I got the bait-and-switch: physical education with the regular classes. All I had to do was visit six classrooms with handing out word puzzles and then a game.

All was going well enough -- until the fifth grade. First time there. For whatever reason, one boy made it his mission to try to provoke me. I know from experience to leave those types alone, ignore them. He kept going. He said I must be a racist. (I suppose he got that conclusion from me showing up white.) He (and then his friends) started to mock me as a substitute, saying I couldn't find "real work", how little money I was making. Again, I said nothing but let's say I gave meaningful looks.

Then the dynamics changed. I watched him walk across the classroom and he hit a girl, not once but twice. She winced and flinched. Now I had to get involved. I directed this boy to return to his desk/seat. He stayed where he was. I repeated my direction and he didn't move. I had to physically get between the boy and the girl he hit and then he moved.

He was enraged. He called across the room to the girl, "Hey, Xxxxx! I never hit you, right?" My heart sank as she replied, "No, you never hit me." He repeated it and she repeated her recantation.

Then he came up to me and told me, "When I go home, I'm going to tell my mother that you hit me, you shoved me, and you pushed me." I thought to myself, "OK, he said, she said." Then this boy took it up a notch or two. He went to about four boys and solicited them with "You saw the teacher hit me, right?" "You saw her push me, right?" Etc. And each boy smiled and nodded and answered, "I saw it good. She hit you hard."

I decided it was time to call in the Calvary. I called the Office and asked the Vice Principal to come to the room ASAP. And he did. As soon as he showed up, I told him succinctly about the girl getting hit, the boy pressing her and the other boys to adopt his narrative. The VP didn't look dismayed or surprised. Apparently he's heard this song before.

He yelled at them, really yelled. Told them they all had to write a one-page essay that he would personally grade. I was relieved that Administration had my back. I told what happened to their regular teacher and she told me I had just had the roughest class in the school.

I found out later from a member of the BOE that another family tried to shake down the school with something similar and it was thrown out of court.

I've never experienced 11 year olds who threatened to get me fired, have me investigated by child protection, and possibly have me lose my teaching license. Not to mention being sued with the school and the town. It was that blatant. And I'm shocked that the girl recanted her story about being hit. I can see how abuse patterns start early.

Bottom Line: As a substitute teacher, you have no rights as you're not tenured and have no union protection. If a kid starts threatening to report you harming them (obviously, a false accusation), you have to get to the Administration right away. If you wait to respond, it looks as though you're hiding something. Geez, Defensive Teaching . . . . .