hello, my name is ms. lenhard. i am your substitute, and i am a nazi.

i remember the good old days when i was in school and my teacher was going to be gone. total freedom! a day wasted! i could do whatever i wanted, and no substitute could stop me! well, im here to tell you that I am now the substitute that i prayed didnt exist.

im not sure if it was the fact that i was subbing for two days at a middle school in general, or that the majority of the boys were significantly bigger than me, or that i was afraid i might show up wearing the same shirt as some girl at the school that terrified me last week. it may have been the age, or the fact that the teacher next door in a school with only dividers for walls kept yelling and screaming at the kids could hear if we got too loud (which would inevitably make him come and yell at me). no, im really not sure. all i know is that i almost started to cry as i made my way through the long hallways that brought back quite a number of unpleasant middle school memories.

but somehow, i survived. of course, i was mean. very mean. one of the kids sincerely asked if i have ever been in the military before. i didnt take ANYTHING from them. i was kicking kids out of the classroom left and right! and all the while, i was thinking, 'man....i would HATE myself right now if i was one of the students.' it is really hard to draw the line between friend and teacher, and that is something that i never learned how to do with 14 year olds during my studies. i mean, i can bond with 9 year olds without a problem. but you get past the 5th grade and i just dont know what to do with them. i never thought it would happen, but i finally realized how it must feel to have a teenage child who assumes you dont understand when really you were only there a few years ago. and yes, those gross slang terms and sneaky ways still exist. i know all the tricks.

so now, a week later and well versed as a sub, i am the permanent sub for the class in which i student taught (the fifth graders). if you didnt hear any of the stories, this was a class that taught me more than any other class has. it made me hate teaching some days, but ultimately proved that if i could handle this class, i could handle any. and man, i am a meany. i have set up all sorts of ways to try to reward the kids, but they are so out of control that they cannot have even 10 seconds of free time...it really is sad.

so i had quite the talk with them. i let them know today that for the next 10 days of school (their last 10 days, when all they do is play) will not be pleasant if they so much as look like they are off task. i made sure they understood that as far as i was concerned, i am now the teacher and i can ban them from whatever fun activity i want. and boy, they were SO well behaved for me! if there is anything that i was taught at byu, it is that you have to stick to your guns and be "as mean as you possibly can in the beginning. let nothing go." then, after they are used to following rules, ease up. unfortunately for these kids, we only have 10 more days together. i like to think of this as the testing grounds for next year. you know, practice to see if i can stick to my guns like i say i will. i want them to have fun, but these kids just HAVE to learn respect and self control before they can be allowed to do anything else. they have to learn it somewhere, and it obviously hasnt happened yet. let's keep our fingers crossed that i do some good while cracking the proverbial whip over the next 2 1/2 weeks.