Most of the time, because of my cottage school job, I am unable to take long-term subbing positions. The only time I am able to do so is between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The school I taught at full-time many, many years ago, however, has allowed me to do some wonky long-term subbing jobs, allowing me to do 3 days a week or 4-days a week for a short period of time.
I think this is my 4th long-term subbing job; of those four, I have loved one, been okay with another, and disliked two.
The current one I am disliking, and I don't know why, and I feel like a shit for it. I think this is a situation that is, to borrow the dating breakup adage, not about "them" and more about "me."
I keep telling myself that the important thing is that I'm 1. showing up and 2. doing the best job I can while I'm there, regardless of how I feel about it.
This school year, I think that is about the best anyone is going to get from me.
Teachers are completely overwhelmed, and I say this having been in a classroom for 7 days thus far and having at least two days in which a teacher is out and a sub isn't available and every other teacher is having to pick up the slack (and yes, this involves putting extra kids in classes which is the worst possible thing when there is a pandemic and the goal is to keep kids further apart).
When I say this, it is not in any way an indictment of the absent teachers. Even without COVID, teachers get sick and need surgery (the reason I'm subbing for someone) and have deaths in the family and have other issues with which they need to deal (like sick kids or needing to provide care to older parents or whatever). In seven days, I've already seen and listened to a teacher cry because she is at the end of her rope.
This year because of masks (a necessity, in my opinion, if we don't want kids to miss even more school than they've already missed) and just the nonstop stress of variants and testing and every possible plan being spoiled because of COVID, everything feels harder and heavier than it normally would. Long-term stress has immediate but also cumulative effects.
Even if 90 percent of the kids are great, the 10 percent who are awful (whether because of their personalities or poverty or trauma or lax parents or whatever their situation is) feel even more unwieldy during COVID. I have less tolerance than I've ever had before. Or maybe it is because I'm 48 and just fucking tired.
I don't have any grand solutions. We probably could fix these problems, but we don't want to spend the money. Because some of these kids need one-on-one care; maybe two-on-one if we're being hopeful. And there are some students who simply might not be fixable. There is a certain amount of damage that cannot be undone.
Maybe because I'm so tired of the stress of the past 20 months, I'm less willing to be forgiving and empathetic.
On Friday, when we did MAP testing, I noted that 10 percent of the students in that room refused to do the test. One was removed and two slept.
In the before times, I would be more concerned with the 10 percent and trying to meet their needs. In these times, I'm simply angry that the 90 percent has to put up the with 10 percent who don't care and don't want to do the least bit of anything to make their school experience better.
It feels too much like the ding-dongs who don't take COVID seriously which is why this thing is lingering on and on.
And I don't like feeling that way. It is a callousness I don't relish.
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