The Return of Mr. Dude

Friday, September 11, 2009
My return to the world of substitute teaching was more refreshing than I imagined that it would be. Many times when I enter another teachers classroom as a substitute I find myself loathing the experience; critiquing the lesson plans and judging even the arrangement of the desks. Friday was different. I found myself replacing an eighth-grade social studies/PE teacher at a local middle school at which I worked frequently last school-year. As the teacher knows (and requested) me, I was left an engaging lesson plan, and a fun group of kids to teach it to.
Let me pause for a moment and say that “engaging” is a relative term here; most days I expect to be trusted with nothing more than handing out worksheets and pressing play on the DVD Player (once I was even left a note: “You don’t have to rewind because it’s a DVD”).
Regardless, as the sea of acne and hormones flooded in through the early-morning air, I was greeted by excited cries of “Mr. Dude!” a nickname I was first given last year. I smiled at the recognition, and as the students piled in I could tell that I was going to have a good day. Faced with six periods of social studies, all with the exact same lesson plan, I put all my energy into making our discussion of credit card debt interesting to the average 14-year old. Each class discussion followed the inevitable path from cosigning for credit cards and managing your money to attempting fraud to “what would happen if you died, and you didn’t have – like – family or anything…who would have to pay your debt then?” My otherwise repetitive day was punctuated by a single PE class for which I was left a note saying: “Got to the locker room, then the gym. Play kickball, or basket-ball or something.” You have to love a thoroughly planned lesson! Luckily the brusque PE/Health teacher was there to curse the lack of lesson plans and impatiently drag a cart of basket-balls into the gym for me.
The class that followed was amusing to say the least. As a group of students played 3 on 3 on one side of the gym, the rest of the 25 kids spent the 40 minutes shooting, throwing, kicking and otherwise propelling basket-balls around the gym, first at the hoops, then the walls and ceiling, then – inevitably – each other. Those who did not want to participate in this free-for-all huddled in the corners or sat against the walls of the court, although they were often out of luck as this separation made them the target of a poorly-aimed ball punted from half-court. Though I was enjoying the spectacle, the teacher in me finally kicked in, and they calmed down again after I banished the worst offenders to the hallway. Early last year I noticed that every time I came home from subbing, I always had a new story to tell about a single student that stood out from the rest for one reason or another. Sometimes appearance, sometimes accomplishments, sometimes the weird stuff that they say propels them to the front of the pack.
I have to mention my favorite student, or as I like to call them, the student of the day:
I first noticed this student when they shambled in from lunch five minutes early. At first (and second) glance I could not tell the gender of this individual, as they had long blonde hair past their shoulder blades, and tight fitting black jeans that would have made disco-era John Travolta jealous. These girl-jeans (as they could only have been such) were jet black, as was the t-shirt that was tucked into them. My doubt about the gender of this individual was assuaged when I offered a word of greeting and was met with a “Hello\...” which resonated a full octave lower than my own voice. His long hair aside, I realized that I would not have given this petite young man a second thought had it not been for the floor-length Lord of the Rings cloak draped around his eighty-pound frame, and upon which his greasy blonde hair was flopped; like a miniature elf in black Seven's. Whipping out a library book, he slouched into his chair with the cloak wrapped around him – apparently for warmth – and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes picking his ears, nose and teeth with his uncut fingernails, and wiping the refuse into the pages of a Terry Goodkind novel.