My swell job...

Contrary to what you may have heard—probably from me—I have a job. Now, my job is very different than many other people’s jobs. My job requires me to travel. In fact, I rarely work in the same place twice. My job never makes me work weekends. Can’t work if the office isn’t open. My job requires first-hand knowledge of a plethora of information. The Bill of Rights, Civil Rights, left vs. right. Beginning French, intermediate Spanish, advanced physics. Covered it all. What is this wonderful job, you ask? The glamour career that is substitute teacher.

The best part, by far, of substitute teaching has to be quotes. Kids, and sometimes teenagers, really do say the darndest things. Luckily for the blogosphere, I’ve kept track this year. Here are some of my favorites.

From a day when I was teaching in a middle school class and the students had to work with partners to fill in a blank map of the United States:

A kid pointing to the general Ohio area: “No, that’s not Ohio. Ohio is somewhere over here by California. I know because I saw it on a TV show.”

Beefy kid: “That one’s Kentucky. I know because on the Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials they show the outline of the state.”

A girl pointing to Alaska responding to me telling her that she had incorrectly labeled the state as Mexico: “How is that not Mexico?”

Elementary school consistently provides the good quotes. Por ejemplo:

1st grader: “Do you have a daughter?”
Me: “No.”
1st grader: “I do.”

Me: “What’s in that Ziploc bag?”
4th grader: “Dead bugs. They’re my pets. You don’t have any dead bugs in here, do you?”
Me: “Not that I’ve seen.”

3rd grader talking about someone who isn’t in our class and I’ve never met: “Connor thinks he’s all that. But he’s not. He’s fast, but Sonic the Hedgehog is faster.”

3rd grader asking me a nearly impossible question to answer: “Are you a teacher or are you a substitute?”

Finally, from the “you know it’s going to be a long day” file:

2nd grader the moment she walked in the door in the morning:
Her: “Where’s my teacher?”
Me: “She’s not here today.”
Her: “Well, I don’t want you to be here. You tell her I miss her!”

Yes, this is the life!