The Substitute

You know, during the last two months I have been serving as a permanent substitute teacher in the Primary. I really enjoy it, but the funny thing about the calling is the perpetual need to be prepared to teach without actually being prepared to teach (Note: Yes, that's what we call a paradox).

For example, for my first Sunday of substituting in the Primary, I taught the 7-8 year olds. The next week, I was asked in advance to prepare a lesson for the 11-12 year olds, but I ended up teaching the Sunbeams (Note: There is not much difference between the two classes, only Sunbeams are easier to entertain; all they want is paper and crayons). Two weeks ago and today, I taught a lesson to the 11-12 year-old class. Rambunctious is a word I might use to describe the behavior of the little fellows in that class. There are also other less kind words I might use as well, only I do not wish to offend the readership by writing them here. I'll stick with rambunctious. Also, they have attention span issues, so keeping them on task is extremely difficult and tiresome. Today, they were especially and deliberately so.

I began by drawing the picture of Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, though with my obvious lack of artistic training, it looked something like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz without a hat and the pole up his back (either that, or a very large voodoo doll). I asked them what they knew about the story (they, of course, knew very little). I began talking to them about the king's decree and what the people were supposed to do when they heard the music play. At that point, one of them asked me why I had shaved my beard off. I explained (I will not do so here; it was not relevant then and it is not relevant now). I told them the dimensions of the statue (6 cubits in breadth and 60 cubits in heighth) and asked if they knew what a cubit was. One boy asked how tall I was. I said 4 cubits, at which point they all began to laugh, though I have no idea why. I then informed them that the statue was made completely of gold. Another boy quite demandingly said, "Give me that statue!" (He repeated the comment another six times in the next five minutes; I counted). Unfortunately, I had to inform  him that I possessed no such statue and therefore he was out of luck (Not that I would have let him have the statue if I had it, but at least I did not look like a miser).

To sum up, the next forty minutes went something like this (In order to swiftly and efficiently demonstrate the measure of the attention span deficiencies and protect the identities of the not-so-innocent, I will refer to them as Boy 1, Boy 2, and Boy 3, in the order they were sitting from left to right).

Boy 3: I like the NBA. I like to read books about the NBA. Dwight Howard is the best. My favorites are Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.

Boy 2 (to me): Have you read Hunger Games?

Me: I have not, but I have read the story it is based on, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

Boy 1: What's that about? (It was at this point I switched gears; knowing that it would be practically impossible to teach them further about the Old Testament until I satisfied their curiosity, I gave them a lesson in canonical English literature)

Me: It's about a village of people who draw pieces of paper out of a box. The one who receives the paper with the spot on it enters another drawing with just his family. Whichever family member picks out the spot gets stoned by the village. Tessie Hutchinson is the one who gets it at the end.

Boy 3: Why they do that?

Me: Because...

Boy 3: Are you hungry?

Me: Yes, why?

Boy 1: Give me that statue!

Boy 3: I'm hungry. I want to go to Great Wall. Have you ever been to Great Wall?

Me: No, I don't think so...

Boy 3: I love Great Wall; it's got such a good buffet.

Me: My family used to go to Chuck-a-Rama. That was okay.

Boy 2: Have you been to Tocano's?

Me: No, I haven't.

Boy 2: It's really good, but it's expensive.

Boy 1: Yeah, but it's so good.

Boy 3: What about Buffalo Wild Wings? Have you been there? They've got such good hot wings.

Me: Nope, I have not. Anyway, so Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego get thrown into the fiery furnace...

Boy 3 (to Boy 1): Have you taken Hunter's Ed?

Boy 1: Not yet.

Boy 3: I have a test tomorrow. Who cares if someone shoots Chuck Bear's underwear...

Me: What are you even saying?

Boy 3: It's to help me remember things for the test.

Me: Oh, a mnemonic device, hm?

Boy 3: What's that?

Me: The thing you just said.

Boy 1: Do you know what an anagram is? (he demonstrates on the chalkboard with anagram and nagaram)

Me: Yes. Do you know what a palindrome is? (I demonstrate with racecar) It's the same no matter how you look at it.

Boy 2: But it isn't the same both ways. If you read it backwards, it should be rac ecar (he pronounced it racky-car).

Boy 3: If I can't be in the NBA, I want to be in the FBI...

Boy 1: Give me that statue! Have you ever eaten a chicken heart?

And on and on (though the conversation has since been muddled in my mind, that is the best approximation I can make of what was discussed in the class today). Eventually however, I did in fact complete what little of the lesson I hoped they would comprehend or appreciate and gave up. And that, my friends, is how you substitute teach a class of 11-12 year old boys. But in the words of Walt Whitman, "All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine, / I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there" (see Song of Myself 33, lines 831-32).