Adventures in Substitute Teaching, Episode One

I am almost a full month into my new substitute teaching adventure, and I’m still trying to work out where I want to concentrate my time, grade-wise. I haven’t attempted it yet, but I’m almost positive I won’t be a good fit for kindergarten.

I love dogs, but I’m not a cat person. It seems like running a kindergarten class would be a lot like managing a room full of adult cats mixed with puppies. Cats and puppies with open markers and glue sticks tangled in their hair. And random emotions.

I believe there is a good reason that 126% of all kindergarten teachers in America are women. Women just naturally deal with random emotions and knotted, glued, emotionally-charged hair better than men.

I have subbed second and third grade, and that’s about as low on the age chart as I think I’ll get. I mean, let’s face it, first grade is basically just the second semester of kindergarten.

I subbed third grade the other day and the teacher was telling me about the class before school started. “It’s a great group of kids,” she said. “She’s a little squirrelly,” she told me, pointing to the desk closest to us, “but no big deal. They’re great.”

Turns out, “a little squirrelly” to a third-grade teacher means a girl who literally did not stop talking for the entire hour I was covering the class, never sat down in her actual chair once, and at one point, simply left the room without asking. I was informed by her peers that she had to use the restroom and apparently, I was not responding to her requests.

It seems my years of parenting Son Number Three have given me an above-average ability to tune out constant chatter. Probably not the best trait for a kindergarten substitute teacher.

Fifth and sixth grade were OK, but so far, I have drawn a line there, avoiding middle school. I drive a middle school carpool, and being in the car for fifteen minutes at a time with seventh- and eighth-graders is plenty for me. I’m not especially interested in an entire day of it. They’re like kindergartners, but with B.O. and an advanced slang/curse word vocabulary.

The line is lifted after eighth grade, however. I’m finding I enjoy subbing at the high school level. It’s far more humorous, on a tragically hip level, than elementary school. Meaning, there’s still the same amount of goofy issues with the students, but the high school issues are so varied and insanely self-centered, that I’d almost go for free just for the entertainment value. Almost.

An example of what I mean happened a couple weeks ago when I subbed for a high school English teacher. The English class was actually called LA-II on my paperwork, which stands for Lulling Asleep Individuals Instantaneously. The school system has finally adopted truth in advertising.

It was immediately obvious which desk cluster I was going to have problems with (and I’m using “cluster” in the truest sense of its slang meaning, here). Two of the three young ladies could not keep their attention off their cell phones. Why the teacher allowed them to have their phones at their desks is beyond me, but I am not suicidal enough to try to separate a teenage girl from her iPhone without body armor and a cattle prod.

The class was learning and writing about the Holocaust. They were supposed to be watching a movie about the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then answering questions and writing an essay. The entire class, minus the cluster at issue, was watching the movie on their Chromebooks. Most of them were using their own earbuds and a few had asked for the class headphones.

Over at the cluster, there was something hilarious on one of the phones. A short while after we managed that issue, it was selfie time. I looked over to see Girl Two leaning over to Girl One’s desk, with Girl One’s arms stretched high above her head. Heads together, looking up, duck lips deployed – snap. The perfect in-class dual selfie… wait, hang on, this stupid Chromebook was in the picture. Let’s do it over… Oh, crap, that lame old man sub is staring at us. Let’s pretend not to care about our phones for a while…

Girl Three of the cluster was clearly not friends with the other two. She was completely uninterested in selfie time. She was also wearing approximately six pounds more makeup than Girl One and Two combined. She was also doing absolutely nothing at all.

I walked over to ask if her Chromebook had stopped working, since it wasn’t even pulled up to the page that had the link to the movie, let alone the movie itself.

“Oh, yeah, so, like, my AirPods weren’t connecting to the computer and stuff, so I’m just going to watch it at home later.”

“Hmm,” I said, doing the mental calculation of the zero percent chance that she was planning to watch the movie at home. “No problem. I have a whole bin full of headphones over at my desk. Let me get you a pair.”

“Um, yeah, so, I have a cartilage piercing, and headphones really don’t feel good on it, and stuff, so I’m just going to watch it at home.”

“Oh, OK, no problem. Let me just get on the phone and call the last remaining Holocaust survivors and let them know you won’t be able to learn about their unimaginable ordeal today because it’s a little uncomfortable to wear headphones with your self-induced ear ornaments,” I said, inside my head.

“OK,” I said out loud, “do you have a book you can read instead?”

“No.”

“Of course you don’t. Best of luck with your future career as an Instagram model/part-time barista. I’ll bet your TikTok about your cartilage piercing gets like, a zillion views!” I said inside my head.

“Okey dokey,” I said out loud.

 

See what I mean? I’d almost do it for free, just for the laughs.

Almost.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Ask Smidge - Special Graduation Edition - Repost

Son Number One “graduates” from eighth grade tomorrow and moves on to high school. (It’s not lost on me that this is happening on D-day.)

There is going to be a big “promotion” ceremony tomorrow. They are going to have a ceremony, but at least they are too embarrassed to call it a graduation. Do you know what the promotion ceremony was called when I left junior high?

“The last day of school.”

Do you know what the ceremony consisted of?

The bell. Because we weren’t graduating.

So, in honor of another “graduation” for our oldest son (his fourth so far), here’s the Ask Smidge column from last year’s graduation season. Enjoy!

Due to the incredible popularity of recent Ask Smidge columns (and we’re using the word “incredible” in its literal meaning here), we have been flooded with questions at the new email address – asksmidge@gmail.com

A number of topics have been queried, but we have noticed a majority of you have graduation-related questions this time of year, so we’re doing a special graduation edition this week.

  

Smidge,

We don’t have kids yet, but my sister just invited us to our niece’s preschool graduation. Is that really a thing? Do we bring a gift?

Signed,

Kidless in Carson City

Dear Kidless,

Sadly, yes, preschool “graduations” have become a reality. It’s a bunch of two-foot-tall paste eaters whose only requirement for graduation was that their parents kept paying for them to be there, but they’ll “graduate,” nonetheless. Don’t be shocked if they have them in little caps and gowns! (You may, of course, be appalled at the self-celebrating state we have devolved to, just don’t be shocked.) The best gift you can bring is a flask of clear liquor for yourself, and a promise never to put your future children in a preschool that has graduation ceremonies.

Good luck!

Smidge,

Our son’s kindergarten teacher just emailed us about a “small graduation ceremony” they’re planning for the last day of school. Graduating from kindergarten? My son still can’t use scissors correctly, he licks the other kids, and he’s barely even aware that he was in school. What am I missing?

Signed,

Confused in Columbus

Dear Confused,

Please see answer above and just sub in “kindergarten” every time you see “preschool.”

Smidge,

What’s with these weird flat mortarboard hats?

Signed,

Graduating in Grand Rapids

Dear Graduating,

Funny story! The flat mortarboard cap with the tassel that every graduate dons today actually started as a fraternity prank at Tulane University in 1893. Apparently, there was quite the rivalry between Phi Delta Gamma and Kappa Kappa Theta back then, and the Phi Delts came up with a real zinger at the end of the year.

They convinced the Kappas that it was a new school policy to wear a “uniform” at graduation. Then they proceeded to get incredibly drunk and come up with the dumbest looking hat they could think of: a flat board sewed onto a skull cap, with a darling little tassel hanging off one side.

They added the gown to the mix and convinced the Kappas that it was super cool to go naked underneath. Come graduation day, the Phi Delts showed up in their caps and gowns, so the Kappas thought nothing of it. But just before hitting the stage, all the Phi Delts tossed their mortarboard caps in the air and took their robes off, unrolling their suit pants from their knees and putting on their snappy fedoras they had been hiding under the robes. They strode across the stage in their three-piece suits, leaving the poor, duped, and naked-underneath Kappas with no alternative but to wear their ridiculous caps and gowns to accept their diplomas.

The prank worked perfectly, but it backfired on the rest of us. The Tulane dean, perhaps still drunk from Mardi Gras, loved the Kappa’s outfits and adopted them for all future graduation ceremonies. Deans from neighboring colleges, not wanting to be seen as non-hip, went along, and the rest is history.   

Smidge,

My pot-smoking grandson is graduating from high school with a 2.3 GPA. What should we get him for a graduation gift?

Signed,

Unimpressed in Olympia

Dear Unimpressed,

A McDonald’s application and an alarm clock.

Smidge,

Our daughter is graduating from Dartmouth after six years. It took her a while, and more than a few student loans, but she is finally getting her art history degree. We are so proud! Any ideas for the perfect graduation gift for our little princess?

Signed,

Beaming in Boise

Dear Beaming,

$350,000, a McDonald’s application, and an alarm clock.

Happy graduation, America! Now get out there and tackle life! Or first grade.

(And remember, be sure to email all your burning questions to asksmidge@gmail.com)

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Once Upon a Time, 2019

I have been lucky enough over the last six years to get to help young elementary students write stories each week. In the past I’ve worked with kindergartners, but this year I got to write stories with first graders. At the end of each year, I compile them all into a real book that their parents and grandparents can buy.

Here are a couple samples from this year’s edition. Prepare yourself for a trip deep inside the mind of the American first grader… Enjoy!

Chocolate Surprise (alternate title: Extremely Questionable Dentist)

Once upon a time there was a boy named Sparkle who was eighteen inches tall and always busy looking for one of his friends. He was friends with a three-foot-tall girl named Elsa who had fire power. They were both friends with a tall girl, who was at least seven feet tall, named Lilly, who loved playing with all her friends more than anything in the world.

One morning Lilly and Elsa were helping Sparkle find his friend. They found him at the beach in Hawaii where they also found one hundred baby kittens in a treasure box. When Elsa opened the box, all the kittens jumped out and some of them even jumped onto the faces of the three friends. While the friends were trying to get the kittens off their faces, some of the little furry cats got away and ran up a large hill.

Once all the kittens had jumped out of the chest, the friends saw brown treasure in the bottom of the box that the kittens had been sitting on. The whole box was filled with chocolate pennies!

Just then, a giant cat came bolting out of a cave near the water and ran up the big hill after the kittens. All of a sudden, a spaceship crash landed in the volcano that was next to their beach. The three friends grabbed the chocolate pennies and ran for the volcano, climbed up, jumped into the spaceship after the space man had gotten out, quickly fixed it, and took off into space.

They flew the spaceship for a whole two seconds until they arrived at Planet Forest, where they landed. As soon as they landed, strange forest creatures attacked their ship, took it completely apart, grabbed the three friends, and threw them all the way back to Earth, where they landed in New Mexico. Luckily, Lilly had hung on to the chocolate treasure, none of which melted on reentry.

Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, the spaceman had climbed out of the volcano, saddled up the giant cat, and rode it all the way to New Mexico to go beat up the friends for stealing his spaceship. As soon as he arrived in Santa Fe, the fight began.

The massive cat ran over and scratched all three friends on their faces. Elsa took immediate action and used her fire power to set the giant cat's tail on fire. The cat screeched and ran a mile away, with his tail burning all the way.

But as he ran past, his flaming tail swished back and forth wildly, and it hit all three friends, picking them up, and throwing them all the way back to Hawaii, where they landed next to their house and their pet pony.

To celebrate, they ate all the chocolate pennies at once, then felt a little weird, so they went to the dentist. He told them that they all had cavities which could turn them evil if they didn’t take care of them, so they all decided to get them filled with candy, which was a special the dentist was offering that week.

The end.

Unexpected Love Song (alternate title: Ratt Sings Cheap Trick?)

Once upon a time there was a monster named Horn, who was microscopic and lived in the ocean. He was friends with a carrot named Backpack who lived in the mountains. They were both friends with snake named Sprinkles who was only two inches long and lived in the forest.

One morning the three friends were waking up from a sleepover at Sprinkles’ house in the forest. Suddenly, they saw a giant rat inside the house, coming right for Sprinkles the snake. The mean old rat bit Sprinkles right on the tail. Backpack the carrot sprang into action and grabbed his friend Sprinkles and pulled him into the snow outside the door.

Horn, the microscopic ocean monster, grabbed the big rat by the tail, swung him around in the air three million times, then slapped him across his ugly rat face and sent him flying five thousand hundred million feet away. [Just under ninety-five million miles]

Horn and Backpack took Sprinkles the snake to the animal hospital which was two hundred feet away from the house, and the veterinarian used his magic powers to heal the little snake's tail.

When they got back to Sprinkles’ house, they went inside and sat down to rest, but all of a sudden Sprinkles started to yell. The rat had returned somehow and had snuck out of a hole in the wall and jumped onto the little snake's back.

This time it was Backpack's turn to teach the big rat a lesson. The carrot reached under the sink and got a huge rat sticky trap and threw it at the big rat that was attacking his friend. The rat became hopelessly stuck to the trap, and the three friends picked it up and took it to the rat jail that was only ten miles away.

But the rat was so strong that eventually, he unstuck himself, and broke out of the special rat jail, and ran the whole ten miles back to Sprinkles’ house. Instead of attacking them again, he sat outside the house and sang a very special song about love.

As soon as the three friends came outside to hear the lovely song, the rat attacked them again. The song had been a trick!

Sprinkles, who had had just about enough of this rat, grabbed it by the tail, and began slamming it into the ground. The rat was undeterred, and he got away from the snake and chased the three friends away from the house. But the three friends were much faster than the rat, and they led him all over everywhere on a wild goose chase, and eventually the rat got lost and ended up at a Target store.

Since the rat had a little cash on him, he decided to buy gentlemen’s pants, shirts, hats, and a fake mustache and beard. He dressed up in his new clothing and went back to their house, pretending to be a person, and when they answered the door, he tossed a fishing hook into the house, hoping they would bite it.

Horn the microscopic ocean monster bit down on the hook, because he wasn't fooled, and knew the gentlemen at the door was really the rat in disguise. When the rat started to pull on the hook, Horn was planning to clobber him again, but the snake yelled, "Stop it! We know it's you. You're not being nice."

The rat said, "I’m sorry! I was only trying to get you closer so we could be friends, because I never had any friends."

They invited him in to be friends and then the four of them had a play date at the park with juice boxes and tomato soup.

The end.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Live Like Number Three

Do you want to know how to live your life?

Do you want to know how to be happy?

That depends, you say. Does the answer involve Richard Simmons workout videos?

Of course not. All you have to do is be like Son Number Three.

He’s ten now, but back when he was five years old, he got himself a new hat. It was not an expensive hat, but he loved it. The morning he got it, he immediately asked if he could wear it to kindergarten that day.

“Are you sure you want to wear it to school?” I asked.

“Yes!” was his emphatic reply. “I love it!”

So, off we went down the path to school. When we reached campus, his two older brothers quickly scattered into the crowds on the blacktop, and I walked Number Three, hand-in-hand, over to the separate kindergarten playground.

Kids and teachers were stopping and smiling as we walked through the hallways, and Number Three was just beaming away.

On the way across campus, two teachers commented, “Wow! Nice hat.”

As we reached the kindergarten playground, my five-year-old son looked up at me, with his radiant smile, and said, “Two people already noticed my new hat.”

“Yep,” I said, as I squatted down and kissed him on the cheek. “They sure did. Have a great day at school, buddy. I love you.”

He yelled, “I love you too, Dad,” over his shoulder, as he sprinted across the blacktop toward the play structure, the picture of joyful, innocent happiness.

“Of course they noticed your hat, Son,” I said quietly to myself. “You’re wearing a lime green and purple cardboard Gogurt box on your head.”

Did Son Number Three care that he looked like a miniature Abe Lincoln mental patient? Of course not. He thought it was cool, so he rocked it.

That’s it, folks. That’s the key to happiness. It’s just that simple.

Stop worrying about what other people might think of your great ideas. Stop concerning yourself with anyone else’s definition of cool.

Rock your own style.

Simply be yourself.

Now, slap that empty Rice Krispies box on your head and go enjoy your day!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Ask Smidge - Special Graduation Edition

Due to the incredible popularity of the first two Ask Smidge columns (and we’re using the word “incredible” in its literal meaning here), we have been flooded with questions at the new email address – asksmidge@gmail.com

A number of topics have been queried, but we have noticed a majority of you have graduation-related questions this time of year, so we’re doing a special graduation edition this week.

  

Smidge,

We don’t have kids yet, but my sister just invited us to our niece’s preschool graduation. Is that really a thing? Do we bring a gift?

Signed,

Kidless in Carson City

Dear Kidless,

Sadly, yes, preschool “graduations” have become a reality. It’s a bunch of two-foot-tall paste eaters whose only requirement for graduation was that their parents kept paying for them to be there, but they’ll “graduate,” nonetheless. Don’t be shocked if they have them in little caps and gowns! (You may, of course, be appalled at the self-celebrating state we have devolved to, just don’t be shocked.) The best gift you can bring is a flask of clear liquor for yourself, and a promise never to put your future children in a preschool that has graduation ceremonies.

Good luck!

Smidge,

Our son’s kindergarten teacher just emailed us about a “small graduation ceremony” they’re planning for the last day of school. Graduating from kindergarten? My son still can’t use scissors correctly, he licks the other kids, and he’s barely even aware that he was in school. What am I missing?

Signed,

Confused in Columbus

Dear Confused,

Please see answer above and just sub in “kindergarten” every time you see “preschool.”

Smidge,

What’s with these weird flat mortarboard hats?

Signed,

Graduating in Grand Rapids

Dear Graduating,

Funny story! The flat mortarboard cap with the tassel that every graduate dons today actually started as a fraternity prank at Tulane University in 1893. Apparently, there was quite the rivalry between Phi Delta Gamma and Kappa Kappa Theta back then, and the Phi Delts came up with a real zinger at the end of the year.

They convinced the Kappas that it was a new school policy to wear a “uniform” at graduation. Then they proceeded to get incredibly drunk and come up with the dumbest looking hat they could think of: a flat board sewed onto a skull cap, with a darling little tassel hanging off one side.

They added the gown to the mix and convinced the Kappas that it was super cool to go naked underneath. Come graduation day, the Phi Delts showed up in their caps and gowns, so the Kappas thought nothing of it. But just before hitting the stage, all the Phi Delts tossed their mortarboard caps in the air and took their robes off, unrolling their suit pants from their knees and putting on their snappy fedoras they had been hiding under the robes. They strode across the stage in their three-piece suits, leaving the poor, duped, and naked-underneath Kappas with no alternative but to wear their ridiculous caps and gowns to accept their diplomas.

The prank worked perfectly, but it backfired on the rest of us. The Tulane dean, perhaps still drunk from Mardi Gras, loved the Kappa’s outfits and adopted them for all future graduation ceremonies. Deans from neighboring colleges, not wanting to be seen as non-hip, went along, and the rest is history.   

Smidge,

My pot-smoking grandson is graduating from high school with a 2.3 GPA. What should we get him for a graduation gift?

Signed,

Unimpressed in Olympia

Dear Unimpressed,

A McDonald’s application and an alarm clock.

Smidge,

Our daughter is graduating from Dartmouth after six years. It took her a while, and more than a few student loans, but she is finally getting her art history degree. We are so proud! Any ideas for the perfect graduation gift for our little princess?

Signed,

Beaming in Boise

Dear Beaming,

$350,000, a McDonald’s application, and an alarm clock.

Happy graduation, America! Now get out there and tackle life! Or first grade.

(And remember, be sure to email all your burning questions to asksmidge@gmail.com)

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2018 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!

Q & Eh?

It’s that time of year again.

Tragically-early Halloween decorations on houses, you ask? Christmas stuff on sale in October at Home Depot, you say?

Well, yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s elementary school author visit season for me, and we’re in the peak of it. Reading to and talking with kids ranks in my top ten favorite things to do of all time.

I recently released the third book in the Sycamore Detective Agency series, and I’m thrilled about that, as well. Releasing new books ranks in my top six favorite things to do of all time. I will leave things one through five up to your imagination, and no, one of them is not putting up holiday decorations of any kind.

One of the things that makes school visits so enjoyable for me is the questions the kids ask me about my job. Sure, when I talk to the older grades, I tend to get some silly, trivial questions like, “How do you develop good quality characters?”, and “Can you describe your process for outlining a story?”

Those questions are adorable, so I do my best to answer them with a kind smile on my face, but let’s be serious – that’s hardly what young aspiring authors need to know. Thankfully, the kindergarteners always get right to the meat of the issues.

“Does anyone have any questions for me about being an author?”

“How old are you?”

“Can you read us another book?”

“You’re bald.”

“Could a jackal eat a person? How about a cardboard person? An alien? A ghost?"

“How tall are you?”

“Why are there so many words?”

“Do you know my dad?”

“How did you make the words?”

[pointing to the class library shelves] “Did you write all those books?”

“You have lots of fillings in your teeth.”

“My grandma has those same shoes, but in black.”

“How do you make the words different colors?”

“How do the pages stay in the book?”

“My dad’s name is Mark.”

These are the hard-hitting literary issues that need to be addressed. These are the crucial questions that every budding author should be asking.

My recent personal favorite was in a kindergarten class last week. A little girl in the front row sat pensively for a few seconds after I called on her, then the burning question she had been waiting to ask an author all her life popped into her head.

“Where do you get dressed?”

For a split second, I thought she might be roasting me, and she was going to come right back with, “In the dark?”

She didn’t though. She just gazed up at me and smiled, proud of her insightful literary question.

“In my room,” I responded.

Her eyes went wide. “Wow! Me too!” she gasped.

Well, there you go, sweetheart. You’re practically an author already.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!