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Sub barely survives
pre-school music class

Having recently left my position in the corporate world to pursue more creative endeavors, I am generally in need of extra cash. A friend suggested substitute teaching as a fun, flexible means of earning some money. I decided to give it a try. I suppose the fact that small children would be involved slipped my mind.

I accepted my first substitute assignment -- replacing a pre-school music teacher for a day -- with all the enthusiasm and confidence of someone who has never done it before. Pre-school kids are the little ones right? They look pretty cute. I was sure it would be fun. The teacher told me to introduce myself, ask them to share songs, put on music and have them dance. The classes would only be 20 minutes each, no problem.

Parents have probably figured by now that I do not have any children of my own. I never thought about it until I found myself in a classroom at 7:30 a.m. watching parents drop off their little ones. I studied the frazzled mother of a boy who had decided to wear his spaceship pajamas to school, and wondered how rough her morning had been. I began to wonder how rough my morning was going to be.

"Twenty minutes is nothing," I reasoned, and then the door swung open. A small, blonde head popped in and shouted, "Hello Mrs. ..." After recovering from the shock of seeing a stranger where her music teacher should be, she asked, "Where is my teacher?" She was visibly upset. I plastered on my best smile and said, "Your teacher had to stay home and ..."

I was cut off by the arrival of the rest of the class. Fifteen children poured into the classroom and to my dismay, did not sit in a nice circle.

"Where is my teacher?" "Where is my teacher?" A rowdy chorus of questions broke out. Some boys ran over to the carpet and started doing strange wrestling moves. I stared at the writhing pile of children. How strange to walk into a room and immediately begin slithering on the floor. It looked like they were all possessed. The shouting got louder. "Where is our teacher?" They were practically chanting now.

The homeroom teacher dropping them off grinned and said, "Good luck," as she left, abandoning me.

I SHOUTED to be heard over the mounting chaos, "OK everybody, please sit down on the carpet." The kids moved into a squirmy, semi-sitting mode and were quieter. This seemed good.

Five little hands shot into the air, not that it mattered. The kids started talking at once.

"Ummm, my, ummmm, Mom had to have surgery for her feet!"

"I'm going on a trip to California in May."

"Uhhh, my brother, he, uhhhhh, has a friend and she has earrings like yours."

"Where is my teacher? Do you have a pet? I have two cats. Where is my teacher?"

I attempted to digest all this new and seemingly irrelevant information. I guess they took my stunned silence for approval because they continued talking. Meanwhile, two little girls wrapped themselves affectionately around my knees and a couple of boys started sprinting back and forth across the carpet.

The pandemonium was getting worse, so I shouted, "OK everybody, let's quiet down." Nothing happened. They were all still talking and two boys were engaged in what looked like a battle-to-the-death wrestling match.

I tried again, "I need everyone to be quiet so that we can sing. Who has a song that they would like to share?"

The kids enthusiastically shared (shouted) their songs, "Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star" and "Jingle Bells." Apparently, these are the only two songs that pre-school kids know. They don't know the words, either. They only know the chorus. While listening to another heart warming rendition of "Twinkle-Twinkle," I glanced at the clock. Five minutes had passed. My knees went weak as I realized I had 15 more minutes to kill, and this was only the first class.

I sang whatever songs I could think of, and they shouted songs back at me. I put on music and danced myself silly in a pathetic attempt to get them moving. I did the animal dance, the peanut butter hop and boogied down to a million other kiddie songs. I jumped, wiggled my hips and occasionally shouted, "Jared stop poking Kona!" over the music.

It felt like hours before the class finally crawled to an end. The kids filed neatly out of the classroom, waving goodbye. I collapsed onto the floor, panting, sweaty and exhausted. I shook my head in disbelief.

By the end of the day I felt like I had been run over repeatedly by several large trucks. My days do not generally include hours of dancing like a frog. I felt like I had run three marathons and my brain had stopped functioning after the third class began shouting "Jingle Bells." I rubbed my throbbing forehead while I watched parents arrive to pick up their children. They were actually taking the children home with them. Is there an entire world of people who spend their evenings doing the animal dance and answering bizarre, endless questions? I guess so, brave souls.

I lugged my aching body home, poured a glass of wine and sunk onto the couch in my blissfully child-free apartment. I would like to officially say how impressed I am with the parents of the world for picking their children up from school, taking them home, and actually living with them. I barely survived 20 minutes.

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