High School Subbing Thoughts of the Day

1) It's really sad to be surrounded by teenagers while you have a song too old/obscure for them to know stuck in your head.

2) I think a big reason I've enjoyed working with highschoolers is that I don't have to sugarcoat anything. This may be a condition limited to small-town high school kids, but it's still nice.

3) I'm not sure what to think when I hear psychologists define "Millennials" as "those adults who came of age after the year 2000". Partially because I'm lumped in with the term as an 18 year-old in 2003, and partially because it seems like nobody nowadays can agree on what "coming of age" even means anymore.

4) A clean teacher's desk means OCD, complete digitization, or complete apathy.

5) It's fascinating watching teens self-regulate when left to their own devices. Especially devices with Internet access.

6) Apparently this year's senior class at Miami High School has chosen "Challenge accepted" for its class motto.

7) It's nice to have a student apologize for repeatedly asking to leave the classroom.

8) I wonder if feeling like I haven't matured very much since high school makes me more qualified to teach it, or less so.

9) I think I want to teach high school or college so I won't have to dumb down my vocabulary.

10) A big issue I have with older teens is their apparent addictions to coffee and screens and earbuds. For introverts these last two are blessed relief compared to days gone by, a way to escape from the crowd around them and into a crowd of their choosing, but for everyone else the combination stunts the growth of the normal attention span.

11) Remember when BOOKS were the introvert's escape hatch rather than screens?

12) New situation to deal with: student PDA. From a couple finished with the day's assigned work and not distracting anyone who is actually facing forward in their seat.

13) Weird student t-shirt of the day: "God belongs in my city."

14) I continue to be fascinated by the visibility of high school stereotypes.

15) Being able to read a name aloud, look around the room to see the face of the student, and remembering name, face, and the association between them is collectively a level of teacher multitasking I have yet to achieve.

16) The hunger pang which is not merely thirst, and thus cannot be satisfied by liquid, is far deeper and more grinding than its shallow, flighty cousin.

17) It's been awhile since I saw a teen with a full beard.

18) I keep getting calls for teachers who have already been absent multiple times. It's getting really weird to have kids walk in and say "ANOTHER SUB?!"

19) You know a scene in a novel is beautifully written when it leaves you close to joyous, ecstatic, mournful, nostalgic tears in a room full of dozing, typing, chatting teenagers.

20) Whenever I read a well-crafted character description, the image is firm and concrete in my mind, at least in the moment of description. But afterward, as the character moves through the story, my vision of their physical person becomes hazy. I see their actions and hear dialogue and feel the settings clearly as ever, but their face or hair or any other physical feature not currently involved in the narration becomes vague and undefined.

21) It's difficult to focus on eating healthy when you're around teenagers who are constantly TALKING ABOUT FAST FOOD.

22) Beautiful moment: teens singing 90s rock songs in a reverent manner.

23) Always nice to see a big jock speak like a physics nerd.

24) You never really feel inflation until you bring a single dollar bill to a coke machine.

25) Everyone needs a point of focus for the mind and the heart. A select few have a single focus for both. An even more select few have it as their source of income.

26) It's either great or bad for my self-esteem that in my 30th year of life, I can still be mistaken for a well-dressed high school student.

27) We've gone from "YOU KIDS TURN THAT MUSIC DOWN!" to "TAKE OFF THOSE EARBUDS AND PAY ATTENTION!"

28) Other women become more or less attractive over time or when you don't see them for awhile but keep thinking about them. Your wife is more and better in reality than you could ever dream her of being.

29) Best thing about subbing high school? Plenty of time to think.