My Favorite Essay
Back in the days of my early teaching career, there was a certain 8th grader whom I shall call “Jerry.” Jerry was an incredibly gifted young man, with a quick wit and keen intelligence. He was also bored easily and as such, often times got into trouble in class. On this occasion, he was bad for a substitute teacher along with two other boys. Their punishment was to write an essay on why they should be good for a sub. Being the pack rat that I am, I saved this essay and now have the pleasure of presenting it to you, 18 years later. Note the return to the assembled themes at the end. Enjoy.
“Why I Should Be Good for a Substitute”
Students should always respect a substitute because they are fragile and inexperienced. As a whole, I am sure we seem rather intimidating to a substitute teacher. He or she is merely trying to do his or her job the best he or she can to the best of his or her ability.
We, however, act as the classroom vampires, preying on the substitute’s inexperience and thriving on his or her insecurities. It is no surprise to me that substitutes have the hardest job in the scholastic range. We attack substitutes and literally mentally devour them. I pray to God that I will never be a sub and have to face my own 8th grade descendents of classroom evil. We must always try to be kind to subs, no matter how dysfunctional and poorly assembled they are.
I suppose as students, when we saw the sub our primal instincts let out and we became cavemen; thoughtless, careless cavemen. We must consider the fear the sub must have experienced when she saw our faces, deformed by malice and eager to humiliate her in front of the class.
I am sure God will punish us for our primitive actions. We must always remember that a sub is a human and is likely to display the human emotions which we, the caveman student vampires, do not have. At times we must learn to accept these emotions and be kind to the human substitute teacher.
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