Subbing in high school

Low Self-Confidence. Ah, I remember those high school days of low self-confidence when I worried about having one hair out of place. I found it interesting that even a Muslim girl in a hijab may act that way. I watched as she adjusted the folds again and again in front of a mirror, and again later on in the classroom.  How long was it before I realized that the constant adjustment drew more attention to me than the actual “hair out of place” did? I hoped for her, that she will realize her beauty and the irrelevance of exactly how the folds fall.

High school classes. I’ve had a couple good days in Melvindale. Mostly, with high school, my job is to take attendance, re-direct them to stay on task, make sure nobody gets too loud or boisterous, and try not to be bored. 🙂  In the English classes last week, the assistant ran the show, as I mentioned. Today in US History I was on my own (which I actually prefer). 6 out of 7 of the classes were fine. The kids are respectful, and even when I took a couple of phones away, no one got nasty about it.

Drawing. Two girls remembered me from last year because I drew a picture of one of them. They asked how my drawing was coming along, so I had fun showing my recent portraits that were on my cell phone. The one girl was amazed. 🙂

Argument! The 7th hour (last class) was very loud and some students were throwing foul language around (against the school rules). A loud argument broke out between a white boy and a Muslim girl. I don’t know how it started, but they were angrily yelling back and forth. Since they would not stop, I sent them both down to the office – but not before the girl “got into it” with a black girl in the back of the room. So, equal opportunity detentions for all races are the likely result. I called the office to let them know they were coming, wrote down what happened, and sent the note down, at office request.   After they left, two other boys continued to make racial comments, and I firmly told them to stop it right then. They did. I did write it on the report, though, because racial slurs and foul language are against school rules. They didn’t actually use pejorative terms about their target, but they were saying negative things about Muslims in the school.   For a moment during the argument, I thought one of them might hit the other – I was concerned, but not afraid.