A lesson for Dominance

Their noises could be heard from across the entire hallway. 

How could anyone accomplish anything with the racket going on in room 237? I guess it means the rumors were true; room 237 was the worst behaved classroom in the entire sixth grade at Jamestown middle School. Teachers told of kids throwing airplanes made of paper at other kids, spitballs being spat with the largest amount of saliva constrained inside one tiny paper ball. And the language. Oh, the language! What kind of parents would allow such improper English dialect inside their own homes? I mean, how would I know? 

I’m just substituting for this classroom. 

Sweat dripped down my face as I walked briskly towards the dreaded classroom door. Papers clung to my arms, barley staying in order.  

“Why did I agree to this?” 

Oh no, my doubts came back! The constant argument inside my head that doubts my ability to achieve at anything. Of course, being a first-time substitute teacher, you’re bound to understand the complexity that surrounds both subs and teachers on the ideology of being able to contain 30 wild children five days a week for forty-two weeks a year with perfection. In my case; I’m not sure I can handle it. 

Being diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder at the age of thirty-two, I thought substituting for teachers would be an excellent way to slowly diminish any attack from any social outing. 

Oh, God, was I wrong! 

To make matters worse, after submitting my application for substitution, the school board assigned me to a math class in the dead center of Richmond, where the previous teacher had called in sick, eight days in a row. 

Guess what class I’m talking about. Better yet, guess the real reason the teacher left. I already had my thoughts on these; and they were telling me to turn around. 

"I can’t do this,” I told myself. “Why did I agree to this? I’ll have an attack!” 

I slapped myself hoping to gain control of my emotions. Unfortunately, it caused me to drop half my papers onto the dirty middle school floor; most of which contained the names of the children I’d be watching over.  

“Oh, God! Look what I made myself do!” 

I quickly dropped down. It was only two minutes before class started that I finally gathered up all the cluttered paper into one disorganized pile. I started to increase my pace and jog towards the rapidly increasing noise. It took every bit of control I had not to drop another piece of paper before I got to the door. Right outside, the sound was deafening. Already I could make out the sounds of children screaming and other unpleasant sounds.  

“Last chance,” my conscience warned me, but this time I didn’t listen. I knew somewhere inside of me I had the strength. I wasn’t about to let a bunch of ungrateful children beat the crap out of me mentally without even trying to. Even so, the blood in my heart began pumping so loud I was sure the children could hear it above their own noise--noise to which they were so oblivious. I couldn’t let that bother me. I was a grown man. 

“No, you’re not,” I told myself. “What kind of grown man gets scared by a bunch of little kids?” 

“I guess we’ll find out,” I said, and I stepped inside.  

The room was loud.  Really loud. 

Did I think that the noise would stop? Did I think some of the children would look at me or acknowledge my presence? Of course not. Yet, even so, I was still disappointed to the welcoming message of kids jumping on desks, drawing inappropriate genitals on the front whiteboard, and calling each other rude names. My shoulders slumped down and the heavy load of papers in my hands only seemed to get heavier. Feeling embarrassed, I failingly walked over to the desk in the front room where Mr. Norwell, the previous teacher, used to sit. The desk was clear but was soon covered with papers as I dropped the heavy load from my hands onto the hard-wooden surface. The noise didn’t decease.  

My heart was pumping like crazy. I couldn’t get it to stop. I was becoming too stressed. “Um.... hello!?” I said sarcastically to the kids. No effect. No one even knew I was there. “Hello!” I said a bit louder. A few kids turned their heads my way. The noise died down a little, but there was still enough to make any normal person go insane.  

“Hey!!” I shouted--my conscience nervous beyond compare. Finally, the noise began to gradually die down and within minutes the room was silent.  

For a second, I couldn’t even tell if I was in the same room. But no, most of the children now looked my way as if I was an existing human being. 

The shouting had made me extremely nervous. My forehead was moist with sweat and there were obvious pit stains underneath my twenty-five-dollar white collar shirt. I think some of the kids could see them as well as notice my obvious awkward vibe. A tall blonde boy wearing nice clothing could see right through me. “You ok, man?” he asked me. “You look a little pale.” 

“I’m fine, thank you,” I responded, although my tone suggested otherwise. “Now, my name is Mr. Trembly.” I turned around towards the whiteboard. I erased the immature drawings the students drew and began writing my own name with a black marker. I could hear a few snickers in the back of the room. I didn’t pay attention to them, but my hand trembled as I awkwardly wrote out each letter of my name. “I will be your substitute for today while your teacher, Mr. Norwell, is out with a fever.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them their teacher was most likely on vacation somewhere nice and will soon quit, due to these little rascals. I turned back around to face them. “Any quick questions?’ 

“You sure he’s sick?” It was the same blonde kid who asked. “He’s been gone like eight days now.” 

“I’m sure he’s fine and will recover soon,” I lied. “But for the time being, I will be teaching you all for the day.” I reached down to grab the attendance sheet with the children’s names, but due to casually dropping the papers the list was buried underneath a pile of horrors. “Oh dear,” I told myself. I started to spread out the papers even more, trying to find the one sheet I’m looking for. Some fell onto the floor, which gave rise to even more laughter from the back of the classroom. I flung papers left and right looking for just the one attendance sheet. Excused absence forms, medical papers, teachers' legislations and more went flying around me as I drastically searched for one singular piece of paper. Finally, after minutes of acting the goat, I found the attendance sheet. A smile streaked across my face as I accomplished the task of finding the paper. But now came the worse part: reading off the names. 

Every substitute teacher knew that pronouncing names correctly, especially names over five letters, was extremely important in sustaining superiority over students. Even so, I started out horribly. 

“Ok,” I began. I trembled with the paper in my hands. “First off... is um... Seen here?” 

Snickers began to arise. 

My heart rose again. “Sorry, um... Seen Cougailan? Is he here?” 

Kids began to laugh. I looked around the room, unsure of what to do. “Please help me out!” I pleaded. “Is...” I looked back down at the name, “Is... Seen Cougailan here?” 

Finally, a young boy with reddish brown hair raised his hand. His face was red. He was either embarrassed or trying to hold from laughing. “Um, I think my name is Sean Coughlan.” His tone sounded condemning.  

“Oh,” I said, my face starting to turn red with embarrassment. The sweat river flowed again. “Ok I’m sorry. Ok next, is... Geeoffe here? Geeoffe Smith?” 

Some more kids laughed. It was starting to make me irritated.  

“My name’s Geoff,” another boy said. “You say it like Jeff.” 

“Hehe, my name’s Jeff,” another student mocked him. 

“Piss off, Kevin,” Geoff said. “It’s not my fault this doofus can’t pronounce my name!” 

“Hey... that’s not nice,” I said to Geoff. “I apologize for not getting your name right, but...” 

Too late. No one heard me. The boy referred to as Kevin called Geoff an inappropriate word and gave him the bird. Geoff then started taunting Kevin which got the whole room rallied up. Everyone started shouting, mostly Kevin and Geoff. The noise was unbearable, worse than before. Now everyone was up on their feet screaming at the top of their lungs. The two boys started to throw fists at each other. It was chaos. 

“Please... settle down,” I asked. It was no use.  No one could hear me. My heart began rise. “Please... stop!” I shouted, louder this time. I couldn’t even hear myself. I was surrounded by noise. It came at me like an ambush. Kids shouting at each other and yelling at the top of their lungs. Noise. Noise. Noise!!! It was everywhere. My eardrums started to burst with pain. “Ow! Oh ow... oooowwww!” I screamed. “Ow... please stop! Quiet!” 

“Too late kid, you lost.” 

“No! No! Nooo!” I yelled as loud as I could. “Uh, stop!” My heart began pumping so loud it was louder than the children. It was all I could hear. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. “Ah. Ah. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed. “STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!” 

The room fell silent. Every student stopped making noise and turned my way. Even Geoff and Kevin, who were locked in a fight, stopped to look at my commotion.  

But the noise was still there. 

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! My heartbeat was still loud enough to wake my inner insanity. “STOOOOOOP!” I screamed. “AHHHHHHHHHHHH, AHHHHHHHHHHH.” I was a monster I couldn’t control. I was pushed over the edge. “THE NOISE! OWWWWWWWWW!” 

And with that, I ran out of the classroom. 

I found myself inside of a student lavatory stall. I sat up on top of the toilet seat with my face buried in my hands. I had no idea how long I was in there, nor did I know what the class would think of my attack. I could barely breathe. My chest hurt so much I felt like throwing up.  

“See, I told you you’d lose.” 

Ashamed of myself, I locked myself inside of the stall. I didn’t come out for what seemed like ten hours. I wanted to be by myself. 

“What had I done?” 

It was at least two hours by the time I got back to the classroom. I looked and felt miserable. My insides felt like butterflies. In front of the entrance, I looked through the tiny window in the middle of the door to see the aftermath of my attack. Another teacher was inside. Apparently, the boy named Sean had called another teacher five-minutes after I’d left. She was managing the classroom until things were all sorted out. No one knew where I'd been. I left the window and ran to the first corner I could find and sat down.  

“What had I done?” I said to myself. 

“Nothing wrong,” I thought. “Nothing you couldn’t control.” 

I left the school a day later.