WORK, part II, first period and planning

I stand in front of the room, in front of 30 pairs of eyes and I introduce myself. I am astonished by the diversity in my classroom. When I went to school, I was one of 2 Asian kids, 3 Indian kids and the rest of my peers were white white snow white. Now, there was like.. maybe 60% minority or more.

I have some anxiety pronouncing names from the roll, but I enjoy letting the brown-nosers start rubbing against me. I pull out my secret weapon almost immediately. I announce that their work is actually a competition where the winners actually win Smarties and their pride. I know that this motivated me from the beginning of time, why should these kids be different?

There are two Asian boys in my classroom. My Asian radar rates them both Chinese positive. One boy is particularly cute, the artist. His juicy white cheeks are plump and I love him, just a little more than the others. I ask them if they are Chinese, he tells me he's Vietnamese. AWKWARD. Oh well. My Asian radar hasn't worked, ever.

I tell them to work in their groups, as I walk around checking their answers. What is a nicer way to tell the kids that they're wrong? I just tell them that they should look at the problems again if they are wrong. It is strange not to be able to someone like an adult, so I didn't. I just treated these kids like easily sway-able bribe-able adults.

They kept asking me questions about how do to the problems and I didn't know. Inside, I felt guilty, because I knew they had a test on Monday and I couldn't help them. Then, I realized that I was merely a substitute and I pulled out the best substitute cop out phrase - "Why don't we wait until tomorrow when your teacher comes back?" MWAHAHA.

That settled their questions quickly enough. I was lucky enough to teach sixth grade gifted students. Well-behaved with a hunger of knowledge, these children wanted to learn, and wouldn't know disrespect and disruption if it hit them on the head. One boy asked me if he could work on his worksheet with his friends. I replied, Why don't you just sit in your seat? He nodded, issue resolved. This happened throughout the day, where kids would want to do something, I would deny them, and they would accept it, all whilst thinking that I was the BEST SUBSTITUTE EVARRRR!!!~!~!~!!!

After first period came over an hour of planning where I didn't know what to do. No computer, no cell service, no habit of smoking, no particular addictions that needed to be immediately satisfied, I decided to do the worksheet that the kids were doing. Searching around the desk, I found an extra textbook and got working. After deriving out A=onethirdpirsquaredh, I realized that even though I hadn't done math in close to 5 years, I was in fact, not a retard. A relief, indeed.
By the time third period rolled around, I was ready, more so than before.