The Day I felt like DJ Tanner and other life lessons of a substitute teacher

Here are a few things I learned from subbing at Richmond Hill Middle School over the last two weeks:

1.  I believe that with a 95% accuracy I can tell you who will have a criminal record within the next 10 years.

2.  "Manager's Special"  on the lunch menu is a bad thing, and is in fact not "special" in any way!

3.  It is physically impossible for an 8th grader to maturely handle a kissing scene in a movie they are watching in class.

4.  If you make a mistake or say something stupid there is absolutely no way it will just slide under the radar...it will be glaring and they WILL let you know, loudly, and usually in a mocking tone.

5.  Contrary to my belief that 8th graders were born in 1992, they are actually born in 1997.  I felt old, first time that has happened to me in that way.

Oh I saved the best for last.

6.  I want to give this one a title - "The Day I Channeled DJ Tanner"

You feel pretty stupid when you show up for class wearing the same outfit as the student.  Fridays are dress down days for staff at RHMS, that means jeans...a language I can speak.  I was a little concerned, because during the rest of the week I understood that the dress code for teachers was business casual, so I was a little apprehensive even though I had been told jeans were appropriate.  I knew that a t-shirt wasn't a good way to go, so I put on a brightly colored long sleeved button up polo shirt, some dark jeans (cause I think they are dressier) and pulled a pair of brown boots over my jeans.  I looked in the mirror checking myself out, thought I looked good, I even got the two paws up from Duece.

During my 30 min drive to the school I had convinced myself I was dressed too young and that I wasn't going to give off the right image as an educator of young minds.  I flip flopped the whole way there, but without a solution to the problem, I just sucked it up and made my way to the classroom.  "You will be fine Chelle, they don't care what you are wearing," I told myself.  Honestly though, it was the other teachers I was more worried about than the students.  Then my homeroom walked in and I realized that other teachers were the least of my problems.

There standing in front of me was a 5'2 brunette wearing....you guessed it, the exact-same-thing!  Same brightly colored long sleeved button up polo, same dark wash jeans, and same brown boots.  I was mortified.  My friends suggested that I was surely not as embarrassed as that poor girl who dressed like the teacher!  I tried my best to make a joke out of it.  I said, "Hey weren't you supposed to call me last night to let me know if you were gonna wear this?"  That only made it worse.  Poor thing, she sat in silence the rest of the class and I didn't mention it again.  We endured in silence.  

Okay, so I didn't exactly channel DJ Tanner (ala Full House), but when I was talking to my friend Shannon today from Why Not On A Tuesday, she reminded me of something similar happening to ol' Donna Jo.  Except she dressed like the teacher, and didn't look cool AT ALL.  I like to think I did look cool, and as embarrassed as that poor girl must have been, I think on some level she knew how bad-ass we both looked!  Cause unlike DJ, neither of us ate our lunch in the phone booth!