Surviving the 'lions' den'

Walking up the stairs to the class at my first middle school I felt good, competent, confident. After all, in college I was a teaching major for more than three years so I wasn't exactly going in cold.

But walking to the car three hours later it was all I could do to not run, and I questioned adequacies I had never even thought about.

I have heard it said in subbing that people are "thrown into the lions' den." I have also heard that middle schools are their own planet and that both jobs take a special person.

It took about five minutes for me to decide that I was not that special person.

My first day I was left to explain the dynamics of photosynthesis to eighth-graders — a double threat.

I am a writer. I barely recalled what photosynthesis even was. And the hormonal eighth-graders couldn't have been less interested.

Just getting them to answer to their correct name was a chore.

Within those 40 minutes, projectiles and expletives sailed, kids traded punches and attempted to escape.

My lunch break that I had dedicated to learning about science was all in vain. Fifteen minutes into class I was just trying to keep kids in their seats with their hands to themselves.

What could I do? Send them to the principal? I didn't even know where the principal's office was. My "orientation" consisted of "you're in room 202, up the stairs and to the right."

Plus with it being just after lunch in an upper-floor packed-to-capacity room, it got pretty warm. Some kids at that age haven't yet been introduced to the joys of proper hygiene, and the notorious middle school smell was alive and well.

All visions of laughing with students, learning about them and playing games after they finished their work went right out the window.

I remember watching the clock in painful statistics classes and boring lectures in college and even during unpleasant work shifts in high school. But I have never in my life inwardly pleaded with the hands on the clock more than I did in those last few minutes of the day.

When it was over and the whirlwind of noise and smell was gone I just sat and didn't move for nearly five minutes. I felt like I had just run a marathon and almost cried at the thought of having to do it again.

So the next day subbing I went in with guns blazing, a little fear and a lot of trepidation.

I was teaching Spanish — something I knew a little about — for two days in a row to middle-schoolers.

I had mentally prepared myself for anything. But this time when the bell rang they were in their seats, relatively quiet and most of them were looking to me for their assignment.

"Ms. Erickson, can I help you take the roll?" I wanted to hug her.