When you are a kid, recess is THE BEST.
For 25 glorious minutes, you are free of the teacher's watchful eye.
You want to roll giant snowballs until they are too big to move or
serve any purpose? Go for it. You want to dig a hole to China using
only your fingernails and a pointy stick? Be my guest.
When you are a teacher on yard duty,
recess is THE WORST. 25 minutes might not seem like very long when
you are watching The Mindy Project, but
those same 25 minutes are an eternity when your job is to walk
aimlessly around a school yard on a frosty January day, eyes squinted
against the glaring sun. Have you ever thought about how exceedingly
boring yard duty must be for a supply teacher? I have literally
counted out the seconds and the minutes during a 30 minute recess
stint. You don't know anyone, there are no kids to talk to or joke
with, and “Hey, you! The one climbing the fence!” doesn't tend to
be a very effective reprimand.
In fact, there is
maybe nothing worse as a supply teacher than trying to discipline a
child who's name is unknown. Last winter, I found myself filling in
for yard duty in a city school on the “Intermediate Field”, which
happened to have a newly formed and very off-limits ice slide within
its perimeter. After several attempts in my “nice teacher voice”
asking a group of 13-year-old boys to please stay off the icy
death trap, I eventually had to employ my “not-so-nice teacher
voice” with some serious aplomb. Unfortunately, this group of boys
happened to be of that particular breed that responds to neither type
of teacher voice, and proceeded to take out little children as they
defiantly slid across the icy field. I had just started walking in
their direction for the 5th time when the bell
conveniently rang, sending them running in laughter towards the
intermediate doors where they knew they would be freed from my
nagging.
On a normal day, I
would let it go. But after 30 minutes of bitingly cold January air, I
was about as fired up as you could be in -20 weather. Upon entering
the primary hall, I asked the teacher next door to watch my class for
the next few minutes. I then proceeded to hunt the hallways, eyes
peeled for two red hats and a camouflage coat. After several minutes
of searching.....SUCCESS! I have never seen three children look less
happy to see me than those boys did when I finally spotted them. I
waited until they had finished getting out of their snow stuff, and
followed them into their classroom where I gave their rather
intimidating teacher the recess low-down. I won't say it pleases me
to get students into trouble, but I will admit I felt a little shiver
of happiness (or lingering cold) when their teacher turned his full
wrath upon these three boys in the glorious way that only a regular
classroom teacher can.
My duty done, I
returned to my Grade 1 classroom where I was greeted by shining red
cheeks, still-watery eyes and toothless smiles, and I thanked the
Lord for primary students.