All Apologies

I spent three days in the middle school art class. Three of the classes were pretty good. One was freakish (read: silent). And the fifth...well...

There's always that one period.

Three students could not sit still, and these boys were constantly out of their seats for random reasons. One girl was just rude. (She didn't start the age question, but she was there, trying to get it out of me.) As a group they wouldn't settle long enough for me to explain their assignment. And that was on top of the usual middle school stuff I expect.

But it was one period out of the day, so for the most part it was a pleasant assignment. I left my usual note with my email address attached just in case the teacher had any questions for me. Teachers don't usually contact me, so I was surprised to get an email from her.

She thanked me for covering her classes. And she said she had something for me. It turned out to be a stack of apology letters from the difficult class.

Oooh. I love apology letters.

I can tell what sort of conversation the teacher had with them from the tone of the letters. Certain themes were repeated. For example, from rude girl:

Dear Ms. A

Sorry for my poor behavior. I know you deserve more respect than what you got out of us. I know you were trying your hardest to keep us under control but I still chose to mis-behave, so again I'm sorry. I'll actualy try to be well behaved.

I hope they're better for the next sub. It'll be interesting to see if they've learned anything from this. Would I cover the class again? Sure. Like I said, the other four classes were just fine.