Substitute Teacher in a kilt

**Alan H** · 2nd October 06, 03:43 PM

The phone rang at 7:45...The district has four unfilled High School teaching slots today. I opted to teach a combined Biology / Integrated Sciences schedule at one of the local high schools. First class: 8:45 AM. I'm going in with a kilt on.

OK, so I show up at 8:10, ready to go...lemme at those lesson plans. Uhhhh...... well, gosh except that that teacher taught Biology LAST year. This year her schedule is a bit different.

So this morning I finished two sections of "Leadership". This is the class where the student body officers, cheerleaders and other folks basically paint signs advertising the next football game or dance (Homecoming) and go tape them up around the school.

Ooooooohhhh- kaaaayyyy.... Not quite the same thing as biology.

The other two classes I taught today? Mind you, I expected to come in and teach Biology, right? Well I was informed that I was teaching two sections of Dance class today. Dance. That's right...Dance. I had two sections of Dance with 60 girls in each section.

During lunch I tore home and grabbed a couple of Scottish/Irish music CD's. I htought I'd try, valiantly, to teach 60 girls how to Strathspey or possibly do something to a reel. Well one section of Dance miraculously turned into a section of PE. Oooohhh-kaayyyy...... I found out that it was PE ten minutes before class started. One of the PE teachers was there and told me "we'll just have 'em run the track. Walk the corners, run the straights".

Now, I don't know about you, but I remember when I was in high school and PE classes like that were just too stupid to believe, so I say to myself..."I'll be damned if I'm gonna have kids run in circles"....

I'm in a kilt, remember? OK, so I ask the Athletic Director if he has any shot put, and maybe a long wooden post or something. He looks at me funny and asks if I'm a thrower. Well, yeah, matter of fact I WAS a thrower in high school and first two years in college,and yeah I worked out with the local College track team in the late 80's and early 90's when I was teaching at the Community College.....and yeah, I HAVE tossed a few cabers.

So he gives me a couple of medicine balls, two shot puts, two discus's and tells me that there are some big fenceposts out by the track, but that HE didn't tell me they were there. It's a deal. So instead of running around in freakin' circles, I taught MY kids (mostly Hispanic) about Highland Games and the heavy events. Every kid had a turn at putting the shot (pretty much identical to putting the stone) heaving the medicine ball (similar enough to heaving the weight for height), throwing discus (which has no Highland equivalent) and tossing the caber. In fact, the fencepost we used was about 2/3rds the size of the smallest women's competitition caber, so it wasn't far off.

OK, dance class....well it was "running day" so all they did was run around the track, but I got my heart broken on this one. You see, one girl actually DID want to learn how to Stratshprey, so I showed her. I noticed a number of other girls watching, but nobody else wanted to try, so I didn't push it. I noticed this one girl watching, and I didn't think twice about her.

OK, so as class wound down I took them back to the dance studio so at least they'd HEAR a reel even if they never danced to it. Just before the bell rang I did a few steps to a reel with the one girl that had learned enough to at least fake it. When it was all over, most of the girls had gone downstairs to change for their next class except this one girl who looked at me with this unreadable expression and these huge eyes. She hadn't peeped the entire time but her complexion gave her away. She was Scottish or Irish, for sure. FOR SURE... I think....I think she'd been dying to dance, but was too scared to say anything. You know how the quiet ones are? She was one of the quiet ones, and damnit I'd lost her in the mass of girls that didn't care..

If I go back to that class on Wednesday, I know that none of the Hispanic girls are going to care about this music and this dancing, but I'm going to look for that girl. I'm going to teach her the tiniest little bit of Scottish Country Dancing and I'm going to dance with her and if that makes one TINY little bit of difference in her school year, if I clue her in to one TINY bit of her heritage then that will be beyond cool

If only I'd seen her and noticed her half an hour earlier.....

Oh, and ht ekilt? I got al ot of hollering from across the Quad at lunchtime from the guys who are all tough when they want to show up for their buddies. I got one snotty "skirt" comment from a kid as I was on my way out at the end of the day. I got stared at a lot.

Without exception, the staff/faculty were either suportive or ignored it. Several people asked the bagpipe question. The kids...as soon as they started relating to me one-on-one, the kilt disappeared as an issue. I'll be going to school kilted again in the future, whenever I feel like it.

**Hachiman** · 2nd October 06, 04:12 PM

I'm not a teacher, and could never teach in an professional arena, however I'm really impressed by your tale! Well done! An excellent example of "thinking outside the box".

I hope you do get the chance to talk to that lass with the celtic heritage.

cheers!

Hachiman

**pdcorlis** · 2nd October 06, 04:12 PM

Extra bonus points for turning lemons into lemonaid Alan - well done.

**Monkey@Arms** · 2nd October 06, 04:14 PM

Well done, Alan. Great that you caught no flack from the adminstration. What school district was it?

Best regards,

Jake

**Blu (Ontario)** · 2nd October 06, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by Alan H

... I got one snotty "skirt" comment from a kid as I was on my way out at the end of the day....

Let me guess.... this kid was wearing an oversize shirt down to his knees and oversized baggy pants that barely stay up on their own.

**Rex_Tremende** · 2nd October 06, 04:47 PM

That's a terrific account of your day.

Thanks for sharing that.

R.

**Alan H** · 2nd October 06, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by Blu (Ontario)

Let me guess.... this kid was wearing an oversize shirt down to his knees and oversized baggy pants that barely stay up on their own.

Yes, He did. He was about fifteen years old and from an ethnic background that likely leaves him with no clue what a kilt is......or maybe not. Whatever the case I told him in passing that I'd rather wear a skirt than have to live my life with a mouth like his pasted on my face.

He didn't say anything after that.

I'd probably get in trouble for this if I got caught at it, but I'll tell you what I did, walking down the hall in the morning. About six guys were there, and saw me. They all stared at me for a good thirty-forty seconds, and then they turned away and started snickering.

As I got right up next to them, I clapped one of them on the shoulder and said...and I quote.

"If you had any balls, you'd give me s*** straight to my face about my kilt, and not giggle about it like a bunch of girls"

...and I kept going down the hallway.

See, If I'd been full-tiime something like that could cost me a job, but as a substitute....who cares? I'd rather help the kids who'll sit down and translate that Pablo Neruda poem (which is what I did the other day when I drew Spanish Classes, when I thought I was geting English) and really LISTEN to it when I read it to them.

I'd rather help the ONE girl who tried to lean to dance to a reel, or that one girl who was too scared to ask but is dying to dance to a reel, than suck up to a bunch of twits that think they're cool, showing off for their buddies.