I Am Planning a BA in Education But… What I Learned After Six Months of Subbing
Last Wednesday I stood at the front of a third-grade classroom, holding a half-crumpled lesson plan for reading rotations, and watched two boys roll on the rug fighting over who got to use the sparkly blue dry-erase marker. One had bitten the other’s forearm, right through his long flannel sleeve, and across the room a girl was crying because someone had drawn a mustache on her cheek with a non-washable black marker. This was my 12th day subbing this semester, and I’m supposed to start my BA in Education next fall. But right then, leaning against the teacher’s desk that still smelled like the regular teacher’s peppermint tea, I couldn’t imagine standing here every day for the next 30 years.
I’ve wanted to teach since I was 10. My fourth grade teacher, Ms. Henderson, stayed after school with me for three weeks when my parents split up, and let me color on her extra poster board while I waited for my mom to get off work. I grew up thinking teaching was all those quiet, kind moments: helping a kid who feels invisible, watching a light turn on when they finally get how fractions work. That’s why I picked education as my major, why I started subbing part-time during my gap semester to get experience before I start my full degree. I just didn’t expect 90% of the job to be everything but teaching.
I got the fight sorted, sent both boys to the office to get ice for the bite, scrubbed the mustache off the girl’s face with hand sanitizer (a trick the school secretary taught me my first week), and finally got reading rotations started. By 12:30, I was free to go to the teacher’s lounge for my lunch break. I sat down at the old Formica table next to Ms. Lopez, a fourth grade teacher who’s been at the school for 18 years, and admitted I was second-guessing everything. “I signed up to teach kids how to read, not break up marker fights and call three parents a day about missing homework,” I said, picking at the edge of my peanut butter granola bar.
She didn’t give me some big speech about how rewarding it is, or tell me I’d get used to it. She just shrugged, took a bite of her turkey sandwich, and said “That’s the part they don’t put in the college brochures. Most days aren’t the viral ‘teacher changes a kid’s life’ moments. Most days are just cleaning marker off walls and remembering who needs an extra snack because they didn’t get breakfast at home.”
That conversation stuck with me. Over the past six months, I’ve had a lot of those “but what am I even doing here?” moments. But I’ve also picked up small, concrete tricks that don’t just work in the classroom—they work for any parent or caregiver who’s ever stood in a living room watching a meltdown over socks that don’t feel right, or a homework session that’s turned into a shouting match.
Last week, I sat with a second grader who refused to even look at his math worksheet. He crossed his arms, slid down in his chair, and said he was stupid and he wasn’t doing it. I’d just learned this trick in my intro ed night class: instead of jumping in with “you’re not stupid, you can do this,” name the feeling first. So I said, “This worksheet feels really big and scary right now, doesn’t it?” He immediately uncrossed his arms and nodded. He told me his mom works two night shifts and he never has anyone to practice the new double-digit problems with him, so he always gets them wrong. We didn’t finish the whole worksheet that day. We did one problem at a time, used the plastic counting bears from the math bin to count out the numbers, and he finished half of it before recess. He ran over to show the recess aid his work like he’d just won a prize. That was the win, even if he still forgot his lunch box on the playground when he left.
The thing I’ve realized, the thing that changes my “but I don’t know if I can do this” into “but I know what I’m actually signing up for” is that the small tricks are what matter. If you’re a parent dealing with daily chaos at home, these aren’t fancy high-effort strategies. They’re tiny shifts you can do today.
When a kid is acting out, stop and name their feeling out loud before you ask them to stop what they’re doing. Instead of “stop throwing your blocks,” try “you’re really mad that your tower fell down, aren’t you?” Nine times out of 10, they’ll stop yelling just to nod, and you can talk about it after. It works because most outbursts come from kids not being able to put what they feel into words, so saying it for them takes away a lot of the pressure.
When they’re overwhelmed by homework or chores, don’t tell them to finish the whole thing. Just ask them to do the first one step. “Let’s put one toy away first,” or “let’s do just the first math problem together.” It cuts through the panic way faster than pushing the whole task, and most kids will keep going once they’ve gotten started.
And the hardest one: you don’t have to fix everything every single day. Some days, the best you can do is make sure everyone gets enough to eat and no one gets hurt. That’s a good day, even if the homework didn’t get finished and the marker is still on the living room wall.
I’m still planning to start my BA in Education this fall. The “but” doesn’t go away, though. Some days I leave subbing with a throbbing headache and I think maybe I should have picked a major where I don’t leave work with glitter in my hair and someone else’s lost tooth in my purse. Last week my sister tried the naming trick with my 7-year-old nephew when he had a meltdown over having to stop playing Minecraft, and it worked faster than any yelling she’d ever done. She texted me a picture of them eating cookies together after, all calm, and that’s enough for me right now. I don’t need to have it all figured out before I start the degree. I just need to keep holding onto the small wins.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » I Am Planning a BA in Education But… What I Learned After Six Months of Subbing