Dream Come True

In the weight room, I'm attempting to craftily take a photo
with my Iphone and a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.

It was 7:42 a.m. on a snowy Friday morning when the call came.  I had just started class, and the telephone screen read "PRIN SECRETARY."


"This is Jennifer," I chirped into the phone.


Hands shaking, heart racing, I set down the receiver.  I had just been asked to substitute teach for the head football coach/weights teacher that afternoon.

IT WAS MY PUBLISHER'S CLEARINGHOUSE MOMENT!!!

I shrieked and jumped for joy.  "Yes!" I declared with a Jersey Shore fist pump for emphasis.


Wide-eyed, jaws agape, my class had no idea what phone call could've made their freshman English teacher practically faint in front of their very eyes.  "I'm going to be the weights teacher this afternoon," I squealed, doubling over with disbelief.


I was completely flustered, and I asked the children where I would find the weight room 5th hour.


"You're going to coach weights, and you don't even know where the weight room is?" one wise guy smirked.


"Why no I don't, but I'm about to find out," I stated indignantly.
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Sure enough.


I found the weight room and cranked the tunes to 103.3 JAMZ.  It was on.


Anyone student who thought he or she was going to slack in 5th or 7th hour weights class on a snowy Friday afternoon had another thing coming.  This part-time English teacher was ready to roll.


With long strides I made my way through the maze of weight machines and motivated and cajoled pockets of reluctant athletes.  


"Grab a rope," I would say as I offered kids jump ropes so that they could try double unders.  Most of those teens were natural double underers, and I grinned, congratulated them, and gave them a thumbs up while confiding that I would give just about anything to be able to do a double under.


As for the real turkeys who were stubbornly refusing to do anything?  I saved the burpees for those yahoos.


"C'mon," I told the kids who resisted my prompts to get moving.  "We're doing burpees," I told them, and down we went.  Five burpees for the most stubborn in the class.


At 2:20 p.m., ten minutes before class was finished, a group of cheerleaders and I found ourselves doing lunges in a line through an aisle of weight machines, and we finished with check situps on the mats.
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Being a gym teacher for an afternoon not only MET my expectations, it EXCEEDED my expectations.


It was downright fun.


Reluctant learners who gave me fits in English class, were star students in my weights class.


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In my sub report for the regular teacher I wrote:


"The kids were awesome.  Anytime you need a pm sub, I'd be happy to help out.  I loved it."


Jennifer Q.