Nothing is as it seems.

So last week was mid-winter break (awesome), during which I went up to the UP to play some pond hockey, flew out to NYC to visit a fabulous friend, and spent hours and hours and hours grading.  I definitely expected to be doing some work, but I was not prepared for my vacation to be mostly turned into a prolonged prep period.  I NEED TO STOP ASSIGNING HOMEWORK AND GIVING TESTS.  This will solve all my problems.

When I went into the building over break to grab some stuff, I saw that the sub from Friday (I was already in the UP and my mentor teacher suddenly decided to take the day off as well...) had left some notes for us about the students.  Not just your typical "Hi, the students behaved like wild animals, I sat at the desk and did nothing, here's my name so that you can request me as a sub in the future" type note, but FOUR PAGES worth of detailed findings, the vast majority of which was from my lovely sixth hour.  Names underlined, stars next to key events, itemized lists of ursuptations, the freaking works.  Someone get this woman a damn typewriter.

Anyway, it turns out that in my absence a select few students had taken it upon themselves to behave like an absolute Goon Squad.  Paired with Susie Substitute Mc Writes-a-lot, this clearly made for an eventful class period. The best part of the "notes" was when Mrs. Mc W-a-L noted that "student X told me that I wasn't a real teacher, just a sub standing in front of the class, and that he didn't have to respect me and I couldn't tell him what to do."    Same student also left class ten minutes early to go "clean his locker".  AWESOME.

Yesterday (first day back from break), I stormed into sixth hour and barked directions as such:
1. get out a piece of paper
2. get out a pencil
3. put everything else on the floor
4. put your name and hour on the paper
5. title the paper "How to behave when there is a substitute"
6. skip a line
7. write "Dear Mrs. _(sub's real name)__"
8. write a MINIMUM of six sentences describing how a class should be expected to behave when there is a substitute teacher
9. make sure one of those six sentences is a direct apology for the atrocious behavior of your fellow classmates
10. this is for a grade. 

Sub left me her email, so I'm hoping to be able to send these to her.  About to start reading them--this could get interesting.