Middle School has Substitues - Unfortunately

"My name is Mrs. Winika. As you all know, I am substituting for this class because your teacher's wife is going to have a baby. My name is Mrs. Winika." That is how a class of eager seventh grade students was introduced to their long-term substitute teacher, Mrs. Winika. It wasn't exactly an amazing first impression.

She went on to collect our homework. Every once in a while her glasses would fall down and out of position, and she would swing her head so that her glasses would get into the right position again. However, this swinging of the head was not very subtle, and as she was checking my homework, she swung her head so violently her glasses actually flew off, and she was forced to turn around, bend down, and get them. As she was lecturing the class on the election, I couldn't help thinking that she sounded like Sarah Palin, and when she said "You bet I would," I almost started laughing out loud.

The next day when our class was entering, she said, "Welcome, Monday and Friday extention number one. Come and sit down in your chairs." She had mistaken the schedule. I don't know, but I thought it was funny. She proceded to ask if anybody had trouble with any part of the homework. Nobody raised their hands. "I know some people had trouble with question number six," she said, staring at me.

I don't remember the context of this, but at one point she said in an overly sweet voice, "that's what we do when we learn!"

At one point we were reading from a textbook and somebody had a question. She called on him to read. "Actually, I was going to ask a question," he said. She told him to read. "But I don't want to read," he complained. She called on somebody else to read. "What about the question?" he asked.

"What's your question," she said, slightly angrily.

"Does modern day egypt take up this whole area?" he asked, gesturing to a map on the page that showed egypt and most of Sudan in order to show the Nile River.

"No, it doesn't," she responded. "The Red Sea technically isn't part of Egypt - it's water."

I hate being smarter than the teacher.

-Marianne