Jumping on the Band Wagon

I am going to assume that various other people have written about the substitute teacher as well, but I feel as though I need to include my input as well.

I walked into class with a bit of anxiety. It had to come to our attention (Katie Connolly and I) that we had a snow day Monday, which is the day we were supposed to do the AP Poetry practice. That was the last thing I wanted to do on a Friday, so I prayed that Ms. Serensky was merciful enough to not include that in the lesson plan for the substitute. I was relieved when class began and we were simply going into discussion, but as class went on I found Mr. Sub (aren't I so clever?) to be very...annoying, for lack of a better word. At the beginning of class, he told us that he had been reading some of the book and looking things up online. I immediately took this as a "I tried to learn about the book so I'm not oblivious to what you're all talking about," but instead he meant that as "I will talk in between each point to try and sound knowledgeable about the book, despite the fact I even told you all that I know close to nothing about it."

So we, the students, would do our best to make an intelligent, competent comment. Then, Mr. Sub would take that comment and contort it in horrible, unspeakable ways in a short summary. Either that, or he would just repeat what was said.

"...so I believe that the juxtaposition indirectly characterizes them as perceptive, but insane as well."
"Okay, so he's saying that there is juxtaposition in this sentence, and this shows how they are both insane and perceptive."
"Yeah, that's what I said....right?"

Summaries of this caliber were heavy throughout the discussion, but nothing beats the following conversation between our class and Mr. Sub (not exactly word-for-word, but pretty darn close):

"I've been hearing situational irony used multiple times in some of the other classes, can someone explain to me what it is?"
"Well, it's basically when something unexpected happens."
"Oh? So what would be an example?"
"Like...if you walked into a classroom and the students were teaching the teacher."
"Oh, I see, that's interesting."

At that point, I almost couldn't help myself from laughing. He was oblivious to the humor in what was just said, but I'm sure the rest of us weren't.

In conclusion, thank you for not being like that guy, Ms. Serensky.