Dear Editor
I started back teaching in the school system as a substitute. I worked at the high school for about 10 days, I was later called to the middle school right before the Thanksgiving holidays teaching science.
It took me a while to let the students know there was a new sheriff in town. Old school was going on in the seventh grade science classes taught by Coach Staples.
I will admit it was a challenge at first, however it was one I was up to. Most of those children I am teaching, I taught and coached many of their parents and even some grandparents. I was tried on every corner, but what the students didn't know is that I always wanted the unruly student in my class. No teaching went on until I had control of my class. Little did they know I was being energized by their negative actions. This was not Burger King; they would not have it their way.
When I started pulling out my cell phone, with many of their parents’ or relatives’ names already listed, the look on their faces was priceless. Many of the parents would come to the school within minutes. “Why was I calling me,” they would ask, “just do what you did to me.”
I always felt parents need to know when their children are doing good as we do when they are doing bad. To the parents of all the students I teach, they made me proud to say they are my students. I woke up Monday morning last week really too sick to be at school, but being a substitute it would be hard to get someone at this late time. I struggled on. I made It to the room, and the students knew immediately something was wrong. One student asked, “Coach Staples are you alright? “
My plan was to go back home as soon as they could cover my classes. That students’ concern made me feel better, and by the time the word got around that I was not felling my best, each class came in and if one student did anything they knew I did not tolerate, the students reprimanded themselves. I did not care how bad I was ferling by the reaction i was getting from my students. I would have had to be taken out on a stretcher if the rest of my day was going to be like my first two classes .Surely enough, the whole day went just that way . I had to take of one problem, and you better believe the other students let that student know of their displeasure
.The doctor could not have given me any medicine better than what those children gave me that day. Because of their love, I made the day. Parents you have some good children. Train them more at home. I did go to the doctor the next day, and all I could think about was my students. There is no love like the love of child – period.
Coach Johnny Staples
