I am a substitute schoolteacher at four different high schools and love to play a few notes to a class of unsuspecting kids occasionally… especially when they are being noisy and not looking at me. If I play a few notes, the room gets immediately silent as I watch them looking all around for the sound and see jaws drop in sheer astonishment. It really turns heads.
Sometimes, as the students are leaving the classroom, I will play a note when only one student is looking. Rarely does anyone believe him when he tries to tell them what he saw. Of course, I deny it. Now kids stop me all the time and say, “Are you the sub whose cane is a flute? Is it really?”. “Yup”… “No way!” “Yes way!” and they ask to hear a few notes. This past year the popular exclamation at school is “Saa-weet” (sweet).
I enjoy near-celebrity status! Teachers are beginning to stop me in the halls for the same reason. In one school, I can’t walk through the cafeteria without multiple people coming up to me. Way cool. It is sooo much fun!
Marc