On Discontinuing My Tenure as a Substitute Teacher

Michigan is a tough job market. I knew this when I moved up here with Kirsten in August 2007. After spending two years as a research editor in Louisville, a job that wasn't particularly fulfilling but at least made me feel like I was making use of what before seemed to be a useless English degree, I was hoping for something similar in the Lansing/East Lansing job market. I quickly found that this wouldn't be possible, since most of the employers up here were auto workers, insurance companies, the state government, and the university, none of which either particularly appealed to me or had jobs for me. This is not to mention that, although the economic crisis hadn't yet made its full presence known, Michigan had already been reeling from a declining auto market for years. After three months of fruitlessly searching (the closest I came to a "real" job in mid-Michigan was a legislative clerk in the State Capitol, but they went with someone with more experience and better typing skills), Kirsten casually suggested that I look into substitute teaching. I did, and found the local districts up here to be in dire need of them, so I thought I might give it a shot. After all, at that point I was still considering, albeit half-heartedly, the possibility of teaching secondary education, and I thought this might be a decent test run so to speak. I began substitute teaching middle and high school language arts and social sciences in November 2007 and wound up my tenure just last week in May 2009. Here is what I learned:

Teaching is a lot more than having a specific knowledge set and being able to convey that knowledge in a coherent way to twenty-some-odd students at a time. As a student in public schools, of course, one observes only one sliver of the total work teachers do. Teachers spend an endless amount of time planning, gathering materials, grading, contacting parents, dealing with administrative duties, tutoring, coaching, doing IEPs, etc. (OK, teachers are supposed to do all of these thing - not all of them do, as I have found out). And of course, as a sub, I don't have to do much of any of this. In the worst of circumstances, in fact, most substitute teachers are like jailers, making sure the kids are doing all the work the teacher has left for them, keeping them in the classroom, keeping them from killing one another, and assuring that the teacher's room looks reasonably similar to the one they left. As a random sub, i.e. subbing for a teacher I've never met with kids I've never taught before, I usually didn't do any real teaching, I simply followed a prearranged lesson plan: usually popping in a movie, handing out a worksheet assignment, taking kids to the library or computer lab to do work on their own, etc. It's very hands off and apart from answering basic questions and telling kids not to throw things or yell, the interaction is minimal. This is especially true at the high school level, where subs are often not expected to have the knowledge necessary to conduct class (God help me if I ever had to provide instruction for a Calculus class). The middle school level is a bit different, and I often did find myself providing instruction, but even this was few and far between.

The most interesting days were the days when the teacher did in fact leave teaching plans. There was a seventh grade English teacher for whom I became the primary sub, and every time I subbed for her, I was required to read to the students, discuss plot points, reading comprehension, themes, etc., grade their homework and tests, and talk them through all of their assignments. It was daunting at first and was made no easier by the fact that it was among the most rambunctious and ornery group of students I've ever taught. For example, I once had to send a student to the office for not only possessing a Hustler magazine, but opening it and reading it in class. I also sent one to the office for bursting out into an obscene rap song in the middle of a spelling test, and who, when I politely asked him to stop, jumped on his desk and began singing more loudly. In fact, it may have been the same kid. . . If I learned anything from this class, and others like it, its that some students want to get a rise of subs so badly, they're more than willing to go to detention for it. At first, I think I played right into their hands, getting angry and yelling at them, but since this is exactly what they want, it only makes things worse. By the end of my tenure as that teacher's primary sub, I simply did my best Ben Stein impression and quietly told him in a monotone to sit out in the hallway.

I am a short man who is not in particularly good shape, so I usually did not command a great deal of respect from the start. Subbing is one of the most thankless jobs one can have, and most of the students know that you have no real power, short of taking their names down so the teacher can grill them when they return. And, I have had my fair share of at best ridiculous and at worse dangerous encounters with students. I once had a book thrown at my head in the middle of class - and not a paperback, a good thousand page, three or four pound Biology text. Fortunately, I was never punched or otherwise assaulted by a student, but I got the feeling by the look in some of their eyes that they did wish to inflict physical harm on me. I guess that means I was doing my job. Most of my most difficult moments involved losing control of the classroom or having students totally call me out on my bluffs. I once subbed for an eighth grade choir class that had nearly sixty students. It was all but impossible to keep them quiet while we watched the movie the teacher left for them. There was one group of seven or eight prissy little girls (you know the kind) who would not stop talking and disrupting class so I finally told them if they weren't going to be quiet I would send every one of them to time out. Ten minutes or so passed, and I had all but forgotten about what I thought was an empty threat, but one of them was misbehaving so badly that I had little choice but to send her to time out. After that, every other girl came forward and, referencing my earlier threat, said I had to send all of them down. So I did. I wrote out seven passes for time out. Feeling that I had "won", the class proceeded in a relatively calm manner - until I get a call from the time out teacher telling me in a rather annoyed voice that I've sent too many kids down, after which she returned all seven to the class, without further punishment. This was, to be honest, the only time as a sub that I did not get almost full support from the regular teaching staff. I've had a few friends who have subbed, and some have mentioned to me how poorly they were treated by the staff, that they were looked down on and treated as second class citizens. Fortunately, I experienced almost none of this and I have to hand it to the Lansing and East Lansing school districts: their teachers were very kind, professional, and helpful. By far the coolest thing I ever did discipline-wise was completely by accident. I was at the marker board writing down instructions with my back to the class. Without eyes on them, I could tell the class was getting antsy and were probably on the verge of becoming truly disruptive. As I turned around to tell them to be quiet, a paper wad came whizzing towards me. I caught it quite accidentally with one hand without flinching, moving, or changing my expression. It was practically robotic. The class gasped audibly and were then dead silent. I played it cool as if it had been completely purposeful. "Who threw that?" I asked nonchalantly. All eyes in the room slowly pointed at one individual. "Could you please take your things and sit out in the hallway," I said coolly with a slight grin. He complied and the rest of the hour was rather civil. Sometimes the completely random is all you need.

Perhaps the only thing more disheartening than misbehaving students is the lack of intellectual curiosity I've observed by many of them. I'm not necessarily talking about ignorant students; ignorance can be rectified. I'm talking about those who willfully do not wish to learn. This is a very alien concept to me, as I have built essentially my entire life around intellectual curiosity. I subbed for a ninth grade history class on December 7 last year and asked the students if any of them knew what happened on this day in 1941. No one raised their hands. I told them this was the day that the empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor drawing the U.S. into World War II. Many of them looked confused. Not only did they not know what this day was, they seemed not to even know that it existed! I once had a history professor who never had us remember dates, because he said continuity and sequence was more import than fixed time, yet he told us "If there's one date in U.S. history I want you to remember, it's this one." I told the students the same thing. One student raised his hand and told me that he didn't care what happened in the past because they were all dead, what they did didn't matter, and we should all just move on. It was the only time I was rendered completely speechless in front of a classroom.

Some moments of ignorance were more innocent and more hilarious than this. I once overheard a student ask "Who is that old guy with the weird mustache that host American Gladiators?" to which five students simultaneously replied "That's Brooke Hogan's dad." Or the student who, thirty minute into watching Back to the Future, asks "Is that the old guy with Parkinson's disease?" Wait to make me feel about a million years old kids! Sometimes the lack of understanding of the continuity of past events is amazing to me too. It's understandable that people who aren't specialists in history wouldn't necessarily know that the Treaty of Westphalia occurred after the Thirty Years War or some other arcane factoid. But I had high school junior ask me if computers were around in the '30s, so I said something like "Well, not what we think of as computers today. The microprocessor hadn't been invented yet, but they did have vacuum tubes, which were rudimentary elements in some of the earliest computers. . ." The blank stare told me this was not the answer she was looking for. So she said, "So they had different computers in the 1830s?" (sigh. . .)

But I shouldn't discuss the bad only. In general, I have to say that I am a bit fearful for this next generation, with a likely smaller and more competitive job market, and the possibility of a lower standard of living. If "the children are our future" I'm not sure the future is a place I want to spend too much time. However, in two years, there were many bright spots and students who gave me hope. I once subbed at an otherwise troubled high school that had an obvious issue with drugs and violence but witnessed the truly amazing conduction of a Taekwondo class with more discipline than I have ever seen from such a large group of teenagers. I also taught a sixth grade social studies class where I gave a lecture on Christopher Columbus' voyages and I had one precocious little student who not only could have given the lecture himself, but actually taught me a few things. He knew the size and shapes of the vessels, what types of sails they used, even how they compared to contemporary Chinese vessels. I was more than impressed and told him so. There was another student in a high school I subbed for who engaged me in one of the most intelligent conversations I've ever had about libertarian politics and the failure of imagining a political spectrum as linear. And, I had the privilege of becoming the designated sub for a special education English teacher, not something I would normally sub, but her students turned out to be some of the best I ever had. And since I subbed for them regularly for a full year, I was able to observe how much better nearly all of them became at understanding what they were reading, writing legibly and coherently, and generally becoming better students. It was humbling. Frankly, it was these exchanges that helped keep me coming back.

All in all, I had a mixed experience as a substitute. The days when classroom management was at the fore of my duties were not good days They were stressful and contributed a great deal to the multitude of gray hairs I now possess and the lack of hair creeping across the top of my head. However, on days that I did get to do some real teaching turned out to be extraordinarily rewarding. There are few things I've found more exhilarating than holding the undivided attention of a classroom that seems to be genuinely interested in what you have to say. In another sense, it also helped me to decide, conclusively, that teaching in secondary education is not for me. The job market and financial prospects for higher education may be worse, but I feel that the intellectual rewards and academic freedom will be well worth it. It has also given me a new found respect for the teachers themselves. Not that I haven't always respected them, but to see what it is that they have to deal with every single day is quite another thing. It takes a certain type of person to be a teacher and I am fairly certain that I am not that type. So, farewell students, teachers, and schools of the Lansing metro areas. I will miss you in spirit, but not in profession.