Attacking the sub

One bored, unemployed journalist makes a foray into substitute teaching

JACK CURRAN

It was the morning of my first day as a substitute teacher, and things in the third-grade classroom seemed to be going well. Most of the students were sitting at their desks working on an assignment I’d just handed out. A half dozen of them had gathered at the cluster of desks farthest from me, apparently to work on the project together.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose. The cluster scattered across the classroom shrieking and moaning. Two girls ran past my desk holding their noses and muttering about a large cloud of stinky gas. It was then I noticed the one student still sitting. He was smiling with sublime satisfaction.
As the classroom slowly returned to normal, I wondered how I’d ended up here. I’d spent more than two decades as a radio and television reporter in southern Maine, then gone back to college to get a bachelor’s degree in media studies. I'd searched for jobs after graduation, but had no luck finding work.
After a while, terminal boredom set in. One day it got so bad I said to my wife, “The wallpaper in the kitchen has been there for nearly twenty years. It’s about time I peeled it off and repainted the room.”
What was I saying? I’d just volunteered to peel wallpaper. My wife was pleased, but I realized I had to get out of the house. I figured if I couldn’t find a job communicating with adults, I’d try to communicate with high-school students. I’d done some one-on-one tutoring with high school students in college, so I thought I was ready to be a substitute teacher. The pay was adequate for my current needs ($65 a day) and the hours were good (out of work by mid-afternoon). The only drawback seemed to be the timing of the assignments. Most came as telephone calls at six o’clock in the morning.
Given my tutoring experience and my size — 6 feet, 5 inches, 220 pounds — I expected calls to fill positions at the high school. Instead, I learned the school district in the Greater Portland suburbs has a sense of humor when doling out assignments. Thus, there I was with the third-graders.
Kids suffer no limitations in their creativity or their willingness to confuse a substitute. They possess the power to think in unison — a trait that apparently develops immediately upon entering the classroom in the morning and discovering the regular teacher is absent — so when one student announced I should disregard the written lesson plan, the others immediately nodded their heads or raised their voices in agreement. According to the students, their teacher had not really intended to continue with their lessons, but was planning to give everybody a break from regular work that day to concentrate on free time, videos and other fun things.
I also learned third-graders don't know they have to go to the bathroom until a classmate announces the need, at which point many others instantly have to go, all desperately.
There is an on-going debate in this country about public safety and whether students should “tattle” on other students, especially in the upper grades. Tattling is not an issue at the elementary-school level. By the end of my first day, there were several notes left on my desk. Unfolding one that turned out to be intended for the regular classroom teacher, I found a student had documented a litany of her classmates’ transgressions during my obviously unruly reign. The student was not shy about her tattling — the note was signed.
I was glad to find no word on my conduct, but criticism was inherent in the long list of wrongdoing conducted on my watch. I didn’t look at the other notes — I couldn’t handle the idea of third-graders critiquing my first day on the job.
A six o’clock call the next day sent me to a classroom of first-graders. I arrived early so I could study the lesson plan, find the teaching materials and memorize the name tags taped to the tops of the tiny desks. Before the students arrived, I was visited by a few teachers from nearby rooms who offered me their sympathies and volunteered to come to my rescue if the noise level from my classroom rose too high. I started to consider my wife’s plans for me to redo the living room and bathroom in a more favorable light.
I tried to think of the first-graders as small people, but soon began to think of them in simpler terms: large mouths sitting atop small legs which allow them to move in any direction and to any location in the classroom except their assigned desks. Like the third-graders’ ability to think in unison, first-graders displayed the ability to talk in unison. All their mouths are connected in some way, so when one opens to speak, all the others do the same.
The first activity on the lesson plan involved all the students gathering in an open space on the rug for storytelling. The student designated as leader of the day initiated the session, during which each student was to take a turn. This seemed simple enough — I could handle the job of observer from afar. But the leader of the day told me I had to join them and pulled over a chair for me to sit on.
The chair had a small, plastic seat held about eight inches from the floor by chrome legs. The kids were adamant that I participate, so, reluctantly, I sat down, but I couldn’t focus on the stories the kids were telling. I kept wondering whether the chair would support my weight and, if it didn’t, where those chrome legs would end up.
As the day progressed, the students and I tackled subjects such as math, writing and history, but I learned some of them still didn’t know their own names. At one point, when the noise level reached a critical level, I saw two boys yelling at each other while standing about four inches apart. I called their names three times, but neither responded.
Then I stood up, and the resulting shadow falling across them finally got their attention. I put a sheet of paper on the desk in front of each of them and asked them to write their name on the paper. They did so proudly, then looked up at me, apparently waiting for praise.
But my frustration level was still too high. I told them since they hadn’t responded when I’d called, I wasn’t convinced they knew their names and ordered the boys to write their names on the paper until it was covered.
The first-graders were as adept as their third-grade brethren at tattling. A first-grader can violate all five of the major “classroom conduct rules” posted on the wall, then turn to the substitute with an angelic look on his or her face and accuse a classmate of breaking just one of the rules. An understanding of the word “hypocrisy” does not yet burden these kids.
After lunch, I read the class an account of the first landing on the moon, showing illustrations of the rocket and space capsules and adding my personal perspective as an actual witness to the historic occasion. Just as I was confident I was in control of the class, a student asked me, “Does space goes on forever?” I assured him it probably does because it goes as far as science can see. He then explained that his friend said space has to end someplace so heaven can begin.
I swallowed hard, realized I was out of my realm, and assigned a math worksheet.
A few days later, I was finally assigned to the high school. After several classes with the teenagers, I noticed most demonstrated little creativity or spontaneity. They stayed in their assigned seats and didn’t interrupt me or their fellow students. The only thing raging in them was their hormones.
In short, they were boring. I soon found myself yearning for the comfortable sense of chaos I experienced surrounded by the first- and third-graders who introduced me to substitute teaching.
The wallpaper can wait.

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