When I'm asked that infamous question "what do you want to do with your life?" I find myself scrambling for an answer. One that mutates to accommodate each interviewer's expertise and harbors enough specificity yet vagueness so as not to chain me to some future career I really don't want. While I answer that question with lots of rambling about creativity and work ethic, office-culture needs instead of real potential job titles––I find it quite easy to answer an opposite question:
"What don't you want to do with your life?"
How come nobody ever asks that? It's way more interesting and typically gives you loads more insight into a person's character than its antithesis. Why would I want to hear about the zillion foods that light up your taste buds when I could discover what singular one or two absolutely make your skin crawl? Knowing what our dislikes and vexations are can be just as perceptive (if not more) as figuring out the dozens of things that we do enjoy. So bottom line, I don't necessarily know where I want my game piece to fall on the career path of life, but I have always known where I don't want it to... and teaching happens to be one of them.
Before you metaphorically jump down my throat, chuck your laptop or phone across the room, and curse my ungrateful name for ever speaking such nonsense, let me start by saying that I think teaching is the most admirable job on the planet. I'm even lucky enough to have some of the best teachers right at my fingertips! My grandmother was an incredible math teacher (and mother of six which is basically an extension of the long school day to an assumed 24/7 lifelong homeschool educator). My eldest sister also taught for five years on a native reservation in South Dakota before taking on an assistant principal role in Vermont (both locations in which had their own fun mixture of adversity including poverty, crime, substance abuse, high suicide rates, and of course a dandy little ongoing pandemic).
So I've seen firsthand the cost of a good educator, and the minuscule pay it's returned with. School staff members are (across the board) underpaid, overworked, underestimated, and in my opinion un-prioritized in the grand scheme of national spending and social status.
So why would I, someone who seems to understand the shortcomings of the teaching profession, who lacks the passion for educating others, wish to pursue substitute teaching?
Well, there are a few pluses to the gig that make it a worthwhile temporary trade. First off, it's flexible. Feeling a little sick this morning? Not in the mood to get up early tomorrow? Plans for next Thursday? All you have to do is not answer the phone. Seriously. That's the beauty of not having a set schedule: no justification needed, no questions asked, no guilt. Like any good thing though, the ad hoc flexibility is also a risk. You're never 100% guaranteed a job subbing at a school, though your chances become better the more schools and positions you're willing to fill in for.
Then there's obviously the money which I can't deny was a large factor in my becoming a sub. The pay is... less than ideal, which I suppose is nothing crazy considering most all of us feel undercompensated for our work. But the interesting thing about the pay is that it varies quite a bit for part-time school employees depending on experience and position. The lowest paid title (not including custodial or food service jobs which I'm sure are equally just as difficult and underpaid) I could fill in for is an ed-tech. Substitute ed-techs make around $16 an hour for (at most) a seven-hour day, while an actual substitute teacher (without a previous teaching license) is paid $140 a day. If you're an experienced teacher or administrator, you can make upwards of $170 a day for filling in––the créme de la créme of the substitute world if you will.
Not to toot my own ethical horn too much but I do believe on some level I also took the sub job as a small way to get involved in my community, particularly in an area that's been severely hit hard by the pandemic. Plus I love kids, which I know is a pretty cliché reason to give teaching a try, but whatever I can't be hip and bona fide all the time. In fact maybe it's more cliché to constantly make an effort not to be cliché––I might actually be having a revelation here because isn't trying to avoid a label for the sake of being unlabeled kind of hypocritical? I mean you're still consciously over-concerned with a label at the end of the day, right?
*Sigh* I digress.
Anyway back to the recent grind. Initially, the whole substitute/ed-tech/hourly/day-rate business sounded like a pretty fair deal to me as I filled out the application and completed the various necessary formalities: fingerprinting, background check, college transcript, references, etc. blah blah blah. But I swear to god the first thought that popped into my head after day one on the job was I'm not paid enough for this shit. And at that point I hadn't even been paid yet so you can imagine my enthusiasm (or lack thereof rather) after opening my first bi-weekly paycheck.
I don't know about you guys, but in my super qualified experience as a former public school student, subs always seemed to have it so easy. I used to love the unexpected days when a teacher was out and a sub was in. It was practically a guaranteed movie day, study hall, or maaaaaybe at most an open-book worksheet. So with that in mind, I felt more than prepared to take the torch of substitute teaching. I know how to load up a Kahoot, I can hit play on National Treasure, hell I can even coordinate a thrilling game of 7 Up!
But I was oh so naive, and oh so misinformed.
There seems to be more of a need for fill-in ed-techs, specifically in the special ed departments of the local elementary and middle schools than classroom teachers, so most of my shifts have been working with one or a small group of children with behavioral issues or learning disabilities. And honestly, aside from the low ed-tech pay and the occasional extremely difficult child, those days are pretty manageable to get through. But my first true, tossed to the wolves, all alone, csubstitute teaching day, happened to be for a class of third-graders.
That same morning as I was packing my lunch, whipping up breakfast and getting ready to head to school, I felt a bit nervous. Not nervous that the kids wouldn't like me or that I'd be unqualified to lead them for seven hours, but more worried that the teacher probably hadn't thought to leave me any sub plans. I mentally prepared myself to walk in with zero lessons, and began internally constructing a day of games, movies, coloring pages, and origami to pass the time.
Unbeknownst to me, the expectations of substitute teachers here are a liiiiiittle bit higher.
I popped into the office after parking my car in the proper lot (which has oddly been a struggle for me to find at every school). The front desk secretary seemed to know right away that I was "Helen, right?" and handed me a shiny white vertical card that read "Substitute Teacher" to clip onto my shirt. Without so much as a "have a great day" or a "let me give you a quick tour" or "here's where the bathroom is," she gave me a room number and motioned for me to journey upstairs to my class for the day. I found the room with help from a teacher next-door who kindly offered to answer any questions or concerns I had throughout the day.
My classroom was stereotypically colorful and cluttered. Dozens of folders, cubbies, tubs, flyers, velcro patches, crayon drawings, and posters covered every square inch of the space in an array of blue, red, yellow, orange, purple, and green. I made my way to a round, unconventional desk with an exercise ball chair. I got the impression that the teacher was perhaps young or wanted to come across as less hierarchal maybe to her students through a more casual desk setting. At the desk lay a series of paper stacks and binders. I flipped through one of the binders first which listed emergency protocols: lockdown drills, fire alarm instructions, first aid information––all fairly standard stuff that hadn't seemed to differ since the dawn of time (or traditional school rather).
Then I found a typed out "Sub Plans" sheet. Only it wasn't a singular sheet that read the expected "Hello! Thanks for coming in today, here's where the projector is and this is the password to the computer... X, Y, Z." It was three pages, in size-11 font, single-spaced, describing in detail the various activities and lessons I would be in charge of teaching my students for the day. And we're not talking an hour of math here and a session of reading there––no we're talking a complex changeup of academic sessions every 15 minutes between 8:30 am and 3:00 pm. Beginning to panic at the extensive responsibilities and foreign teaching language that I didn't understand like "WIN," "globle," "push-in service," and "prodigy," I checked the clock to see how much time I had before students would start filing into the room. I had about 15 minutes until 17 third graders would show up.
A daunting sensation.
That's when I noticed another three piles of paperwork labeled "for the sub." They were massive piles of math and literacy worksheets with instructions reading "please staple these for me for next week." Suddenly calmed by the uncomplicated task of stapling papers together, I opted for that until students arrived.
It wasn't until the fifth kid strolled into class wearing an unusual outfit that I realized it was Future Career Day. Knowing that it was spirit week, a Friday, AND I was a sub, I had a feeling my students would be rowdier than usual.
Surprisingly, none of the kids in my group were dressed in the quintessential dream job garb that the average eight year old aspires to don.
No presidents, no firefighters, no Olympians, or superheroes. On the contrary my students were rather pragmatic. We had a truck driver, an anesthesiologist, a teacher, a logger, a construction worker, a nurse, a SWAT team member, and my personal favorite: an accountant. Quite the accurate reflection of the modern-day workforce if you ask me. Plus we had a basketball coach, which to my chagrin meant one eight year old got to carry around a basketball all day.
*Spoiler alert* I was indeed forced to confiscate the basketball by the end of the day.
Right away the kids latched onto my weak points as a new and young sub. From critiquing my size to attempting to trick me into allowing them to use their iPads for games, they did all they could to exploit the lack of their usual seasoned educator.
"You look like an 11th grader."
"You must be new at this, huh?"
"Mrs. always lets us use YouTube on our iPads during math time!"
I never thought of third grade as a behaviorally tough age, but lord was I wrong. The troubling thing with eight and nine year olds is that they're the perfect balance of mental maturity and physical energy. They walk a fine line of know-it-all attitude whilst still justifying an all-out tantrum because so-and-so pinched them at recess. It's enough to cause an absolute shit storm of chaos whenever they see fit.
I suppose third grade is a beautiful age too. It's around the last time you'll be praised for an active imagination. It's also the end of an era when very little differentiates you from the kid sitting a desk over. At that point, life is all about focusing on the little connections: liking the same color, watching the same TV show, reading the same book, sharing a snack, making each other laugh, etc. By age ten you really start to subconsciously act on self-interest and harness connections as a social tool rather than an instinctive human quality.
But like I said, kids can be ruthless too. Just as I began to think things were going well and students were really beginning to respect me as a quasi-teacher, they hit me with the personal questions:
"Are you married?" one of the little ones asked.
"Nope, I'm way too young for that." I replied.
"Do you have kids?"
"I do not."
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Actually no, I don't have a boyfriend right now."
"Oh that's surprising... actually, that's not surprising at all."
I sat there stunned, suddenly realizing how quickly kids are able to tear you down after building you up. It's a good thing kids can't be life coaches or personal trainers, I thought to myself.
The rest of the day was filled with end-of-week jitters. Sitting in seats became near impossible by the last hour at which point I relented and let the kids color and play some made-up game with the coach's basketball. I had warned them that I wouldn't allow dribbling the ball in the classroom thinking it would stifle any disruptive behavior, but of course those little geniuses found a loophole in creating a circle game where they each aggressively rolled the ball to each other via vigorous slapping––almost like a grounded volleyball.
I forgot that third grade is prime time for tattletales too. I probably listened to a dozen accusations throughout the day, ranging in severity from "he hit me" to "she won't draw a butterfly for me" and a good ol' classic "they stuck they're tongue out at me!" In those cases I tried to validate the accusers by thoughtfully listening, but ultimately I have no patience for tattletales so the claims resulted in little more than an ear and at most a disapproving glance towards the suspect.
Even though I was a sub, a new one at that, I couldn't shake a sense of embarrassment when the kids became too much or when they shouted so loudly that a passerby in the hallway would pop a head in to "check on" us. In a weird way I felt like each of the 17 kids were my own offspring, while they were in the classroom at least. And although they made me frustrated and overwhelmed, I sort of loved each and every one of them simultaneously. But only in the classroom. It's as is right as they left for the bus, my notions of motherly control faded away and I relinquished the responsibility to the next caretaker which was the bus driver or a parent.
By the time I found myself seated in the driver's seat of my car, finally headed on the glory road home, I once again felt a familiar sense of disconnect between work and pay. I felt an immense new appreciation for teachers, substitutes, ed-techs, and anyone who finds themselves spending Monday through Friday in a classroom. It's an indescribable mental exhaustion like no other.
I also had never felt more aware of my introverted nature in that moment of reflection. Now I know the spectrum of where we receive energy from is wide and fluid. We can chameleon our social skills a bit to adapt to our settings as a means of survival, but in my truest state I really am a person who gains energy from being alone and is often drained by gregarious and large groups. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good party or love spending quality time with others, but it does mean that spending a whole day with 17 third graders drains me more than the average person.
That being said, I'm not one to give in at the first sign of a challenge, so for now, the chronicles of a subpar substitute teacher continue.
Initially, I didn't plan on writing about this new scholastic endeavor, and given privacy laws, I'm pretty sure I'm breaking some rule or clause written somewhere in the documents I signed off on yet didn't read in order to obtain the job in the first place. Needless to say I probably can't include too many photos for said reason either. But this experience and the things these kids say/do are wholly too hilarious and enlightening not to share so please enjoy the next several weeks as I vent about this new chapter of life that is substitute teaching!
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