The Good Ole Days of Subbing, Boy Did They Suck

For two years after I left my position as a middle school teacher and worked on my TEFL (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language) certificate, I toiled as a substitute teacher in the Oakland Unified School District (there’s actually very little that is unified about the district). It was an experience I’ll never forget — damn it! There were highs, lows, real lows, very deep lows and super deep lows.

Subbing is not the worst job in the world (one assumes). There are no papers to grade at the end of a long teaching day and no lesson plans to concoct. There are no meetings to attend and no parent conferences to endure. When your day is done you can get on with the rest of your life.

Some schools euphemistically call you a “guest teacher.” Some schools treat you as if you are a savior merely for showing up (trust me, you are). Some schools treat you like you have emerged from the primordial ooze. Some secretaries and administrators who greet you are officious, some are friendly some are so confused by all the vagaries of their job and the whirlwind of activity going on about them that they can barely bother to acknowledge you.

You show up, are shown to your room, then you read your lesson plan, which is usually left on a desk. Some are incredibly detailed, some leave much to interpretation and some allow you to wing it bit. The oddest I saw was a note on a TV screen that was merely an arrow pointing to a VCR tape (anyone out there old enough to remember those?). Brevity is the soul of wit.

Then you gird yourself for the first class. You might be awaiting anything from a rowdy, ill-mannered group of sixth graders to a solemn and serious class of seniors in a calculus class. 

Some of the days that are not horrible are deathly boring. Take that calculus class. Your job for the day may well consist of passing out worksheets, taking role then praying to god that no one asks you a question because you don’t understand calculus any better than you do Sanskrit. Usually they don't. They dutifully fill in their work as you surreptitiously do the crossword puzzle.

Some of the days that are not boring can be fun. You can have groups of students who you’ve seen before so you know each other and they like you and vise versa. These are rare.

Some days are mellow like when you do high school P.E. You take roll then toss out a bag of basketballs and sit back. Or a high school computer class where you walk around every ten minutes pretending to care if they’re on task or not and otherwise sit at a computer yourself where you write, or surf the internet or play hearts. I had a three-day assignment like that once at a high school. Easy money.

But then are days where there is absolute bedlam. Students are rude, obnoxious, threatening and destructive. If it’s a good school you can call down to the office and someone will be there lickety-split and offenders will be summarily dealt with. If it's a bad school then you hold your tongue and temper as best as possible.

If I had a bad day owing to lack of institutional support the solution was simple, I never took a job at that school again. In my time in Oakland I crossed over half a dozen schools off my list.

One of the best regular gigs I had was at one of Oakland’s two continuation high schools. That’s where the really baaaad kids go. The ones who are no longer welcome at “regular” high schools. However as was explained me to me, such students are loathe to cause real mayhem because they have parole officers and any offense on their part will result in a return to the hoosegow. I would get tested by students who didn’t know me. A particularly tall large lad would stand next to, lean into me a bit and “mean mug me.” I never flinched and would eventually say something like, “why don’t you have seat?” Once they knew I couldn’t be intimated I had their respect. I was served well by a calmness that I brought to the job that many subs are incapable of. I used measured tones, didn’t get excited and didn’t demand this or that, only insisting upon a modicum of decorum and respect for one another’s person and property.

At the continuation school less than half of students on the attendance sheet would ever show up. Mostly they sat around and chatted (a few did their work!) often about crimes they’d committed or their most recent high. Interesting.

I have a few specific memories from my subbing days that I think are worth sharing. 

• There was a school safety officer at one school who had a large belly and fondness for donuts. One morning before school he had been heard mentioning his preference for donuts with sprinkles on them. Later that day I called down to the office because of a ruckus in the classroom. The portly security officer entered the room and the students immediately started chanting “sprinkles!” He was clearly embarrassed and said, “you all are messed up.” He then turned around and left not having bothered with the problem in the classroom.
• I was subbing in a middle school computer class when one student refused to do his assignment. Worse he was playing a computer game that was making a lot of noise (at least be cool about it, dude). I hailed a passing safety officer who came in and talked to the lad for a few minutes. The officer eventually came to me and said, “he says he won’t do the work.” That, as they say, was that. The officer split.
• There was a student in one class who wouldn’t give his real name and worst of all was creating a disturbance. I called down to the office and a security officer took the lad outside for several minutes, brought him back to the room and said, “he won’t give you any more trouble.” Great, I thought. However a minute later he was indeed giving me “more trouble.” (Contrast this to the school I went to where I had a similar situation. That lad was taken away and I was later informed that he’d been sent home.)
• One of my worst days was at a high school. In the period before lunch it was absolute chaos with several students being particularly wild. Calls to the office went unanswered. However I rejoiced to see a vice principal passing by. I told him all that had happened and pointed out the offenders. Here was his response: “Leave a note for the teacher, she’s pretty good about following up.” With that he turned heel and fled the scene. I was left with mouth agape unable to believe that there would be no immediate help or consequences. It was a two-day assignment so at lunch I canceled the second day and never returned to that hell hole again.
• I was subbing at another high school and having a pretty good day in a history classroom when three of four people entered the room who I was pretty sure were not even students at the school (given their apparent age) let alone in the class. They immediately started a game of craps. Seriously. I politely asked them to desist but they chose to continue. So I stood in line of the flying dice and when they came my way put my foot on them and still politely, but also insistently, suggested they take their game elsewhere. There were a tense few moments during which they evidently weighed their options before deciding to seek greener pastures. I counted that as a huge victory.

Subbing in an inner city school district is not for the faint of heart. It takes patience, tolerance and having an outlet for your frustrations at the end of the day such as a quart of whiskey or in my case a gym membership and twelve step meetings. Anyway the pay was decent and it thus helped keep us afloat until I was ready to enter the infinitely calmer world of teaching foreigners the king’s English. What a pleasant change to be thanked by students when I hand them a piece of paper. I recall on some occasions as a sub trying to hand out papers and seeing students recoil, initially refuse to take it and ask “what’s this?” As if I was a process server. In my current position teaching days are a relative stroll around the park. Between my years as a middle school teacher and my time as a sub, I earned it.