Two seconds into the school office at Grant Middle School, a black young man I’ve taught in class before sees me walking in, makes eye contact and asks me to autograph his book. When I ask him why, he replies ?I had you last year, and I just want your autograph.” He opens a paperback book he has handy and opens it to a page with some space on the bottom. “Right there would be good,” he says. I start to sign it twice, but break his mechanical pencil lead twice before I can finish two letters. His schoolmate sitting next to him hands me a pen, and the rest is easy. I sign it Mr. Conger,” asking him how he’s doing, and he says “Fine.” I tell him “You;re the first student who’s ever asked me to autograph a book before. I hope you have a good year. See ya.” and I’m off to math class.
Besides the principal at Grant, who’s a straight-up gentleman and the almost completely non-adversarial attitude of the students toward substitute teachers (from what I can tell) most of the time, the classiest part of this middle school is that it has doorstops built into the floors. You open the door all the way and it pops over a slightly raised flexible probe that goes into a slight indentation in the door’s bottom. A gentle tug pulls the door over that catch to close it. Nifty, aye? Grant is the only school I’ve sub taught at with this 21st century innovation. No wonder we beat the Russkies to the frikkin’ moon!
To know me is to know that I am not a mathematician, though I sometimes think that with a different seventh grade math teacher, I might have become one. No need to embarrass the teacher by revealing the name. Besides, I’ve forgotten it. I just remember that I was too bleeding afraid of being thought STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID in class to ask questions. I found it easier to barely get by and let the rest of the class imagine I was smarter than I was than it would have been for me to open my pie hole and emblazon my gross incapacity like a harvest moon, into the chortling faces of my schoolmates. Even so, when I sub teach math, it’s usually an exceptionally fulfilling day, and Friday was no exception. This was not because I’ve grown smarter since seventh grade; it’s because the teachers I sub for are nothing short of fantastic in their lesson plans, substitute teacher guidelines and capacity to accommodate the vagaries of dealing with wayfaring substitutes.
Some, maybe all, Springfield middle schools teach their cirricula in BLOCKS of roughly 90 minutes; not PERIODS of roughly 50. My half day gave me two blocks. One from about 11:00 to 11:30 with a break for lunch and continuing until about 1; the second straight from about 1 to 2:30. Both blocks required students to work on their work packets alone or in groups. The teachers lesson plan stated I was NOT PERMITTED to help; they had to figure things out for themselves. This brings up a point some good folks who have never had the pleasure of substitute teaching don’t understand…..
“How can you sub teach in maff class (some curious antagonists have never mastered elementary spelling) without knowing how to do maff?” some query at the odd party or effigy burning. The goal of every teacher — certified with the State of Illinois or other states, or certified as a substutte — is to guide students in the learning process. Not one teacher in the history of teaching — according to The Book of Teaching, Chapter 3, verse 18 — has been asked to verbally speak every fact conveyed in a body of learning material into the ears of the students, individually or when collectively gathered in class. Sometimes, what a student carries into the years from a class has absolutely no connection to the factual material presented in texts, movies, projected graphics or additional reading assignments. All I remember from 10th grade English (what we now call Language Arts because the Beardstown meat packers objected to the original term) is that his name was Mr. Schoenbeck, and I wrote an essay called “Driving In A Storm.”
He liked the essay so much he read it aloud to the class. Our English text had suggested the title, apparently assuming it would be about navigating our family car through heavy rain and lightning, perhaps on a vacation trip. I wrote about a visit to the driving range and the recreation park on Wabash and hitting balls while the rain came down by the cat and dog. He liked the essay. My peers liked the essay, and I loved that they liked the essay. I digress.
You may be sure that whomever the substitute teacher is, and whatever the subject is, students will learn from the interface lasting a block or a period long. The students will learn how to respect a new person, an authority in front of the classroom. OR they will learn how not to respect that transiting stranger. Jessica will learn how to focus on quiet study when Johny or Tanishia is poking at her with a pencil when the sub’s back is turned. OR she will learn it’s okay to hit Tamisha on the head with a book; a retributive strike, so to speak. They will learn that sometimes the substitute teacher will discipline a misbehaving student even though the regular teacher would just give him or her a stern glance with blazing eye contact, and all would be cool. They will learn that the new grownup can listen to a lot of snickering before acting to stop it. That’s usually because the sub wants to give extra rope to “veteran students” squirming under the gaze of new earnest eyes. As I said earlier, the modus operandi is seldom adversarial. That it appears adveersarial is ofteh the sub teacher’s mis-assessment of the interplay. But you can be sure that every interface between class and substitute teaches students about life. That’s the point of school from the start. Dates and multiplcation tables are essential for sure, but sometimes nominally incidental. Every interface brings new learning to the students and new learning to the substitute teacher as well. That’s one reason I enjoy it so much.
Friday was a joyous afternoon. Problems were minor, pleasures were many, and I always look forwardt to returning to Grant Middle School for more of the same.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
