The Substitute Teacher's Manifesto.

I hand out the worksheet on static electricity and fix my gaze to the laptop. The class works away and it is quiet, save for the shuffling of feet, occasional whisper, and miscellaneous fidgeting deep-rooted in the constitution of middle school children.

The hush is broken, predictably, by The Chattiest:

Where'd you go to college? he asks.
I answer.

And what'd you major in?
English, I say.

And you're a science teacher because...
He trails off, expecting me to promptly finish his thought.

The Smartest chimes in:
He's a substitute.

I glance towards him.

Yes, I say, nodding.

I'm a substitute.

Diploma: (n.) the most expensive piece of paper imaginable; wish granter; dream murderer.

The handshake was sweaty. Quick and sweaty. My damp phalanges were a byproduct of long minutes listening to speeches I now forget, baking under sterile white lights, and shifting uncomfortably in my talkative chair. That handshake, though met with an ambivalent degree of enthusiasm from the other party, held foolish, romanticized promise. The clammy palm-touching was followed by the exchange of an empty leather binder with gold stencil on the cover.

This held my Future.

That moment walking in front of my friends, faculty members, and coughing relatives was full of wonderment. The diplomaless container signified a new path, a new beginning. It was the supposed passport to a fruitful and challenging Career, one with legitimate responsibilities and health insurance. It marked the stirring finale of third-hand textbooks and beer-caked carpets and waking up at noon for no good reason. The trappings of undergraduate life were shucked off, left by the wayside as I finished the uneasy stroll across stage, smiling for the occasional camera and blushing at my whooping, hung over roommates. In less than a minute, in front of a sizable group of strangers, I transformed into an adult.

In the movies, this is where the flashback occurs. Everything turns to slow motion and indie mood music plays over a montage of the past, all that has happened to bring the smiley character to that point in time. In real life, the reminiscing happens much later.

But eventually we all think back to our childhood, reflecting on the half-baked aspirations of what we wanted our third grade selves to become. The vocational wish list for boys has been the same since the dawn of time: fireman, cowboy, fighter pilot, Batman, police officer, and, of course, ninja.

But no seven year-old, after hearing the glitzy occupations proposed by his friends, confesses an undying passion to be wrenched from sleep at 5:30 in the morning by an unfamiliar voice inquiring whether he wants to tend a classroom of sugar- and cable TV-intoxicated miscreants for 65 dollars before taxes.

When semester breaks came in college, I was on the make for disposable income. With no job to fall back on and no desire to work at any of the Dunkin' Donuts franchises in town, I signed up to be a substitute teacher.

This, I'd later realize, was job training.

In the academic world, substitutes are to certified teachers as Officer Krupke is to the FBI. And after graduating with a bachelor's degree in English, that's what I became: the scholastic equivalent of mall security.

Busy Work: (n.) the bane of any Student's existence; a cold-blooded, remorseless killer of trees.

Though I don't recall the names from my formative years, there are a certain few disgruntled faces lurking in the deep recesses of my psyche. Their age varied at times, but they all wore the same tired expression: something frowny and organic, built up over many shitty mornings. They'd clomp up to the desk carrying a book I never heard of, or knitting needles, and introduce themselves. Next they gave the class the Spiel, something we substitutes all possess, loosely translated as:

"I am a stranger and you cannot know my first name. Your Real Teacher has left you Busy Work, because I am incapable of conducting an Actual Lesson. I will hand out the sheet or give you the page numbers, and you will go to work. Remain quiet, as I am already unhappy, and continued senseless chatter will cause me to become more so."

Following the Spiel, they'd give us work and we would get to it, more or less, and carry on with our conversations. Mr. or Mrs. Whatever would yell, threatening some Vaguely Fictitious Punishment and continue reading his or her book or knitting his or her sweater. This scenario repeated itself several times until the bell rang.

The last names have escaped me, but I remember their mood, because the mood of a substitute teacher runs on a continuum. Dark clouds swirl overhead, breaking only during prep periods, undisturbed lunch breaks, and the afternoon exodus. This maelstrom of turmoil and self-loathing leaves them in a constant state of irritation, as if they locked their keys in the car moments before stepping into class.

*

My first job out of college was a year of indentured servitude at a prestigious and pricey middle school outside of Boston. My title was intern, which is a important-sounding alias for a substitute. Interns are the few, the proud occasionally, underpaid catchalls of the independent school system.

That first year was mercurial to say the least. Now and then, I'd ride the pine in the back of someone's classroom, pretending to listen, but more often I'd be on the internet; a 22-year-old in khakis, tie and a blazer, burning my tongue on the morning coffee, holding email conversations about nothing in particular with a college roommate. Those days usually included a heavy dose of SportsCenter and a nap. Other times I'd be called into action first thing in the morning.

The more painful chats during the early-hour caffeine binge involved subbing for math. Then, under contractual obligation, I skulked into a classroom wallpapered with arithmetic posters to bullshit my abilities to not only teach, but teach a subject in which I'm fairly certain I have a mild learning disability.

Another hardship of intern life came at lunch duty. Familiar with the phrase from childhood, I now understand the inglorious nature of the assignment. Never was it called Midday Food Occasion or Minimal Effort Luncheon Responsibility, but it carried the moniker of Duty, as if it was an auxiliary function of the Marine Corps. I'd sit at a randomly assigned table, forced to eat with middle or, even worse, elementary school students for upwards of 35 minutes. I did my best to avoid eye contact and conversation altogether as they haphazardly dumped mashed potatoes into their faces and held discussions of nothing intellectual whatsoever.

On other instances, I would fill in for the phys ed teacher. And after four minutes of playing pillowy orb Dodgeball, I had more than one student crying and more than five pointing the finger at alleged rule-breakers.

Another day, in the pouring autumn rain, I even drove to pick up pizzas.

The year ended and I moved back to New Hampshire. Back to the life I tried to escape in the first place by moving to Massachusetts. The summer went, and near the end of my tether of sanity, I got a call.

Bullshit: (v.) to feign knowledge of certain key facts, concepts, student names, important dates, etc. over the course of a school day, school year.


The prestigious and pricey middle school gave me a contract to teach a month of seventh and eighth grade history. From there I'd move down to sixth grade for a maternity leave-long stint as a language arts teacher, all the while coaching three sports and frantically searching for affordable health insurance.

Teaching sixth grade was the most substantial thing I had done since graduating. For an instant in my newfound adulthood, I called myself a Real Teacher. I had my own classroom, planned my own lessons, and taught awkward 12 year-olds the subordinate clause. That time, albeit brief, showed me I was finally in possession of What It Takes.

But just as I started to get comfortable, the teachers I filled in for were welcomed back. They answered questions about their health and produced pictures of their newborns, and eventually my name was removed from my temporary educational abode and dropped into the recycle bin. An environmentally conscious, but abrupt reminder of my impermanence.

As soon as the Real Teachers settled in at their desks, I relocated to the back burner, and waited impatiently for a phone call.

*

There isn't much glamor in the idea of waking up early to sit in front of nameless adolescents and distribute work they don't want to do. Something shakes loose in a child when they see a stranger behind the desk of the person they normally irritate. The moral fibers twist and shrink, and they develop superhuman abilities to slack off and act out simultaneously.

Hoodlum youngsters aside, the other burden is the lesson plan left by the Real Teacher, who I imagined not being sick with the flu but lounging on the couch drinking bourbon, catching up on recorded television shows. Lesson plans, especially for a sub, are merely a quixotic blueprint. They assign Busy Work to each class, jockeying groups of students into uniform sample sizes ostensibly capable of making it through one period without killing me or one other in the process. If the plans happen to be handwritten, the day is a wash, as there's no deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls in time to placate the class into doing anything productive.

Being a sub means shooting for a mediocre day: a period of time from 7:30 to 3:30 where students do or, at the very least, pretend to do classwork.

Being a sub means subjecting yourself to the unpredictability of the phone call. It could come the night before, but as such things go, it primarily arrives in the sleepy hours of the morning, the time when the naked movie star is about to do something excitable.

We are the warm bodies: the seemingly responsible presence that ensures minimal issues for the Real Teacher to deal with upon return. We are the underpaid bouncers taking care of unruly patrons hopped up not on alcohol, but the Red Bull and Sour Patch Kids they demolished on the bus ride to school.

Can I Go to the Bathroom?: Frequently asked, grammatically incorrect question.

I imagine the union meetings of the local Substitute Teachers Guild taking place in a building resembling the Elks Club in my hometown. Fluorescent lights illuminate the room, the oppressive kind, with the token few bulbs long defunct but never changed. The ceiling tile is weathered with age, stained by water damage from a leaky roof and the soda splatter of too many middle school semi-formals.

We file in, mumbling vaguely polite greetings to each other. In the oversized room there is a spread of decrepit metal folding chairs that remind me of a church basement. There is a table with aging coffee and cruller donuts ornately displayed on a plastic tray. Another is littered with crossword puzzles and back issues of Newsweek and Reader's Digest, there for the taking or the donation.

After milling about, we take our seats and someone starts the meeting. Someone with blood, sweat, and tears in the business. A lifer, a veteran. Somebody, I realize, I once annoyed.

This is my first time, so it feels like an AA meeting. The permeable aroma of coffee and cigarettes and old-people-perfume hangs in the air. Everyone seems unhappy, but we're there for the same reason. I notice the age difference, and it's startling. And segregated. The young try not to talk about what brought us here, just that we're here.

We have a hard time paying attention and check our phones more than we should. The Elders target us as non-believers, just as they did when they barked orders in third period algebra. Some young member mentions the idea of a guild Facebook page for continued discussions and solidarity. We hear groans and guffaws throughout the crowd. Mrs. Leary halts her sudoku, looks up and sighs.

The meeting ends and we file out. The young members head to a bar to poke fun at the Elders and hatch plans on finding a Real Job. We try to figure out what went awry along the way that brought us to this perplexing moment. Rudderless and confused. We worry this is what our lives will amount to: being a grown-up and being unhappy, surrounded by diminutive humans that won't listen to a thing we say.

We feel disingenuous, like we don't belong. But we need to do what we can to pay bills. This is our life for now. We plot against the Elders. We want out. The meetings are boring, the company is dreary, and the coffee sucks. But someday we will hand in our union cards and start fresh somewhere else. Someday soon, we say.

We finish our beer and head home. We need our rest. After all, the phone might ring early the next morning with a caffeinated voice telling us of a school to drive to and children to herd.