Nicholson Baker: Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

Then Shelly taught us how to play a math game called What’s My Number? She’d used it on her sixth-graders with great success. Each of us got an index card. One of the would-be substitutes read her card: “I have twenty-four — who has two more?”

There was a silence. I stared down stupidly at my card, which said 26. Suddenly my heart thumped. “I do, I think,” I said. “I have twenty-six. Who has ten less?”

Somebody said, “I do. I have sixteen — who has half of me?”

Another pause. An answer. A question. We went around the room doing mental computations, not always correctly. “Anyway, just something fun,” said Shelly. She told us we might consider assembling a little canvas bag of puzzles, games, and “motor breaks,” for those moments when a classroom was getting fidgety, especially toward the end of the day. “Any questions?”

The man who used to sell artists’ supplies asked what time we might get a call from the sub caller.

“If it’s middle school or high school, I think she starts calling as early as five or five-thirty in the morning,” Shelly said. “Not only does she have to fill every spot, she has to give you time to travel.” High school and middle school officially began at seven-thirty. “You don’t want to arrive any later than seven o’clock.” Elementary school began later, at nine a.m., so we’d need to be there at eight-thirty. There was a need for subs at all grade levels.

She also told us about the mandatory fingerprinting and criminal background check, which cost fifty dollars. We’d need to make an online appointment to be fingerprinted.

At nine o’clock, class was done. “I left for work at six-thirty this morning, so I’ll be glad to get home,” Shelly said. “Have a good night, everyone.” We thanked her and walked out into the icy, gritty wasteland of the parking lot and drove home.

—

THE RECEPTIONIST at RSU66’s fingerprinting office said, “The little boys’ room is just down the hall on your left. I’d like you to get your hands nice and soapy and clean, and then take a chair, and Sharon will be with you shortly.”

My fingerprinting session went poorly. Sharon, the fingerprint technician, held my hand and helped me roll my fingers over the little glass scanning window, but each time, after a moment of computation, an image of my fingertip would appear on her computer screen with little mauve areas superimposed on it that indicated biometric inadequacies, and then a rectangle would pop up saying REJECTED. After many tries and much sighing Sharon overrode the system and sent my flawed scans off to the identity service, IdentoGO, run by MorphoTrust USA, a subsidiary of Safran, which is a French manufacturer of aerospace components, bombs, and drones. “We’ll see what they say,” she said. Some people just didn’t fingerprint well, apparently. “I had one woman in here, she was a pianist, and she’d worn her fingerprints away. Do you do a lot of typing?” I said I typed all the time. “That’s probably it,” she said.

—

ON THE SECOND TUESDAY NIGHT, I told Roy, the former seller of artists’ supplies, that the idea of being in front of a class of kids frankly scared me.

“They say ex-military make good substitutes,” Roy said. We laughed nervously.

“So, we can get started,” said Shelly.

She introduced two women, Mrs. Norris, principal of Wallingford Elementary School — one of four elementary schools in the district — and Mrs. Ecklin, RSU66’s director of special education. Mrs. Ecklin gave us an overview of some relevant vocabulary. Children who were diagnosed as having some sort of disability were given an IEP, or Individualized Education Plan; a list of IEP students in a class was usually to be found in the sub folder, along with any “accommodations” they were entitled to, such as extra help with taking a test. On the Individualized Education Plan were various codes: LD meant learning disability — for instance, dyslexia — ED meant emotional disability, S&L meant speech and language complications, and OHI stood for “Other Health Impairment,” a catchall that included attention deficit disorder, depression, autism, deafness, blindness, and anxiety. “Anxiety is a huge one at the middle school and high school,” Mrs. Ecklin said. “It’s even trickling down to the elementary school.” Kids who’d had cancer treatment were sometimes classed under OHI, because chemotherapy drugs can cause mental problems. “Unfortunately, the law is we have to label them to give them services,” she said.

Mrs. Norris, the principal, said, “Never make the assumption — not that you would — that because a child has an identifying label that somehow is indicative of their intellectual capabilities. I’ll never forget the child who was identified LD with an IQ of 142. When it came to phonemic awareness, he struggled, but when something was read to him, his capacity to understand it and give it back to you was off the charts. Every child should be treated as though he or she was your daughter, your son, your niece, your nephew, your grandchild — with dignity and respect and empathy. They did not leave their home that morning saying to themselves, ‘I’m going to go to school and be as naughty as I can and make the teacher’s life as miserable as I can.’ I’ve been doing this for twenty-nine years. I’ve never met a child who’s had that intent. Now, do things get in the way, and cause them to be quite challenging at times?” She laughed. “Yes! But you have to take a step back, and ask yourself what it is that they’re lugging. Did they have breakfast that morning? Did someone yell at them? Did someone hit them? Did their brother lock them out? As a substitute, you don’t know them and don’t know their history, and you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. You have to assume, whatever it is that they’re doing, whether it’s yelling, screaming, throwing something, calling you a name, that there’s a reason behind it that has very little to do with you. The more compassionate and empathetic you are, and the calmer you are, the more success you’ll have.”

Use humor, not the hammer, Mrs. Norris said. “Humor will defuse and be your friend. And if they say something funny — sometimes they’ll say stuff and it’s genuinely funny and it’s not hurting anybody, it’s just funny — it’s okay to say, ‘Hah, that was a good one.’” Then move on. But don’t let chaos spread, she said. You can do a lot with a raised eyebrow, a warning look. “That’s the biggest mistake subs make — they give kids too much rope.”

Mrs. Ecklin said, “I’ve been in special ed for thirty years and it’s the really naughty ones I really like.”

Mrs. Norris said, “We both like quirky, naughty children. We love them. Kids know if you’re pretending to like them or if you really like them. If you do really like kids and you show it, they’ll eat out of your hand.” Show that you’re vulnerable, she advised. Apologize to a student for getting off on the wrong foot, even if the student was being a holy terror. “There will be days when you’ll think, Okay, I wonder if Walmart needs a greeter. But you always come back. It’s probably the most rewarding job you’re ever going to do. Especially when kids get it and they tell you at the end of the day, ‘I love you.’ You might be the only person who says something nice to them — the only person who cares about them — all day long. Unfortunately that’s the case for some of our kids. So do your best to make their day a really good day, no matter how they make your life miserable.”

After some words of wisdom about fire drills and lockdown procedures and proper clothing, Shelly wrapped up the class and we went home.

—

ON THE THIRD TUESDAY, Shelly introduced three friendly, snappily dressed guidance counselors who were there to talk about Lasswell Middle School. The middle school had two floors, we learned, and it held sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders divided into nine teams, each with ninety students. The teams were named for great rivers of the world, Nile, Orinoco, Yangtze, Mississippi, Rhine, and so on.