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

The guidance counselors went into detail about emergency lockdown procedures and iPads — every student was issued an iPad — and class schedules. There was a certain block of time called STAR, which stood for “Students and Teachers Achieving Results,” which seemed to involve silent reading. Substitute teachers deserved the same level of respect that everyone else at the school received, said the guidance counselors. Students must dress and act appropriately — no spaghetti straps, no short shorts, no T-shirts with references to tobacco or alcohol, no hugging, no kissing. No cellphones in class. We were to separate students who were being excessively chatty, they said. If a particular student was causing trouble, we should first try to “redirect” him or her, and if they continued to act up, then call the office. “When you call, you could say, ‘I’ve tried to redirect so-and-so several times and they’re not following directions and they’re being disruptal.’” The guidance counselor paused, puzzled. “Disruptful?”

“Disruptive,” Shelly suggested.

“Disruptive, thank you! I was an English major, which is scary.”

We broke into groups and did some role-playing about how to deal with excessive chattiness and then I got very sleepy. I was on the verge of nodding off when I heard Shelly say, “Thank you again for coming,” and the class was over.

I drove home thinking that as soon as you sit down in a class, even a class you’re looking forward to, you begin to want it to be over. Even if you’re really interested in what’s going on — and I was interested in this substitute training class — there’s an intense impatience to be done. I marveled that children were asked to sit in classes all day long. Such brightly lit classes, too.

—

A WOMAN FROM IDENTOGO called to set up a second fingerprinting appointment. I apologized to her for having hard-to-scan fingers. “It happens to a lot of people,” she said. “Usually it’s poor ridge quality, or oily fingertips.” She said that if I failed three times, then they would just perform a “name check” on me — nothing to worry about.

I drove back to the fingerprinting office and washed my hands carefully twice. Again most of my fingerprints were rejected.

“See you again, maybe,” I said.

“I hope not,” said the fingerprint woman.

—

ON THE LAST DAY of substitute class, Shelly put out bowls of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups at each table for us to eat. Mr. Clapper, a beefy man with a coach’s raspy, commanding voice, was there with two of his senior staff — he called them “ladies”—to tell us how Lasswell High School worked. Mr. Clapper had taught health and physical education for twenty years, he said, and he’d coached the Lasswell football team, and then he became assistant principal and still coached the football team, and now he was Lasswell’s principal. “We have a shortage of substitutes,” he said, “and a large part of that is because some of our subs are snowbirds. They are someplace warm right now, as opposed to being available.” He talked about Lasswell’s class schedule. “Our blocks are roughly fifty-seven minutes long, and the students have six minutes to pass in between classes. Lunch happens in three segments, so some of our blocks are broken in two with lunch in between. And then we have one full block at the end of the day.”

One of Mr. Clapper’s guidance counselors passed around a sample folder of sub plans. “You’ll get a roster that you mark off for attendance,” she said. “You send one of those nice, trustworthy students right down to the office to bring it down for you.” She smiled. “They’ll be back very quickly, I’m sure.”

The sub plans would include IEPs and health concerns, the guidance counselor said. “If one of our students has seizures, that might be something you would need to know.” Substitute teachers really had to pay attention to the bell schedule, she added. “Kids will work on you. They’ll say, ‘We want to leave for lunch early, we’re starving.’ They’ll badger you. Don’t let them do that. They’re great kids and you’ll enjoy them, but they are teenagers, and they may try to pull one over on you.” Every high school student had an iPad, and iPads were for class work, not for games or social networks. Cellphones should not be out in class — they could be used between classes. “We want to keep hands off of kids,” she added, “not grabbing them, or putting a hand on their shoulder, or touching them in any way, shape, or form.”

Mr. Clapper talked at length about lockdown procedures and fire drills. “We’ve been throwing curveballs,” he said. For instance, they recently did a fire drill within a lockdown drill. Another time they sent a decoy class through the halls to lure students and teachers into thinking the lockdown was over, when it wasn’t.

Shelley handed us evaluation forms to fill out, and signed certificates saying we had successfully completed the course. “So,” she said, “you’ve gotten a picture of elementary school, a picture of middle school, and now you have a picture of high school. And you never really know how it’s going to go until you set foot in each place.” She gave each of us a last list of suggested educational games. “I’ve enjoyed doing this,” she said. “Thank you for everything. Safe travels.” We all said goodbye and thank you and waved at each other and crunched over broken bits of ice to our cars.

—

I SPENT A DAY FILLING OUT many pages of application forms for RSU66. There were actually two parallel sets of forms — one on SchoolSpring, a school employment website, and one on paper, with supplemental questions. I forwarded letters of recommendation and college transcripts, and I checked off that I’d be willing to substitute in all grades, at all schools. “Becoming a substitute teacher seems like the best, most direct way to learn how classrooms work,” I wrote in the cover letter.

I dropped off the forms and waited. Soon I got a cardboard fingerprint card in the mail — IdentoGO had determined that I was not a criminal. I danced around the kitchen waving it in the air, and then I dropped by Shelly’s office so that her assistant could make a copy. The next day I got an email: “Congratulations, Nick — you’ve been added to our Substitute Teacher List! You may begin getting calls as early as today.”

I was a teacher.

LASSWELL HIGH SCHOOL, SPECIAL ED MATH

SMALL BUT HOSTILE

THE CALL CAME IN at five-forty in the morning, plinking from under my pillow. Would I be interested in filling in for a day for a math teacher named Mrs. Prideaux, in a resource room at the high school? I said I’d give it a shot, and I kissed my sleepy wife and took a shower and put on my good shoes and a sport jacket and drove for a long time in the dark, over hilly rural roads, eating a toasted waffle. There had been a sudden thaw overnight, and the predawn traffic moved slowly through the side-sliding snowmist.

The buses, about twenty of them, were already queuing up as I reached the turn into the parking lot, where a sign announced that Lasswell High School was a tobacco-free area. I parked in the back, near the athletic field, a blank white plain with low shapes of cold fog slipping through the goalposts.

Hundreds of slow-moving, sleepy students were getting off buses and filing into a pair of side doors, supervised by several silent adults with clipboards. The idling engines of the buses made a heavy, steady noise; they exhaled plumes of exhaust, like cows waiting to be milked. There was a big stop sign on the door, ordering visitors to check in at the front office.

I told one of the grownups that I was a substitute and asked where the office was. He pointed down a hall. “Thank you for helping out,” he said. I waved.