I am not a real teacher, though I play one on TV...

I really wish I hadn’t given away my sub suit. Got rid of it during the pandemic in one of those “locked down and livin’ large (in my walk-in)” closet purges. The black slacks and geometric print Chico’s blouse that had meant business for so many semesters as a substitute teacher was suddenly out of business. What was I doing on March 14, 2020, the last hour of the last day before the public school world shut down? Subbing! But seriously—dress slacks? Collared shirt?? Who wears those any more? Definitely the dodo bird of the wardrobe. Not quite as dated as my turtle necks, they were my power suit of academe, clearly communicating an advantage: I know something because I am old. Alas, like many these days, I am hard pressed to find anything with a waistband hiding in the recesses of my new Yoga-Jenny closet. After all, I’ve been on an 837 kilometer hike these many months. Traded my power suit for a power walk and find myself woefully unprepared for this gig. Will leggings do? Are stretch pants too big a stretch?

I knew from my earliest days crossing a parking lot at the University of Maryland to walk into the classroom as their English teacher how important are the clothes. I was 23. They were college juniors. Courage, self, said I. But it was a writing course and the first unit was Aristotle and the first lesson of the first unit was Ethos: the idea that your character, your credibility, your believability means something and is intrinsically linked to your integrity and your humanity. It is is what wins the day, every time. So I poured myself into that class, and to prove it I dressed like a teenager off to buy alcohol in my grandma’s Sunday best (ah, no, I do not know anything about that). I knew that what stood between me and “my” students was little more than a pair of heels and a black pencil skirt, so I used the clothes to create years where there weren’t any, or many. We were reading the same stuff, swimming in the same culture, drinking in the same bars but I got up many hours before them and determined myself to stay a week ahead in the reading, for each and every class. And I read and graded papers around the clock, taking their writing seriously and communicating the subject matter as if it was pure gold, which I still believe it is. Age aside, they may have seen through the outfit but they couldn’t see through me. Now, when Ellie and Sophie complain about their TAs I remind them that I once was one. No PhD, ’tis true. But I more than played the part. And dressed like it.

Enter 30 years. I love subbing. The very reason I reach for the same outfit like a uniform (different day = different school) makes life interesting. I wear a bunch of different hats. Except for a half dozen long-term posts, I never do the same thing twice. Mostly middle school and high school English, but also strings (my favorite), a history class or two and a really awesome teacher’s math class from time to time. Plus all the random stuff they send you to “cover” just for a block while you happen to be in the building: shop class, a horticulture class in some weird greenhouse/hanger/temporary structure whose teacher had left them a quiz without warning, gym class, library, lunch duty, ISS. My first sub job ever was for a gym teacher at a girl’s school (ironically, in stretch pants) scared out of my mind. I donned the sportiest get-up I could find, put a whistle around my neck and vowed they’d never see me sweat. I sub for all different grades, although I try to avoid elementary (SO much work!), and I confess to taking Kindergarten off my availability list after only one go. My word, those are some needy little persons. I have subbed in classes with my own children, something I used to relish with the girls and quickly backed off on with boy. [serious redactions for online purposes here]. And of course—the French, the one that gets my wanna-be all warmed up. All different schools, different ages, grades and subjects and each time, my little power suit bolstering me up, saying “TEACHER” loud and clear. When I walk quickly my lanyard badge flips over so you can’t see the thick yellow stripe that marks me out as a sub. It may get me a discount on a cup of coffee or at the craft store but it will not, like a real teacher’s badge, (literally) open doors. Sometimes I fear that instead of “teacher,” what it really says is “teach-her,” as in well that oughta. I am a walking, talking epitome of “fake it till you make it.”

My grad school advisor who hired me to teach English 391 so many years ago had an antidote for what she called “The Impostor Syndrome,” a condition which has followed me throughout the years, wearing its own selection of hats. “Believe in what you do,” she said. “And if you believe in it, they will too.” Hence the pouring of myself into the subject matter: Aristotle, Cicero, the common topics, the stases, the nuances of pathos, exigence, and the considerations of long-dead grammatical usage as out of vogue as my wardrobe. You didn’t know we could spend half the period on misplaced modifiers or the Oxford comma, did you? Help me, Aristotle. And he did. I followed rule number one: ethos. Character is everything. And I followed rule number two: pathos. They won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care… and I followed rule number 3: logos. Make the material make sense to their world. Make the disinterested engaged, the hostile curious, the over-indulged accountable, and all of them willing to learn, which takes as a given Premise #1: You can. In this regard, I, about-to-be-French-sub-lady, I have been a translator from day 1. Check out the mantra on my writing business page. No lie: “You can because I can help you!”

I love learning. It’s still the perfect use of time, in my mind. It’s free, it doesn’t break, grow old, die, or go out of style. It is constantly renewable and eminently shareable. It always works, never locks up, crashes, or kicks you off. In my epistemological worldview (See?? Talk the talk), sometimes the oldest models are the most trustworthy and sane. And, if they’re old enough, why, they’re practically novel. That’s right, who’s scouring the house for a boom box and gleefully escorting from the back room of the middle school library the sole remaining overhead projector in the building??! NOW we’re teaching with gas! They don’t call me old-school for nothing. More lasting than pretty much anything you can do, except maybe travelling, learning is life. That, and love, I think, are really the only antidote to our fleeting insignificance and eventual end. How’s that for some ontological underpinnings and metaphysical grounding? It is the connections, my people, and the connections borne of learning is powerful stuff indeed. Send me to class, because I still believe in the power of learning to change the world.

And the other thing I love? Well, I’m a card-carrying mom, so like a mom, I love these people before I even meet them. I do. Children, even the old ones, are simply lovely people. And even when they’re naughty they’re endearing and true, or endlessly heartwarmingly ridiculous in a way that is so easy to believe in and attach to. Don’t believe what you hear about this screen-depleted generation. They’re still in there! Except for a few middle school boys I’ve had to stand down over the years, I am instantly invested and after their best before they even know what hit them. That’s a mom for you, dispensing unsolicited advice and driving people batty with their own welfare: “Ok favorite people, let’s make sure we turn things in today!” “Whatever you finish in class you won’t have to do later.” “That’s right, get ‘er done!” “Give yourself a night off, won’t that be nice—Yep! Let’s get this done now before the end of class.” “Let’s see, what do you have, what is this? What is that? This is the part, here. We need to finish this. Here let me help you…All aboard the I-work-because-I-care club!” And, to the boy at the pencil sharpener or the little girl on her 4th return from the restroom: Did you finish your sheet? Did you hand it it? Is your name on it? How’d you do? Did you do your best? Are your shoes tied? Do you have a snack? Are you SURE you ate breakfast this morning?

Let’s face it, this ain’t my first gig as a sub, so to speak. Long a fill-in for church roles, reading or teaching or baking or filling one of the many ways holes that happen in a congregation, a clergy spouse is a kind of permanently willing and always-count-on, as is each member of the family. “SURE! I’ll read, lead, host, plan, teach and tend what needs. Just like mommy-hood, it is the need that activates us and not, say, any particular agenda we might have for the day. Part fill-in, part “extra,” I stand where another would be, if they could be. Makes me think of my own French boy, far away and prevented from repeating his exchange for two years now: (See To Mother Another July 2019). For that matter, for years I filled in in my own home as a step-parent, the mother of all “subs.” It don’t matter what you wear or how early you get up or how hard and fast and furiously you work to get ahead on that one, you’ll always know you’re not the real deal. Maybe it is this role that has taught me the most and shaped the ethos I bring to the classroom: I may not be the one, but I am a one. One who truly cares. Strip away that unfavorable definition of a “sub” as a temporary stand-in, less-than, wanna-be and what do you get? One who is under you, one who supports you—like a sub-structure or a sub-terranean bunker. One who is always there for you. The one under you, lifting you up. That kind of sub.

I suit up Monday for the classroom as a fulltime sub in French. Maternity leave. Ooh la la! Seemed like such a good idea when I accepted last summer. My thinking then: Bien Sur! Parfait! (I really did think it was perfect. At the time). My thinking now: Zut alors! and this: I have nothing to wear. Jokingly via text, I suggest to Madame le Vrai (the one leaving) that she stay in class and I, Madame Bonne Chance, will go ahead and have the baby. Much better arrangement, n’est ce pas? Over the summer, for some courage I corresponded with the people who will find this whole proposition hysterical: the girls I went to France with—oh, three decades ago, my French families newly synched on Facebook and WhatsApp, the family I lived with near Paris 35 years ago, the little French nut who landed here one summer and the French girl before him. Can you believe? Guess what?! Oui, c’est moi. C’est incroyable! C’est fou! Camille doesn’t know it yet, but I have designs on that boy. How do you say “pen pal” en francais? Mais oui! His folks always wanted him to learn fluent English. Pourquoi pas? Will they help me? They may, when they stop laughing. Fear not, mes amis, what is learned in youth and well learned stays with, you know? And hey! I didn’t earn the coveted French Dictionary award in high school for nothing. Just pause a minute and think on that alone—a time when a bound 478-page Cassels Dictionary with its perky blue leatherette binding was a prize? You’ll have to pause a moment from feeding the pot bellied stove in that one-room school house to ponder it. And yes, it is mine all these years.

Day one, the ride to school. Boy to his and me to mine: “Mom,” says my reality check, my 15-yr-old ticket to the future, “Mom, they’re going to sit in different seats. You know that, right?” He is referring to the infamous “substitute shuffle,” where yes, the doe-eyed and “yes Ma’am” little darlins’ casually assume a seating chart of their choice before I even call roll. All the while with perfectly straight faces, agreeable and polite as the day is long. Then when I try to match up their actual names with the bodies in the seats it gets all messed up and takes twice as long as it should. When I try to call on one by name or take note of the two conducting a block-long yap-a-thon, they know—and I know—they will remain nameless and therefore unaccountable. A student’s most coveted status: anonymity. You can’t touch me because you don’t know who I am. They’ll do other stuff, too. Ask to go to the bathroom nine times in a single block, sharpen their pencils continuously till only nubs remain (which they’ll toss in the recycling bin, along with the empty water bottle they cracked throughout the lesson), settle personal rifts the real teacher had a full read on and kept in check until she stepped out. My last post of spring 2021 (a harmless 6th grade math class) involved, I kid you not, what seemed like an entire gallon of ice tea spilled into another girl’s backpack. Into the backpack! Yes, sweet tea, and no, not a soul could tell you how. They’ll tell lies on the real teacher a mile high: “Mrs. O’Sure ALWAYS takes us outside…” and “No, for real, Mr. Get-a-Clue lets us go at 1:15 (over 20 minutes before the actual bell). Yea, no, he does. Yes, every block. Honest.”

To be fair, they’ll tell lies on me to the teacher when she returns. Talkin’ trash on how mean, boring, or clueless I was. “No way! The sub didn’t tell us we had a quiz next block,” and “Aw, man! She didn’t tell us this [paper clearly marked “HOMEWORK”] was due for homework.” Having Will, the student, brief me on classroom antics is a little like—ah, wellll…. you’ve seen the movie Silence of the Lambs, yes? That premise where they’re consulting an incarcerated psychopath on order to learn the ways and trap the new kid on the block? Well, it’s a loose comparison but why not? Just as quickly I let it go, knowing that been-there-done-that boy will be a tremendous asset (See upcoming “Vivre la Technologie” piece). In the end, I chose a striped top and some capris, more casual and a little less school-marm. When I took the girls to France three summers ago, they laughed at me that every shirt I brought was striped. Does it exude “Champs Elysees“? Not exactly. I thought what it said is, “When I’m not with you I’m at the beach or maybe the river”—the sort of look that lets them know I have a life. Mostly it says what I know best in so many different clothes, which may well be what is called for in the months to come: “Etudiante.” Student. Learner. This is a good ethos, yes?

Ahhh…the simple joys of the back to school season.

B.T.S = BE (kind). TO. SUBS.

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