I take a deep breath and enter the rambling brick school building. The reputation of “that school” is well known in education circles around the suburbs of Washington, DC. At 26 years of age, this 5’2″ (alternative fact for 5’1/2″) 115 pound wide-eyed substitute teacher is confident and determined. With apologies to USPS and in particular Seinfield’s Newman(!) I mouth the oath: “Neither middle school bullies nor wimpy dean nor the gloom of racial tensions would stay me from my subbing rounds.”
I enter first period history class at PS 666 Junior High. The noise emitting from 35 acne-faced heads is deafening. Grabbing the seating chart, I shout names hoping to control class with the proverbial Roll Call. That is what the profs promised in my not-too-distant classes at the UF College of Education. Johnson? He ain’t here. McMillan, She ain’t here. Tomillo, He ain’t neither, and the litany continues. If no one is present, who are all these smelly 8th graders?
Hey Lady, I gotta go. I hand a hall pass to 6′ basketball player #37. Five minutes later, Hey Teach, I gotta go. The second hall pass is handed to a Cindy Lauper lookalike wearing a tutu over faded holey Levis. I turn my back to the students (definite No-No!) to write the assignment on the blackboard. First Amendment, Free Speech. 2nd Amendment, Right to Bear Arms. Six windows and a door slams open then shut. I turn to face an empty classroom. A fading fragrance of pachouli, gym shoes and adolescent BO remain.
2nd period English class and this sub teacher is much wiser. Hey, Miss, I gotta go, a mumble from beneath a Washington Redskins’ knit cap. Déjà Vu all over again. I shake my head. No Hall Pass for you, kid. Now the pacing back and forth, and grabbing at himself, Michael Jackson-style, I applaud his performance. OK, Give me your shoe. Wha?? You get it back when you return to class. Wow, teach, you figured out a creative solution to the hall pass situation. I employ this until the last convoluted sentence is diagramed. The end of period bell chimes. On my teachers desk: a size-12 black converse, a brown Doc Martin, a once-white Nike and a sparkly green flip-flop.
Third period is Home Economics and I am so looking forward to a delightful bevy of future homemakers diligently peddling Singer sewing machines. Au contraire. Fifteen pre-teen Boy Band groupies lie lethargically on measuring tables. One is dangerously stepping over the others as she hops between dress patterns, pinking shears and reams of rainbow-covered fabric. Please step down, I say to the female flying Wallenda. My ears smart with her response, You can’t F-ing tell me what to do!., Coming from a would-be Martha Stewart sprawled across table three, She high, don’t mess with Gina. Ignoring the good advice, I grab the arm of the drug-enhanced flyer and pull her from a precarious edge. Get your hands off me, Bitch. My Dad is Senator Thomas and he’ll have your Ass! I don’t care who your father is, you will sit down in my classroom.
Halleluiah. The thankful lunch bell chimes. I am happier than a lunchroom lady forcing creamed peas onto a student tray. No veggies, no dessert! I leave classroom 207 and sprint down the hall in direction of the Faculty Lounge. I am an orange salmon swimming upstream against a waterfall of twelve hundred famished middle schoolers. You can run but you can’t hide.
I muddle through the next part of the day with mediocre success. Forth period, math. Very quiet, students sleep through this class, except for one future MIT physics major requesting my take on quantum theory. Fifth period, OK. Well perhaps having the entire PE class run off into the woods behind the school might be classified as a minor catastrophe.
Sixth period, just one more class to endure. After school I plan to sprint like… a coyote freeing his foot from a trap; the first eliminated candidate at the curtain of the Miss America show; a blind date escapee (but that’s another story). Last period, music theory. Beethoven’s Sonata #3 playing softly on the old cassette recorder while I explain the brilliant composer’s choice of C major for his masterpiece. The peaceful interlude interrupted by the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Two angry adolescents, one white, one black, eager to continue a modern-day Civil War in my classroom. When racial slurs turn to physical blows, I grab the pugilists by the nape of neck. On my tip-toes as they both tower above this height-challenged sub, I march them to the Dean’s Office. Back of their tee-shirts shout: Rap Ain’t Rape; and The Grateful Dead Ain’t.
Dean: What’s going on here?
Me: These guys were fist fighting in my classroom.
Dean: We allow our students to work out their own differences.
Me: They were banging heads on the floor, choking each other, violently pounding…
Thing One: The chick never advised me of my student rights.
Me: Hire your own lawyer. And isn’t that a joint in your pocket?
Dean: If you don’t see him smoke it, it’s only a Level I infraction.
Thing Two: Man, she grabbed us by our collars. Like I paid $52 for these threads.
Me: They’re all yours, Mr. Dean. I’m going back to my classroom.
Dean: Missy, Don’t you know…You never, ever, leave your students, no matter what.
Missy Chick returns to ye olde music room, expecting to open the door to strains of Ludwig’s soothing sonata. The decibel level surpasses the 117 record held by Deep Purple as the globes loudest band of that year 1972. Flying projectiles pelt the classroom: paper airplanes crafted from today’s music exams, pencils sharpened to deadly precision, three music stands and my teacher’s desk chair, a trajectory that barely misses my head. I slam the door and exit Stage Left.
Lesson #1: Do not allow students to leave the classroom without a hall pass. Never turn your back to the enemy. Most importantly, if all the students escape, tape this note in the glass square of the classroom door: TESTING DO NOT DISTURB!
Lesson #2: If you must allow students to leave the room, do not use the conventional hall pass or a shoe. Ensure that the exchange is something vital that they cannot live without…wallet, ring, cell phone, finger from right hand, etc. Better yet, never allow them to leave the classroom except on a stretcher or in a coffin.
Lesson #3: If a senator’s daughter threatens you with reprimand for disciplining her, when she asks your name, give an alias. Young lady, when you tell your senator daddy about me, make sure you spell my name correctly, T-H-A-T-C-H-E-R, Thatcher, first name, Margaret.
Lesson #4: Never proceed down the hall when students are changing classes. The tolerable–a pinch on the buttocks; the terrible–getting shoved against the wall; the traumatic–having a knife poked in your face. Middle School Substitute Teaching…it ain’t for sissies.
Lesson #5: When students get into a battle, allow them to fight to the end, Gladiator style. Take bets on the winner, keeping 40% for yourself. Request combat pay to augment your meager substitute salary.
Lesson #5: Never, ever substitute teach in middle school. Sub only in kindergarten where the worst thing that can happen is you put the wrong hand in for the Hokey Pokey.
One final thought for substitute teachers… Do not turn in unsmoked joints confiscated from students. They may be needed later for medicinal purposes.
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Living my personal mission statement, “Each One, Teach One,” my greatest blessing is being the mother of two, grandmother of three and a lifelong educator. A graduate of UF and UNF, I am the former principal of St. Paul’s Catholic School in Jacksonville Beach, Florida and executive director of Tree Hill Nature Center in Jacksonville.
Since retirement my avocation is now my vocation – freelance writing. The technical writing of past professional life evolved into more creative genres of poetry, short fiction and memoir. My goal is to invoke the entire spectrum of human emotions in my reader: longing to laughter, pain to promise, despair to discernment.
