Even grown ups need stickers

From the life of an urban substitute teacher

The desolation I see as an urban teacher is heartbreaking. Sometimes it’s too much… what can I do against a system that seems created to keep young people simultaneously helpless and violent?

I am a strong believer in charters because of my own experience. I am substituting now (my full time years almost killed me), and my two favorite schools are charters in walking distance of my house, but much deeper into the poverty and crime in the city. My two favorite schools have incredible administrators who walk the halls instead of staying in offices and do everything from break up fights to tell the children not to use words that people fought to get out of the English language. They are trying to enforce standards, not just of academics but of character. They back up the teachers, including this nomadic substitute, pushing back against the anti-education attitude of our community. Even the best of teachers - and I’ve known quite a few - need administrators who support, not punish them. Without that support, we are left out to drown.

One of my first two mentors in education was a former principal. He was teaching high school instead of working as an administrator by that time, but the kids had known him as a middle school assistant principal and principal. At a high school for tough kids: gang involved, already in the justice system, the kids knew this old white guy as fair, tough, but kind. I remember they’d occasionally say, “What are you doing here, pops?” Many of the young people had spent a considerable amount of their middle school careers in his office for getting in trouble, but they loved him.

The people I work with now remind me of that educator. It is not easy. Upholding a code of honor: hard work, dignity, respect for yourself, your peers and your teachers, is swimming upstream in this environment. If you don’t believe me come work in these schools, or any like them (Baltimore, Chicago, to name a few) and see for yourself.

It’s fashionable to blame systemic racism for the failure of schools, but that excuse is tired. The kids didn’t have choices in the chaos into which they were born, but the adults who educate them do. We have the choice to enforce the rules or let it slide. We have the choice to require more work, create challenging classes, and refuse to give grades that are not earned.

I’m a bit player in the scene, like an actress you remember from her younger days as a leading lady showing up for a cameo. But when I walk to work, I know I’ll be greeted by people who share my values, and who need me. If you’ve ever tried to fill empty classrooms where kids have tortured multiple teachers into quitting, you’ll understand the look of grateful desperation in the eyes of an Assistant Principal who got a good sub when a teacher called out at six am.

And the best part is: even administrators like stickers. As the person who has DC Comics, Marvel Comics and happy faces, I have the power to brighten even the grown ups’ days.