Jedi Substitute Teaching

Because a Mandalorian couldn't get through the metal detectors

“Did you see the bear?” I asked my middle school students casually on Friday.

“The bear? Where?”

“Over there,” I pointed to the window.

The kids rushed to look out the window. No bear.

In a middle of the day class one of the kids joined in.

“Yeah Miss I saw the bear. It was big.”

“I saw the bear too!” said another boy at the table with me.

Suddenly the back table of kids likely to act up heard us.

“A bear? There’s a bear? Where?”

“Over there,” we all said.

Some general freaking out ensued, then they calmed right down and were pretty chill for the rest of class.

Later on I asked some boys what the difference between basketball and football is. They dutifully pulled up pictures of basketballs and footballs.

“Football… like the Eagles,” one kid said.

“Oh yeah, go birds, right?”

“Yeah, Miss! Go birds! That’s right!”

“They’re endangered, aren’t they? Eagles?”

“No Miss, not that kind of eagles!”

I finally let them know that I really do know the difference between basketball and football, that my dad loved Duke basketball, and that I don’t understand football but I know what it is. They enjoyed the game.

Substitute teaching is a fine art. It has more in common with improv comedy than anything else, at least the way I do it. My most important duty is to keep the kids safe, which is non-trivial in the kinds of schools where I teach. I have seen serious fights, usually between girls, that resulted in injuries to students and teachers. Given that I have no actual power and am not in the slightest bit physically intimidating unless you are a flea, I have to use other techniques to keep the kids engaged. Things devolve in a split second if they aren’t continually engaged in some way, especially in seventh, eighth and ninth. Older grades have different challenges but are physically easier. When I sub middle and ninth I rarely sit down. Sometimes the layout of the room and the vibe makes it possible to plant myself at a table with some kids or at the front of the room for a bit, but circulating pretty much constantly is required. I’ve put many steps in that way.

When I’m working I have to be 100% present, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Constantly scanning for danger. Making decisions every few seconds about what behavior to engage with and what to ignore. Kids have their phones out - the bane of educators’ existence - I have to tell them to put it away. In the charters they expect us to enforce the rules, and the administrators back me up when I do so. When you are a teacher, especially if you’ve fought the Battle of the Phone in a school where you were full time and had no administrative back up, watching an administrator take a phone that a kid refused to put away is up there with watching Victor Laszlow say, “Play la Marseillaise.” Yes, I ran guns to Ethiopia and fought against the fascists in Spain. Yes, the winning side would have paid me better. Thank you, thank you Mr. Dean or Assistant Principal. Civilization may yet survive.

I wrote earlier about what I try to teach the students I work with. On Friday I had some very interested eighth graders who asked me questions about retirement. How does it work? What’s a pension? So I explained defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans, social security, and why it’s important that if you employer offers a 401k match, you put in as much as you can, at least as much as the employer will match. Else, you’re leaving money on the table. These kids do not want to leave money on any table!

They were riveted. I’ve given that lesson to groups of union nurses more times than I can count, but these kids were the most fun. They were very confused about the fact that the government does not administer 401k plans. The idea of private industry is not normal for them. What will happen if generations of a neighborhood are dependent on government assistance? The children will come to expect that the government provides and controls everything. I gave them a window into what it’s like in the world of the private sector. Now these kids know the difference between a W-2 and a 1099, how you get Social Security, and how to think about saving for retirement. What a great way to end the week!

I used to hesitate to tell people that I was a substitute teacher. Last year I was full time for the end of the year so I could just say, “I’m a teacher,” which gets a certain amount of respect, though not as much as it should. One of my SAT prep kids last summer asked me, “Why are you a middle school teacher when you went to Yale?” As you might imagine, I kindly and politely gave him some things to think about.

Teaching is an honorable profession. It’s also a secure life if you do it full time. Good benefits, if low salaries, and a schedule you can count on. No travel. More people with Ivy League degrees should do it. Educating the next generation is one of the most important things you could do with your life. Perhaps I have this in common with my Jewish mother Substack blogger friends (Hey Rivka and EKB!) - we do work that is undervalued by society, underpaid or unpaid, and without us the next generation will either not exist or will exist but will drift into jail or worse because they can’t read, write or think.

I’m proud of what I do now. Subbing gives me the freedom to do other things too, like write, work on projects with my favorite colleagues from other careers, and take the time when I need it to take care of myself and my cat. I want to get something more stable and with benefits, but not because I feel like what I do is not good enough. It just doesn’t pay enough or have health benefits. As “right livelihood” as we call it in Zen, it checks the box.

Subbing also lets me go from one place to another, satisfying my need to make connections but not be tied down. I’m happy to stick to three schools, but I do enjoy being able to go from one to the other. A day with high school boys is fascinating, exhausting and exhilarating. Contrast that with a morning with high school seniors at a coed school, midday with tenth graders and finishing off after lunch with a rousing round of seventh, and I’ve seen more in one day than most people see all year. Sure, I’d love the stability of knowing where I was going every morning. But I also know, at the end of the day, that I probably will be somewhere else tomorrow. It makes it easier to maintain just a touch of detachment that helps me sleep better.

Hmmmm… maybe that’s why I’m not married…

Do you ever meet someone who is good looking, smart, successful, appears stable (emphasis on appears!) and is not married? Do you wonder why they are not married? Why has someone not put a ring on that fine specimen of male or female?

People tend to assume I’m married. I wear a ring on my ring finger that could be mistaken for an interesting engagement or wedding ring. It was a fortieth birthday gift. In my school teacher outfits I look like a nice married woman who is perhaps quite fond of cats. The other day I was wearing my black cat skirt (you can get one on Amazon!) with black cat earrings, and I always wear a black cat necklace when I’m not wearing my Star of David. A student asked me, “Miss, do you like cats?” “What would make you think that?” I asked earnestly.

Single childless cat lady for law and order, at your service.

Funny how I miss the rush of teaching kids new things, even when I’m just away for the weekend. Getting them to engage their brains, to think outside their narrow world, to ignore their screens and really have a conversation… it’s so much like organizing. It’s what I miss - extremely concrete incremental change. I don’t mind if others want to sit in tanks and think and write articles about how to change the world - have at, I enjoy reading. But I like to actually do it, and there is no change other than one minute at a time, one person at a time. All great movements were made with one on one conversations.

I had almost given up before I started at my favorite schools. The things I’ve seen and the ways I’ve been treated are so bad that I had nightmares about it all summer, and for a long time after I quit my full time teaching job in 2022. If administrators give one inch to the forces of chaos, schools will drown in it. There is no going back from permissive standards and letting kids run the place. Children need discipline, order and structure. Everyone does, but especially kids from chaotic homes and communities. We are their stability.

“They must be the only male role models some of these kids have,” my close friend said to me today. I was going on and on as I do about Mr. J and Dean L, who are so supportive and give so much for the kids, who helped me out a great deal last week.

“With fathers and uncles locked up or dead, yes.”

Fathers, brothers, uncles… too many are gone. For whatever reason. The men I work with have stepped in to provide the male leadership that young men need. I can’t do that. They need those men who care about them enough to make sure there are appropriate consequences for all behavior, good and bad.

The little ones are so young. Sixth and seventh graders are tough because their brains and bodies are growing faster than their impulse control can keep up with. They have so much energy, and aggression, and they need healthy outlets like sports. I love watching them play on the playground after school as I’m walking home, when I no longer have to say, “Hands to yourselves please!” For the most part, they won’t actually hurt each other. Rough housing outside is a natural part of growing up for boys, and some girls. Some of the girls will run around the basketball court with the best of the boys. I was never that kind of girl, but many are. I hope they always know that that is just as valid a way to be a woman as is dressing up in high heels or… middle school teacher clothes!

Had things gone the way I might have thought they would, I would not be substitute teaching in a tough neighborhood in a deep blue city in a swing state. Maybe I’d still be making six figures and living in a high rise apartment in Jersey City or Center City or King of Prussia or somewhere I’ve never thought of. Maybe I’d be married or maybe divorced… if is a blank check that’s impossible to cash. I know that when I was making six figures in Manhattan I was nowhere near as happy as I am in a classroom of eighth graders.

Or maybe ninth.

Nobody in their right mind loves a room full of eighth graders… except the kind of person who would ride a dragon to school if only there were a place for the dragon to land without knocking over the building. It’s a problem, parking your dragon in the city. So I walk. But watch out for dragons. They tend to congregate along Baltimore Avenue. Don’t worry, they only eat the bad kids, so you’re fine. But bad kids… so crunchy!