Steve, you should become a substitute teacher!

My advice for my new friend Steve Scherer

Hi Steve!

I loved your article, My Journey From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver in Trump’s America! I highly recommend it to all my readers, and suggest that they stop now and click the link to read. Thank you for subscribing to my Substack too!

Your article hit a lot of nerves with me. I identify so much! Over a period of just a couple of years, I went from a six figure a year job in New York City to not knowing what I was going to do to make money in the hills of Southeastern Pennsylvania. If you’re going to go through an early midlife crisis, a Christmas tree farm outside of Reading is not a terrible place to do it. But living with my mom, trying to find a job that would allow me to finish the PhD I thought I wanted, and figuring out how to rebuild both my bank account and my self-esteem after unceremoniously crashing out of my own life was not easy. Let me tell you how I did it, and why I suggest you look into a similar path.

I arrived in Reading to stay in July of 2018. I had a Masters in Public Health with a perfect A and A+ transcript, earned in 2016 at age 41. I had a BA in history from Yale from 1996, earned at the traditional time. Left behind a twenty year, extremely successful career in the labor movement as an organizer, Director of Organizing, Director of Organizational Development and eventually leader of a union health benefit fund, and went back to school to do my Masters full time. So far, so good, but various difficulties arose, and I wound up running out of money, without a job and with a horrible case of PTSD with agoraphobia that made it hard for me to leave my apartment.

Freelance writing paid some of the bills but not enough. My position in a harm reduction nonprofit was very satisfying but didn’t pay enough. And living where I was had become unsustainable for lots of reasons. My mom had suffered a major medical error during a hip replacement, and she was having trouble with mobility and took a bad fall on the barn floor of the Christmas tree farm where she lived with her friend, the farm owner. We all decided it would be good for me and good for her for me to live there for awhile. So I put most of my furniture in storage and my cat in a carrier. Off to the farm we went.

I had only the money coming in from research I was doing on contract. I needed a W-2 job.

Enter Substitute Teaching.

Are you a Game of Thrones fan, Steve? If you are, you know the Faceless Men: trained assassins who pride themselves on becoming “no one.” This might be how you feel as an Uber driver: the identity you had is no longer how you are known. If you are used to putting a lot of your identity eggs in the work basket, you’re kinda out of luck right now. I get it - I was there. I had seen myself as my job for the first twenty years of my adult life, and it was a pretty good identity. Successful at a young age, in a profession that was demanding but paid okay after awhile and very well in the last ten years or so, and I found the work meaningful. It made me proud to be a union organizer. It was who I was.

Until I wasn’t.

I left the movement after careful consideration. My values were moving, though I didn’t realize that the time that I was moving more conservative. Mostly I was tired of doing the same show over and over again. I wanted to be in health care and public health, so I got that masters. Unfortunately, the first job I got was terribly ill suited to me (do not tie me to a desk for eight solid hours a day staring at Excel spreadsheets and expect me to live) and after I quit that, I didn’t quite get back up on my feet in good speed.

Skipping the unnecessary and boring parts: Reading, 2018. What to do?

Ad for Kelly Services. A great company to work for. Substitute teaching. A BA and a clean criminal record was all that was required, plus some online trainings. Done.

My first day at Reading High School, August 27, 2018, was exhausting, but I left having made $130 in W-2 work and realizing, “I can do this. No problem.”

On my second day, at a high school that was a split off for kids who had failed out of the main high school, many of whom were already criminal justice involved, I found something I never intended to find. I found a new thing to be.

My mentor, the head of ESL, picked me out because I was good with the kids who many teachers were afraid of. Somehow all my crazy experiences made me able to understand the kids, and I worked very well with them. I took a long term substitute job, went back for the PhD (eventually dropped out because I realized I didn’t want it and I was stupidly going into more debt to get it), and kept subbing until the pandemic closed the schools down and I got laid off.

Here are some things about substitute teaching that made it work for me, and that I think will make it great for you:

1. It’s solid, honest income that you can count on, with a ton of flexibility thrown in. You sign up for a shift, you work it, you go home, you get paid a set rate, direct deposit. No wondering how many rides you’ll get or how long you’ll have to drive around to make even a small amount of money. The money is better than what you’re making as an Uber driver. If you don’t like the school, you just don’t go back.

2. People are happy to see you. It’s great for building identity back.

   I think the worst part about losing a career in which you felt valued, had status, and enjoyed the work is that you lose so much of your identity. Doing things like driving for Uber may seem to be well below your class and education level, even though we know people of all backgrounds do it. When you substitute teach, no one knows who you are or what you did before, but they do know one thing: they are really glad you’re there! The full time teachers in urban districts (do urban districts - they need you and you’ll find lots to write about!) are so grateful that someone shows up to cover when a teacher is out. Soon, if you go to the same schools. they will get to know your name and greet you with a big smile. The kids will too. It reminds you that you do matter.

3. Teaching, even for a day at a time, is an honorable and needed profession.

   These kids need you Steve. Your experience is valuable. Just seeing a stable adult man is great for kids from chaotic homes and communities who don’t have enough male role models in their lives. Ask my friend Mark Judge, also a journalist, who subbed too. They give men a much easier time of it as a sub, and they look up to you, figuratively if not always literally. If you work in an all black district like I do, you may be amazed at how tall the kids get by even eighth grade, but I don’t know how tall you are. I am 5’2” so the girls are taller than I am too. That just adds to their overall cuteness when they ask for stickers… I give kids stickers and am known as “Sticker Lady.” You will develop your own gig.

4. Everything you have learned will matter in the schools. Think of how you could throw in a story or an anecdote from your travels here and there. You could help the kids with spelling and writing! Much of your time as a sub will be just keeping the chaos at bay, but I’m sure you can find a place where you can do some real teaching. You will love watching the kids light up when you tell them about living in other countries. “Speak Italian Mr. S!” they will say. They will call you Mr. S. most likely so just go with it.

5. That stable, American life of a schoolteacher that once you may have scoffed at, you will find incredibly appealing. When you’re a jet setter, a leader, somewhat famous in a field that is moderately glamorous, the life of a school teacher seems, uh, boring. Kinda beneath our glamour set point, eh? But once you’ve been to the brink of not paying the bills and done what you have to do to survive, a stable middle class job with teacher benefits is very, very attractive. Which brings me to my next point.

6. Steve, the next generation needs you. Real public school kids, not fancy university kids. Real kids who can learn about the world outside their neighborhood, who can learn how to write well and speak well, they are waiting for you. Everything bad that has happened to you will have meaning when you see those kids learning in your classroom. Try it out by subbing. Make contacts and figure out the best path. I’m willing to bet that you will become a teacher, and the sooner you do it, the sooner you’re building a teacher retirement.

Being a teacher is a great second act, third act, or just plain way to live your life. No matter what, you do the right thing every single day you show up for the kids. When you show up for them, you’re showing up for yourself. You will earn a decent paycheck, whether subbing or full time, while doing something you can be proud of. Try saying, “I’m a teacher” sometime when someone asks you what you do. Look at the respect you automatically get. Now do it for real so you aren’t lying!

There are many paths from sub to certification, and you can work and earn a living the whole way.

Hit me up if there’s anything I can do to help, and keep up the great writing!

In solidarity, your friend just to the north,

April

This was the beautiful farm where I landed. I’m back in Philadelphia now. It has its own charms.