"You're Just a Sub!"

"You're just a sub!"

I thought that I could take just about anything as substitute teacher (not that I ever should have, of course). I have worked in preppy elite neighborhoods, and even in (not so threatening) Compton, California, where the staff could help out in a pinch if needed.

Man, no one knows the trouble of a substitute teacher. It's like wearing a "Kick Me!" sign all day, every day. The mentality is ugly boo-boo, to say the least.

"You're just a sub. You're not my teacher."

Of course, I refused to be cowed down by the moral blindness of some students. The students who were the most difficult, the ones who would not listen to their own parents, those were the ones who usually got thrown out right away.

Then again, being a long-term substitute in Hawthorne and Lawndale made that option nearly an impossibility. You throw a kid out the first day or two, maybe it gets quiet. Then when the student realizes that administration are not going to do anything about it, all the stops get pulled, and in some cases, there is no stopping the madness.

Man, there are some things that just have to be accepted. I would never earn the respect of students who assumed that I would be there one day, gone the next.

I took over for one teacher, a seasoned veteran according to some standards, yet even she went on stress leave. Imagine when in some classes I could command more peace and quiet than the original teacher. Of course, some students were never sold on me, and they would do whatever they could to stop class. They had no structure at home; the previous teacher gave them no structure to work with; and there was me, Mr. "Extra with a Capital E."
Still, the most blatant admissions  of disrespect: "You're just a sub." This taunt is the most notorious of them all. Students can call you fat, gay, stupid, silly, "extraed-out", but the biggest source of provocation is this pernicious, almost tribal-like, mentality of: "You're just a sub. You're not my teacher. I don't have to listen to you."

 I have tried to look past this inherent bias in most students. It's almost born and bred in students.

I even stepped into a community day school in Hawaiian Gardens many years ago. The disdain that oozed students was disturbing, if not off-putting. "Who is this guy?" one gang-banger snidely commented. "Who does he think he is, coming in here telling me what to do?"

Being a sub makes things difficult with administration, who can demand just about anything from you, and you have to step up and do it, or they can tell you to take a hike. If I wanted to demand things a certain way, I had to brace myself for being dismissed entirely. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
And then there was Hawthorne High School. I was the third teacher to cover that class, and it was only the second week. Couple that with a culture of disrespect which is legend, even as far as Dorothy Kirby Juvenile Camp, where kids have natterede about Hawthorne.

I tried, really I did, to the extent that I was not burned out, depressed, and so dispirited that I did not want to wake up in the morning. I have looked at those six weeks from many angles, but I still struggled to explain why I had such a miserable time. Students routinely argued with me, asked me Did you get fired yet?" Of course, there were those parents who would drop anything to make sure that their kids got in line. Yet every day was a battle, one in which I felt that I was trying to earn the respect of the students I was assigned to teach, for the short term or the long term, that essential element was never pinned down.

The reason why I had no success at Hawthorne, no matter what I may have tried to do: "He's must a sub."

Snide students proffered that every time. "He's just a sub." One kid pushed the line on that so hard, I gave him a detention for it -- and the news of this "smart kid" getting put down went all over the school. For once, I was commanding respect again.

Lawndale was a little bit better, in part because I was working with two sections of seniors, one of whom was so thrilled to have a teacher who wanted to teach, that he wrote a letter of commendation on my behalf to my "supervising" assistant principal.

Seniors and sophomores, Government and World History, good and bad, wonderful students and haters with a Capital H -- it was an interesting mix. I looked forward, to a lesser extent, to working there, but I did not like the deans. They did not help me at all. At times, I wonder who in their right mind would have appointed such incompetents? Still, that was what I  had to work with.

The deans did not help me much. The assistant principals were more worried about pleasing the district staff, so they had no interest in stepping up to assist me. The second week of my assignment at Lawndale, I was nearly written off altogether. For a district that has only three comprehensive high schools, there was ample opportunity for miscommunication between the district office and the sites -- enough that they had failed to grant me the long-term assignment in full.

The reason why Lawndale High School was a bust, no matter what I did, and why administration refused to support me: "He's just a sub." I was hired help at best; cannon fodder for the worst. I put my all into it, which is never enough, really, because if you have nothing else to stand on, then what is left? Where is the motivation to get up and get into it all?

Leuzinger was a 180 shift from the folly and failure of the other two schools. The deans there were hard, steady, and rock-steady. No mercy, no holding back, and no one got away with anything. One dean had been holding down that  assignment for nearly fifteen years. He was a pro, a fatherly type who had no problem getting in kids' faces if they needed it. He treated me with real class, and he had no problem calling parents if their kids were not behaving well. His partner in discipline was a real class act, too. Calm, cool, and collected, she was honest and up front. Their supervising administrator was a real terror, the type of administrator who made students shake in their shoes. Like a Great White Shark lurking the halls, she could spook the rebellion out of anybody. One morning, students were dancing away in the aisles between seats. Then the lurking profile of the dean's AP popped out by the door. In a flash, every student was sitting down nice and quiet. Even I got scared! But I knew that I was safe.

Leuzinger was better, at least from a substitute's standpoint. I have no idea what the full-time staff had to put up with. One teacher complained that a student came into class drunk, then was released back into class the next day. Yikes! Then the days with the same chronic trouble that most teachers had to deal with -- reminded me a lot of Hawthorne and Lawndale. I liked being a sub because at least I did not have to take home the drama and trauma of taking charge of five classes every day.

I had gotten past the hollow taunts of "You're just a sub." I learned to take it easy in class, not expect too much, since it was my job just to babysit. Most of the time, there was no lesson plan! So, the students and I just visited all day. It was pretty easy going, so it was a lot easier to command respect.

The last time I covered a class "long-term" (three days), I stepped into a class that was pandemonium at lengh. The students told me that the students got away with much more than most teachers would allows. Since the class was an elective, the teacher could not press her authority, at the risk of alienating her students, who could then just drop the class.

I knew the subject inside-out, and some students recognized and respected my take on the lessons. But they just refused to be quiet. What a headache -- having to talk over such unruly behavior would tire me out, tear me up, but at least I did not have to do it every day.

The first day, though, two kids refused to shut their mouths. They could not keep their mouths shut at all, and they had developed a habit of doing very little in class. When I moved one of them to another side of the room, he exclaimed, "This guy thinks he's the teacher! I don't have to listen to this guy!"
That was the last straw for me. I refused to let this kid get away with talking about me like that. After getting the contact information,  I spoke with his mother. She is a the champion and cheerleader that every substitute teacher should get to meet. Let's call her "Nicki." When I told her what her son had said to me, she cursed a blue-streak: "That's just b---sh---", she exclaimed. "I am so sorry! No one has a right to talk to you like that. I could never do what you do. I am going to talk to my son, and I promise the next time that he sees you,  he will be a different kid. That's just b---sh---!"

The repudiation of this mother toward his son's disrespect, who supported me than any teacher, students, or other staff member had in the past two years. I wanted to take her off-hand epithets and post them on a banner over my house, I was so glad to get some validation from somebody, especially a parent who understood that I take teaching seriously enough.

Emboldened with this resolve, I confronted another students later that week. This guy, John, had developed a paranoid complex about me. I had a sense of humor about the jokes he cracked, so he cannot say with any precision that I was focused on taking him down. For an hour and a half, he sat and did nothing. He kept his mouth shut, talked once in a while, but turned in no work. Today was a test day, however, and he and the young lady next to him refused to be quiet. I failed them both and arranged for them to stay in another class for the rest of the period.

The girl left quietly, but John just had to have the last word:

"What's your problems. I have no problems with Ms. T (the teacher I was covering for), but with you, I always get kicked out."

That was not true --he had mastered the art of victimization. I tried to explain my position, but he waved me off.

"You have issues, man" -- this coming from a kid who was delusional, talking during a test, and still wanted to blame me for his failings.

"How many kids have you kicked out today?" I kick out kids in greater number than most subs, having decided that I have a higher mandate to hold students accountable for misbehavior. With the good students, I command a great deal of respect. With John, I was getting nowhere. And then he waved the red cape:

"You're not my teacher. You're just a sub!"

I did not let this insolent kid get away with that lie. . .

"There's your problem, kid," I fired back. "I am a teacher. You do not get to misbehave with me just because I'm not here every day, and I get to do whatever it takes to make that point."

"Whatever," he blew me off as security escorted him away.
That day was a win for me. I did what I could, I held every students accountable, and I did not let a student get away with insolence. I am a teacher, whether I am there for one day, one week, or the entire year.

"I'm a sub -- and I've got my respect. Deal with it!" -- not a Howard Beale moment a la "Network", but I wouldn't mind shouting on the largest news hour on late-night television if I had the chance!