"You Can’t Run a School Like This"

In my last few months working as a substitute for Los Angeles Office Of Education, I ended up taking assignments as far away as West Covina, San Gabriel, and Monterey Park.

Hombres y Mujeres Nobles is one CDS school nestled in a rented out building along the North side of the inland valley city. The moment that I walked in, the students laughed at me because I looked like the twin brother of the full-time teacher on site. The teacher I was covering for, Mr. C., had kept my phone number in his records. He had requested me many times over the previous months, in part because I had been very successful in an alternative ed class in Lynwood, where he had been assigned the previous year before serious RIF notices began rifting staff all over the county.

Finally, I took an assignment at Mr. C’s new placement. He was not fired, yet, but was rather sent back to a faraway school, yet still close enough to his Pasadena home.

I settled in pretty quickly during the first half-hour, just before class started. Most of the students seemed friendly enough. They thought I was pretty funny, too, making the most of the startling resemblance that I bore to the full-time teacher, Mr. G.

Of course, when class started, the conflicts started up immediately. Four students walked in late, with no sense of remorse about their tardiness. Students began talking over me, as well. I was trying to get their attention, lead them through the assignment.

Most of the students appeared a shiftless bunch. Two or three of them were attentive and respectful. Some of the young ladies felt entitled to talk back and talk over me. When I asked a few of them, they refused. The defiance of a teacher is a serious matter, one which left unchecked threatens the cohesion of any classroom, sending the signal that the students can do whatever they want and get away with it. I was determined not to let anyone get away with anything. I had no problem summoning staff for support. The secretary was flustered, certainly. She cajoled students to behave, but the students had shifted in the casual and usual attitude of disrespect routinely reserved for substitute teachers – such as myself. Having endured such abuse before, having relished the respect and support of probation staff in the juvenile halls and a wily, steely secretary in Lynwood, I had learned that I possessed the courage and the charisma to stand up to anything. That day, I refused to back down. After the first hour of class had ended, Mr. G. strolled on in to check on me.

“Listen,” he tried to comfort me. “You are working to hard. Just let the students talk, as long as they are not talking over you.

“ But that’s the point,” I fired back. “They are talking back. They are not listening to me. And I resent that you are making it my fault. You cannot run a school like this!”

For the first time, I stood my ground unequivocally regarding students’ disrespect. There is no excuse for letting young people get away with talking back to their teachers, even if to them I am “just a sub.” I know who I am, and I knew and believed then that I no longer had to tolerated concerted insolence from a bunch of high school drop-outs and miscreants, and I refused to take the blame for it.

When I saw that the teacher did not respect my point of view on the matter, I decided that I would just go home. I resolved to contact the site administrator, vent my grievances, and leave. Mr. G. scolded me “You should have known what you were going to be dealing with when you took the job.” Once again, he was blaming me for the students’ rude conduct. And I had the prevalent support at other schools where staff stood by me and suspended students who fought with me. I refused to take the blame for doing my job and commanding respect.

When I finally got in touch with a site leader, she told me that if I felt that I was not professionally able to complete the assignment, I would get written up. I  forcefully explained to the distant bureaucrat  that no one should have to put up with disrespect. Going off like a pre-recorded message, the site administrator told me once again that “if I was not professionally able” to do my job for the day, I would be written up. I hung up the phone, stuck and disgusted. Either way, I was getting squeezed, between unruly students and overruling administrators. This dynamic plagues educators in public schools throughout, and no one cares.

I resolved, reluctantly, to stay put. When I told Mr. G. that I would stay on, he breathed a sigh of relief, then promised to remove from my class those two students who had caused the most trouble.

The next thing that he told me caught my attention for the better:

“ I respect you for standing your ground, for having your limits.’ Imagine that! I commanded respect and was duly recognized for it – yet this tacit praise I received following the threat of walking off the job.

As I walked with the teacher and the entire student body – about twenty-five students – I noticed that a number of students had also calmed down, even backed off, with surprising regard for a teacher such as myself who was not afraid to state that he had limits.

When I returned to the Hombres y Mujeres Nobles, the sheriff on site also commended my stalwart opposition to the rude crew of students. “I understand what you did. You should not have to put up with disrespect.” That day was the first time that I had received props for threatening to leave an assignment.

Something is very wrong in public education, especially in the alternative ed communities, if the only way a teacher can get any respect is when he threatens to leave. Substitute teachers simply do not deserve less than respect for the nonsense which they are forced to tolerate on an ongoing basis.