THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED AS A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
I decided a year ago that a great way to give back as a retiree would be to become a substitute teacher. Had I known then what I know now, I may not have done it considering the somewhat awkward nature of a sub’s job.
For typically one day only, I would take the place of highly trained and very dedicated professionals at their workplace in their very real, serious and difficult jobs. I’d be given a key to their offices, take over their desks and their computers and I, a complete stranger, would tell their students, usually 30 at a time, what to do all day.
Perfectly natural.
I had no training, no supervision and no performance metrics by which to be measured. To qualify, I had only to pass rudimentary competency tests as well as security and academic background checks. My only in-class assistants are my guile, intestinal fortitude, lack of concern for launching myself into very foreign territory, and life skills built up during my many decades of living and working.
On any given day, I’d leap into a chasm of unknowns. That is how to ease into retirement, baby!
My simple daily mission soon came clearly into focus: Get through the day with no students experiencing broken bones or lacerations, finish the school day with the same number of students in the seats as I started with, and complete each day’s lesson plan to the best of my ability, with professionalism, integrity and thoroughness. Make it all about the kids!
There were secondary goals which I knew needed to be suppressed. I wanted to immediately and meaningfully touch their souls. I wanted to convey to each one of them that a free, quality education is a gift not to be taken lightly, let alone squandered. That learning how to learn is a life skill that will pay dividends for as long as they live and no matter what they do with their lives. That the better their education, the more options they will have in life and the happier they will likely be.
If only they knew all this now rather than decades from now.
A noble, but impractical desire.
A sub exists but for a moment in time. The job description is literally a temporary one.
As a sub, my day often demands a few strategic pivots when or if a lesson plan doesn’t play out as intended. Technological or audiovisual devices and even entire Wi-Fi networks might not work, an assigned chapter might have already been covered, key pages from a handout might be missing, an unintentional one-hour gap may have made its way into a plan, and many other issues might test my ability to turn on a dime. Early on, I realized that having a real-time lifeline to my teachers is an invaluable asset, so I now always email every teacher before class and I ask them to text me so I can reach them in the moment if needed. So far, 100 percent of my teachers have allowed me access to yet another personal piece of their lives, and 75 percent of the time there is something I do need to text them about. I want to get as much right as I can.
I think I am an excellent sub. I have relevant skills, show up on time and with positive energy and a strong desire to do good by my teachers and their students.
The more my teachers trust me with their class and the more they include in their lesson plans, the more fun my classroom experiences are and the more good I feel I’m doing. Hearing the occasional and earnest “Thank you for being our sub today” and “Will you be here tomorrow?” are icing on an already tasty cake.
It has become somewhat trite to say that children are our future, but there is no doubt in my mind that they deserve a greater share of our attention and dedication, especially when one considers how much of a disrupter the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be and that older generations, including mine, have left “our” kids a very complex and very hot mess that they will have to deal with.
Today’s students need the training, the creativity and their own high level of intestinal fortitude to fix what we and others have broken.
I want to give back, and this mode works well for me and hopefully for the schools, teachers and students. I am so glad I did not think this move through very well a year ago.
My only in-class assistants are my guile, intestinal fortitude, lack of concern for launching myself into very foreign territory, and life skills built up during my many decades of living and working.
Jester is a retired businessperson and substitute teacher since 2022 for the Poway and San Diego Unified school districts. He is co-director of a management development program for the Harvard Business School Alumni Club of San Diego and lives in Poway.