sub!

During my Florida years, i was an occasional substitute teacher for the Lee County schools. The first time was on an extended vacation, then again when i returned more permanently in '96 to look after my grandmother, and again a couple years after that. I subbed when theater jobs hit a dry spell.
Jumping into an alien space and filling it up with your personality is the essence of subbing. I worked at more than a dozen schools, eventually covering every grade, even middle school (which wasn't the horror show i half-expected). Generally, i had ample personality and smarts to make my easygoing nature work. There was one class of little ones my first month who were used to getting their way, either with their regular teacher or with previous subs. When it came time for recess, they couldn't make an organized class line, so i sat them back down. After three tries, you could sense the growing agony, as they heard the shouts of fun outside. I refused to keep just the bad apples inside, and told them they would go together, or not at all. After more than half of recess was gone, they finally made it. The principal later told me how word spread that Mr. R was like a Catholic School teacher. I laughed. My first time around, i fell in love with Miss Suarez, a kindergarten teacher. She was engaged, and the one time i met him it seemed like the universe was upside down. I think she felt so too, from the way we looked at each other on our last day together...words came so close to being spoken, that our lips parted...but the road of practicality and stability she was on silenced my foolish, wise tongue. And maybe i was also the teeniest bit afraid to lose something i wanted so very, very much.
My favorite grades were pre-K, 2nd, 5th, and 12th. Pre-K is special because the children still haven't learned the "personal space" boundaries which will be cemented within a year. One day i gave an assignment, and stood at the head of the class. A child stood up and walked to me. Their head was down, so i couldn't be sure what they wanted. They wrapped their arms around my leg, held on, then walked back to their seat, never once looking up. I melted inside, as i realized this child was still in a place where physical contact didn't need to be "defined". He or she needed to hold someone, got it, and went back to work.
Why do we lose that?
5th is great because they're still children, but their minds are beginning to process deeper thoughts. 12th was my favorite of all, because the smart ones can handle just about anything you throw at them. Just as 6th graders have left childhood, there's a subtle but immense difference between seniors and juniors. With 12th graders, you can really sense the adults they'll be.
Usually if you do good work at one school, they book you as much as they can. My first year, my most regular gig was Michigan Elementary. There were closer schools, and this one was on the "wrong" side of the tracks, but i came to love them as much as they loved me. It's so wonderful when kids run up to you in the morning, hoping you'll be covering one of their classes. I became friend and tennis buddy to the assistant principal, Steve Santoro, a wonderful guy.
When i returned to Pennsylvania, i even spent a couple days subbing in a maximum security prison, as part of a last chance program for juvenile inmates. It sounds impressive. But they were just kids.
Far and away, the gem in my subbing career was my final year, at Florida's Cape Coral High. I reported to Sue Mull, who was simply the best. I was there every week, at least three or four days. At one point i even took a long-term gig, going six weeks for an art teacher who was out. I developed some wonderful teacher friendships. The English faculty loved me because i told students i was "well". The principal loved how i biked the twelve miles to school every morning. He told the kids to be like Mr. R, nominated me for district sub of the year, and offered me a full-time job teaching art the following year. Knowing that wasn't the best use of my talents (or Peter Pan magic), i passed.
High school students are still childlike enough that they were just like their elementary counterparts, running up in the morning with shouts of "Mr. R! Mr. R!", to find out where i'd be. My classroom became a magnet for strays and students trying to ditch class. If they had permission to be with me, i'd sometimes let them stay. I had a pack of "passes", and it was comical the lengths some students went, to get one. I began putting a "question of the day" up on the board, offering a prize to any who could answer it. The internet era had begun, so i had to be careful to avoid questions too easily researched on a library computer. Kids who weren't even in my class would show up, already knowing the question. The one i remember most is "complete this John Lennon lyric: woman is the (blank) of the world". The student who found the answer was a bit wide-eyed that i even indirectly used the word "nigger", but that led to a nice discussion on the nature of profanity.
Certain students became favorites. There were two intelligent misfits who asked me to help write a Star Trek script. Another time, i went with some kids to a pool hall after school. When one of my closest students was going through a hard time, we sat in the hall after school and talked, until she cried on my shoulder. When one of our students died, i was the only teacher asked to be part of the student vigil.
Being a male teacher had special challenges. One lass had the temerity to grab my ass. Another, a nineteen year-old senior who made freshmen boys visibly quiver, saw me one morning in the lobby after i'd been holed away in my art class for six weeks, and screamed. She ran to me, hurled herself through the air, and wrapped her legs around me. She was a sassy Brooklyn girl who laughed at everything. She told me how much she had missed me. I smiled, said thank you, and invited her to jump down. Those feelings sometimes went the other way, and pay no mind to anyone who says differently. There will forever be a corner of my spirit profoundly, gently in love with an exchange student named Christina.
Around that time of my life i was learning to feel situations, not just think them as i had done in my youth. Living that way, certain decisions seem ridiculous in retrospect, but they're often the moments that resonate most deeply. I'm going to tell you what i did, though i'm not even sure i believe it myself. One day when i had a free period, i was discovered by three students too bright to really fit in. They were skipping class, but since they were a week or so from graduation, i decided to be their walking "pass". They took me through a secret route they knew to the roof, and after we had talked for a while, they hesitatingly asked if i wanted to share a joint with them. I declined, but allowed them to partake. That they risked that level of trust in me...it just became imperative that i teach them that stepping off a cliff is okay. I caught them, and maybe forever had a tiny impact on their cynicism in this brutal world.
On teacher follies day, the faculty staged WWF-style wrestling matches. My character was "Susan". Students braided my hair into pigtails, and i wore a borrowed bikini. I entered the ring to the blaring of "Man, I Feel Like a Woman". At another assembly, my best teacher buddy Mr. Kulie and i performed the Monty Python "argument" sketch.
A very special group of students, including the girl who had cried on my shoulder, found out when my birthday was, and on that day there was a knock on my classroom door. I looked up to see three or four of them holding a cupcake with a lit candle. Out in the hall, they read me a poem they had written. At the end of the year, i wrote a poem for them, and all the others...
The following summer, my crying buddy and another, Nicole, came to one of my plays and gave me the beautifullest tie dye shirt ever. Another two, James and Athena, remembering the tattered briefcase i brought on days it was too rainy to bike, gave me a new one. As the last days of school had wound down, realizing that nothing would top that year, i'd decided to make it my subbing swan song. After the final day of classes, i pedaled off, smiling...