I am being a substitute teacher for two different Writing 101 classes at my local community college. One job is two weeks, the other five. I have not stood in front of classroom for four years. I have not taught 101 for six years. And, I'm a sub.

Agggh!

So, how's it going?

bureaucracy

Oy, the paperwork. They must have my social security card. Not my number. Not a tax return. Not a passport. I'm sure I've got it buried in some box in the basement, deep deep in the basement. But I finally had to go sit in the social security office and listen to other people's Kafkaesque stories to solve this. Now, I just need to provide proof of my degree and proof of every place I've worked in the last 10 years and the number of hours at each place. I'm not kidding.

location, location, location

If you know me, you know I have no sense of direction. I tend to navigate by color--turn right at the red thing, go until you see the tall green one. This campus is all cement behemoths. It's all gray. So, with poor visual cues, poor signage, and my poor memory for directions, I'm getting lost every day. Today I managed to get from building A to building B with only one wrong turn. Thursday I have to do it in 10 minutes and make it upstairs and around two corners to my next classroom.

It's Friday now and the navigating is going ok. I still find myself swallowed up by gray.

I'm teaching someone else's class

Being a sub for a couple days is not hard. You are basically babysitting. Teaching someone else's class for 2-5 weeks where you have to deeply understand their grading system, their readings, and their overall vision is very difficult. I have philosophical differences with some of their teaching choices, but I'm also getting a chance to try out someone's else's way of putting the same basic building blocks together. That's cool. Diana gives way less homework than I do. That means less grading. Gonna try that one the next time I teach.

Also, I get to think like a student. Just like them, I read through the grading criteria trying to figure out what the heck she wants. It's created a nice energy in the classroom where the students and I are trying to meet the requirements of an outside examiner. Sound familiar Swat friends?

every class is brand new

Of course, because I am teaching someone else's readings and assignments, every class I teach is a class I've never taught before. Like, I've taught all the literature terms over the years, but I've never lectured on 20 of them in one go like I did today. (It went well by the way. I used the Three Little Pigs to illustrate symbol and then how you can put symbols together to find themes.) I've never read The Cosmic Prison (did not like it) or half the short stories I'm going to have to teach in the next couple weeks. Usually, I try out a few days worth of new material each quarter, not five weeks worth. I wasn't ready for the overprepping and panic that much newness would engender.

overprepping

My name is Debby, and I'm an overprepper. I read the material and take notes, then I take some more notes, then I mentally rehearse, then I think of problems that might arise, then I lose my notes and start again. This is one of the reasons teaching and taking care of two small children were incompatible for me. Prepping and it's buddy grading could easily fill every spare, and not so spare, minute of my life.

So far, I'm making it work. Thanks to a spate of playdates, I've had some extra time to prep. I had mentally prepared myself for no poetry writing, no exercise, less blogging in the next few weeks. And we are going to hit the section where the students do in-class essays or presentations, so things will slow down. (Ask me about that in a few weeks.)

having to think hard

I started reading these assigned articles on philosophy, racism, and feminism and my first reaction was--I don't want to think this hard. I mean I do think hard occasionally in my life. I think hard analyzing poetry; I think hard, though in a completely different way, creating poetry; and I think very very hard about how to stop David from dumping rice all over the floor without yelling at him, so maybe my point is I don't want to think hard on someone else's agenda. I bet our students feel this way all the time. I'm going to have to suck it up, like they do, but it is a good reason NOT to substitute.

coming in half way through is hard

Another good reason not to substitute is you are the newcomer to an established culture. I'm scrambling to learn everyone's names, to learn whom to call on, to learn whom to gently ask to wait a turn. And I have to learn it all from the front of the room.

can't figure out how much to care

The overprepping is a symptom of my attitude toward teaching--I care desperately. I care if the students understand the material, if they are stimulated, if they feel supported and nurtured. I care if they are sick or their father is dying or they just came from a new country and have no friends. I care that their papers have complete sentences and interesting ideas well supported by evidence. I care so much, that again, I couldn't raise that family and my own.

I'm trying to find the balance. I'm not being paid for office hours, so I'm not having any regular ones. But, how you can be a good teacher and not let your students meet with you? So, I'm setting them up by appointment. I'm not getting annoyed when someone doesn't take notes during lecture. I'm not calling students who have missed class. But I have learned every single student's name in just 4 days and use them constantly.

David freaking out

David is not doing well with the big transition. Daddy is now dropping him off at school, and David gets very sad. He says, and may truly believe, he won't see me again ever. We've tried telling him what I'm doing at work to make it more concrete. (Mommy is photocopying. Mommy is going to the potty. Mommy is reading her students a story.) Every time I do pick-up, I highlight for him that I am really there. We'll see how the next weeks go. We could always pay more, and I could drop him off earlier, but it seems ridiculous to earn very little money and spend it to earn it.

money, money, money

I am earning money. Yippee! I was feeling broke, so income is fun even though I've mentally spent it several ways over. If I get all my paperwork in, I'll get paid a good hourly wage for classroom time, but my overprepping makes the actual pay per hour not so good.

it's a mitzvah

I'm not doing it, in the end, for the money. You've probably been wondering, as I freak out and worry my way through this blog entry, why is she doing it? It started as a mitzvah. My friend Diana is due to have her baby mid-December. She was worried that she wouldn't make it to the end of the quarter, and they hadn't been able to find a sub. I volunteered. Neither I, nor she, realized I was volunteering for five weeks of work. But she's on bed rest now. I'm not bringing her a lasagna; I'm teaching her class. While we were setting this up, another teacher had to have shoulder surgery and needed two weeks out. In for a penny, in for a pound.

I am having fun and using my talents for good

When I am not panicking, I'm having a good time. I like explaining the connotations of ephemeral and heretic. I like weaving together the students' responses. I like being able to outline the structure of a compare contrast paper vs. an analogy paper on a moment's notice. (Look Ma, I can wing it.) I like drawing on twenty years of training and experience for a good cause.