subbin'

They work for mediocre wages, put up with bratty adolescents, learn to work off-the-cuff and from-the-seat-of-the-pants. These improvisateurs of the classroom, substitute teachers, have my respect; some have my admiration. (Besides, I may join their ranks someday, so I shouldn't speak ill of the profession.)

Since I was absent on Friday, I had to call a sub. I didn't get back until this morning, and have discovered that the sub's personality clashed rather badly with my teaching style. She was unable to manage querulous rabble-rousers, and spent much time arguing with my debate class (always a bad idea), accusing them of "thinking reactively rather than proactively" because they had the temerity to disagree with her. (She had claimed that Abu Ghraib was the result of rap music. Critical thinking?)

My favorite sub--as a student, I mean--was a tall, blotchy, bearded fellow who commandeered my high school debate class for a day. During the course of the period, we were treated to an etiology of the blotches (a rare skin disease affecting less than 1 in 100,000 people) and to a display of pedagogical brilliance unmatched in the history of subbing.

At one point, a fellow student, whom I shall refer to as Bree, asked the sub if we could "do something fun." She continued: "We usually have fun in this class. Mr. R. always does something fun." To which our sub replied, in his booming gravelly voice:

"You're not here to have fun. You're here to please me."

Bree, incidentally, spent the rest of the period wandering the hall as a form of "punishment."

I have forgotten many things "learned" in high school, but that epigram of teaching philosophy has been my pedagogical guide to this day.