Observation #4 on Subbing in Lebanon: Motivations For Subbing; Or, An Answer To All Those Confused Looks I Got When I Told People Where I Was Working

I expected people to be sort of surprised when I told them I was a substitute teacher.... at a single school... in a place most of them had never been or heard of (this is referring to non-Lebanon folks; most people who still live in Lebanon seemed to think it was a much more normal choice). I did not expect people to be so surprised that they just sat there without saying anything, it being evident from their faces that anything they would have said would have been disparaging (possibly along the lines of “I can't picture you doing that”). That was both funny and frustrating.

So I think it's only appropriate that I take a second and explain, post-job, why I chose it.

1. Let's get this one out of the way, shall? Money. Yes, subbing paid well, and I was very glad it did. I have a rather intense dislike of trading my time for money, but I have an even more intense dislike of not having a place to stay or food to eat. C'est la vie.

But lots of things pay well, especially if one has, um, different ethical constraints than I do. So money was not the only factor.

2. It had/has low barriers to entry. This was a much larger factor than it should have been, but then again, I am much less motivated than I should be (or so I hear). Getting an emergency sub license and applying to work in the Lebanon, Sweet Home and Central Linn school districts was really, really simple. I asked for and received letters of endorsement from each district, sent them, some paperwork, and a check to the state of Oregon, and very shortly thereafter I had a temp/emergency sub teaching license. Filling out the the rest of the paperwork at each district took minutes, and then I was in.

What's missing from this picture? Well, at the least, an interview – at no point did I have to talk to anyone but the HR department of each district. While I appreciated the ease of entry (lazy, remember), I am still a little shocked that anyone with a Bachelor's degree and a clean background check (and nothing else, like classes or experience in education) can waltz into a K-12 school and begin working with students.

Caveat: I gather that the barrier to entry is only so low because many districts, especially rural or semi-rural districts have problems finding enough subs to meet their need. Put that way, it makes a lot more sense. After all, I was unable to sub in Corvallis or Albany – and I assume I would not be allowed to sub in places like Salem or Portland.

I guess I'm also a little surprised at the informality of everything.

3. Justice. Yes, you read that correctly – one of the reasons I felt good about wanting to work as a substitute in a high school was that it presented an opportunity to work towards a more just world, even if in a small way. I am not apologetic or bashful about that. In fact, that was the hope I held closest to me as I was starting work; I held it so close because I was afraid of it being mocked or misunderstood (as critical hope in America often is), and while I still have that fear, having developed a new part of my identity in an educational setting, I'm confident enough now to put that out in the world and defend it.

I want to be precise when talking about this: I do not think I was or am some sort of savior figure that has all the answers. Neither do I think that if I had just found the right thing to say, a student's mind would 'see the light'. Such thinking is dangerous and arrogant – and I say that knowing I fell into that trap on at least one memorable occasion. But I did – and do – think I had the values, experience, knowledge and perspectives that I could bring to the job that, I hoped, would allow me to do good by those I worked with.

My recollection of high school, the academic reading I've done (check out section 3.3 of this entry or this ) and my experience going back and sitting on the other side of the desk all suggest that high school is often a cruel, unjust place. I wanted to try and pierce what I perceived as the sense that such cruelty was either normal or justified; answering whether or not I was successful was and is for me incredibly difficult, though I learned to accept the not-knowing.

I also wanted to try and talk to students, even if in a small way, about things that I thought needed to be covered in high school but were not: Race, class, gender, critical thinking and challenging assumptions (these, of course, being very much related to justice and the presence of justice in the lives of students). If education is to be empowering, to be more than simple training, more than learning to be obedient to authority, then these need to be addressed – after all, students of high school age are already addressing these things in their social circles, already encountering all kinds of media messages on these topics, and I fear the result if no space is created that allows them really examine what they're hearing (and absorbing). I tried to create that space in the gaps, and it was a lot of fun.

One of the best experiences I had was during an exercise in which I started talking to students (at the teacher's request) about barriers to academic success and what both students and teachers could do to help them succeed (folks who know me will recognize that this is right up my alley). One of the end results of what ensued was that the student teacher came up to me after class, amazed that a particular student had talked during the discussion; apparently this student had not said a single word in that period all year long – and he had been very vocal during the discussion.

To put it another way: It is my belief that human beings are socialized in such a way as to restrict our ability to have compassion for others or to be empathetic. The fact that we treat each other poorly based on external or supposed characteristics (race/ethnicity, gender, social class, etc.) as a result is, to put it mildly, not a good thing. I would much rather see people learn how to put themselves in the shoes of another; I think the result would be a world with a lot less anger and hate. Anything I can do to work towards that goal – such as model compassionate behavior to high school students or the use of language that furthers, rather than hinders, communication – is a good thing.

One of the results of my beliefs, feelings and attitudes regarding subbing and justice is that it made leaving feel flat-out unethical, like I was somehow wronging the students I would no longer work with. I throw this out there not knowing where this comes from or why I feel that way – does the hive mind want to take a guess? (One thing I hope it's not: the savior complex I tried to avoid.)

Finally, I know that I am not alone among educators in relating education and justice. However (and this is where I think being a sub had a negative effect), with very few exceptions, I never heard a teacher or staff member talk about why they teach, about what they hoped to achieve by teaching (much less be explicit about their hopes for justice as a result). I would have liked to see those things foregrounded a lot more; I think education professionals need to be talking about them constantly, if for no other reason than that educators will have different reasons for being educators, and reaching an understanding about them (if not a consensus) is very important to being successful in providing a coherent and consistent experience for students.