By Jennifer Zeuli
Dear Sub,
It’s 2:00 in the morning and I’ve just called in sick. This may be the most idealistic thing I’ll ever write.
Thank you for covering for me, if you in fact exist and do come in. I’m well aware that I can’t take those things for granted, and that my classes might be covered by a patchwork of adults who have other jobs in the building, and who will be understandably bitter about being pulled away from those jobs to do mine, and thus disinclined to read plans or interact with students.
But if you’re here, thanks for taking my classes. Here are some practicalities:
Lesson plans are posted on Google Classroom. They’re right in the stream, so if students say they couldn’t find the plans, that is bullshit, as the plans will appear as soon as they log on. That said, it hardly matters where the plans are. The kids will interpret your presence as a signal of a work-optional day; one of the articles in the unspoken teacher-student contract is that when there’s a sub, as long as the class is cooperative and mildly friendly, they can spend their 88 minutes playing video games on their Chromebooks. Knowing this, I have left an interactive slideshow that took me at least two hours to create during the dark, remote COVID days, on an interesting topic but one unrelated to what we are studying, so it won’t matter when they don’t do it. It’s not that I’m apathetic. Apathy would be so liberating. Instead, as I was hanging my head over the toilet just now, I went through the following mental process:
Feel free to be incompetent. We had a guy here pre-pandemic, for several years—the kids called him the Sleeping Sub, because, well, that’s what he was. One morning a ninth-grader wandered into a random English classroom and asked for a band-aid. He’d cut his hand in Science, and he knew he couldn’t go to the nurse without a pass, but he had the Sleeping Sub so he didn’t know what else to do. Complaints were made. Nothing was done. And these days we don’t even check for a pulse. So you have job security, such as it is, and you can hang out and chat with my classes—they’ll LOVE it—or sleep or do the crossword or space out on your phone or whatever. My plans are futile regardless, but if I come back to find that you were a disgrace to subs everywhere, the righteous indignation will power me through the rest of my week.
Tardiness is unacceptable. Please maintain a clear record of anyone who enters after the bell, along with the time he/she entered and what his/her excuse was. Please also start class precisely on time to make it clear that we do not accommodate tardiness. Also please note that passing time is 120 seconds long, and there are five overcrowded miles of corridor in this building, so 100% of students will be late to class.
Student behavior ranges from stellar to appalling. In period 5, Kenyon and Angelo and Jaylen may not sit near each other. Here’s the fun part: there are four tables in the room, and each table has four chairs (yeah….my room used to be a storage closet, so even 16 seats is a tight squeeze). None of the other kids are willing to sit at a table with any of these three. You could send one to the library, but they’ve been banned. Don’t give them any pens or they’ll draw penises all over my decorative pumpkins. This is the point where I’m supposed to tell you to note down any problems you have throughout the day so I can address them. But really, it’d be so great if you could just handle it, or, barring that, suffer in silence.
Bathroom pass does not exist because when I had one, people kept walking off with it. The procedure is that kids put their cell phones in the metal box on the shelf next to the door and traverse the 20 feet to the restroom without a fluorescent-yellow square of paper granting them safe passage. A hall monitor might intercept them and bring them back, in which case you have to stop what you’re doing, write out their name and your name and the point of origin and the destination and the time and the date. If they won’t leave their phone, they can’t go. But also, you can’t tell them they can’t use the bathroom. You never know who’s pregnant. Also last year, a teacher told an eleventh-grader to wait, and after ten minutes of defiantly standing by the door, he shouted, “I just pooped my pants!”
Active shooters don’t generally plan out their rampages for ease of scheduling, so be prepared for a sudden change of activity. If you hear gunshots, screams, or the word “lockdown” over the intercom, proceed as follows:
Review with students the expectation that they will remain silent for the course of the crisis. Do this without screaming. Also 1. Yank the magnetic RAPID LOCKDOWN RESPONSE strip out of the inside of the doorframe. The door will now latch properly and lock automatically, unless it doesn’t. Also 1. Turn off the lights. You’ll note I have no windows (see “storage closet,” above), so you will immediately be plunged into darkness. Also 1. Send students through the adjoining door into Ms. K.’s math classroom in a calm, orderly, but also rapid manner. I have (in case you’re worried about imposing on Ms. K.) reciprocally agreed to save her students if the shooting happens while she’s out.
Do exactly what Ms. K. says. OR If Ms. K. is not in the room, lock her outside door according to the procedure in number 1 (above), switch off the lights, and instruct students to hide. She has a large desk, so a number of them will fit under it.
Students will want to text their parents, feeling that BENEFITS OF POTENTIAL LAST WORDS > RISK OF GLOWING SCREENS IN THE DARK.
Perform that calculation yourself and instruct them accordingly. Remind them that none of this is new because we have a guy who, two or three times per year, puts on an orange jumpsuit with “ACTIVE SHOOTER” stenciled across the back and runs around with a plastic AR-15 while we practice not panicking.
Lunch (assuming it happens before the rampage) is from 12:10 - 12:33. You can use the bathroom (.2 miles from my room and there’s always a line) and visit the teacher cafe for food (.3 miles from my room and there’s always a line). Be sure to be back in the room before the bell; otherwise students might get in and draw penises all over my decorative pumpkins.
Dismissal (assuming the day is rampage-free) occurs at the bell and not before. Students are to remain seated until the bell. Also, students are biologically impelled to stand and advance on the front of the room with three minutes remaining in the period. They crowd into the 4’x4’ space in front of the doorway, silent, eyes on phones, facing forward. They look like they’re in an elevator. You can tell them to return to their seats, but they are not, at this stage, cognitively processing the spoken word. To provide a little context, the gym teachers habitually dismiss students ten minutes early. Admin then finds teens wandering the halls or (DISASTER!) out in the parking lot before the official end of the day. The wanderers don’t reveal where they’re coming from (maybe that’s part of the agreement), so admin assumes we’re all guilty. If students are in my doorway prior to the bell, a department head might spot them, screech at them to get back in their seats, and then splatter fury all over the hall, shouting, THE PROBLEM ISN’T THE KIDS! THE PROBLEM IS THESE TEACHERS WHO CAN’T READ AN EMAIL! Know that if this happens students will take your side, pronouncing the department head “mad rude” or even “mad crazy,” but will re-cluster around the door once the threat has dissipated.
Wrap up your day by doing me a favor and quickly casing the room for penis drawings. If you find some, please just throw out the decorative pumpkins, but be sure to find one of the large trash bins in the hallway (the gray ones, not the blue ones) because there are strict rules governing what can be thrown out in classroom trash bins. Sign out in the department office so you can claim your $103.97 for the day and hand in your temporary ID.
Again, thank you so much for Touching the future, Inspiring young minds, Instilling the leaders of tomorrow with drive, perseverance, curiosity and a can-do spirit, and Upholding our 21st-century learning community’s core values of
Respect * Effort * Accountability * Commitment * Honesty
Remember, we’re not in this for the INcome, we’re in it for the OUTcome. I’m sure today will be its own reward.
–Jennifer Zeuli
Jennifer is a veteran English teacher (29 years) who found her writing voice somewhat later in life. She has completed a memoir on special needs solo parenting through the lens of the pandemic, and writes frequently about motherhood, teaching, and those moments when all you can do is laugh. This is her first publication.
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