“This book is the moment-by-moment account of the twenty-eight days I spent as the lowest-ranking participant in American education: a substitute teacher. I taught all ages, from kindergartners to twelfth-graders, and all required subjects–reading, writing, math, social students and science–plus a few electives here and there, like metal tech. I taught honors studetns and students in special ed classes–about a thousand children in all.” (p. 1) Why noted writer Nicholas Baker starts (and ends) his substitute career is never fully explained. Baker gets calls at 5:00 A.M. from local schools and he decides if he’s going to teach that day. If I knew someone who was contemplating a teaching career, I’d recommend they read Substitute. Baker doesn’t pull any punches: he accurately describes each day in the classroom–good or bad–and the reader can judge the experience.
The day that most struck me was Day 17 when Nicholson Baker was subbing for an English teacher and had to deal with an unruly class of 10th Graders. The assignment was to watch a video on the Holocaust. It featured Oprah and Elie Wiesel. Depute the photos of horror–piles of bodies, the mounds of empty can of Zyklon B gas–most of the students play with their iPads completely ignoring Baker and his lesson. Baker loses his temper and starts shouting at the rude students, but they just tune him out. Another demonstration of invincible ignorance.
Although I taught for 40 years, there were some surprises for me in Substitute. I had no idea how elementary schools have embraced iPads. It seemed like every kid had one. A number of students tell Baker they can’t do an assignment because they have ADHD. A number of Baker’s students are on a variety of drugs. I credit Nicholson Baker with showing what United States schools look like today. I also credit Baker for toughing out some very difficult situations with students. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface p. 1
Learning Targets p. 5
Day 1 Small but Hostile p. 15
Day 2 Mystery Picture p. 25
Day 3 I Suck at Everything p. 39
Day 4 Your Brain Looks Infected p. 55
Day 5 Toast p. 73
Day 6 Out Conies the Eyeball p. 91
Day 7 What the Hell Was That? p. 117
Day 8 He’s Just a Hairy Person p. 145
Day 9 I Can Write, but I Don’t Write p. 169
Day 10 Don’t Kill Penguins Cause Other Friends Get Sad p. 205
Day 11 She Stole My Grape p. 239
Day 12 I Don’t Judge p. 257
Day 13 There’s Nothing Exciting or Fun Happening Today p. 305
Day 14 When You Close Your Eyes and Think of Peace, What Do You See? p. 355
Day 15 But We Didn’t Do Anything p. 397
Day 16 Silent Ball p. 439
Day 17 Non-Negotiables p. 465
Day 18 The Man Who Needs It Doesn’t Know It p. 491
Day 19 Simple Machines p. 519
Day 20 Stink Blob to the Rescue p. 523
Day 21 Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy p. 561
Day 22 He Particularly Doesn’t Like This Particular Spot p. 595
Day 23 HOW DO You Spell Juicy? p. 625
Day 24 Hamburger Writing p. 635
Day 25 High on Summertime p. 645
Day 26 I Kind of Break My Own Spirit Sometimes p. 655
Day 27 That’s Just the Way School Is p. 687
Day 28 Plutonic Love p. 713
Once again, you read it so I don’t have to! Thank you!
Bob, that’s what I’m here for!
Is this as depressing as it sounds?
Dan, being a substitute teacher is a step up from being a food taster for a dictator. A lot of people think substitutes are just babysitters, but there’s a lot more to it than that!
I dispute your use of the words “step up.”
Dan, it all depends on you perspective.
I am grateful my grandson goes to a school where he can’t wait to get there every day. Where the number one priority is making them thoughtful, caring people. Where bullying is not tolerated. He may not know where South Dakota is but he knows not to laugh at the kid who comes to school dressed in pink pajamas.
Patti, good schools are rare. Most of the schools Micholson Baker works in have “problems.” The Big Problem in the Buffalo Public Schools is that on any given day 40% of the students DON’T SHOW UP.
That really is depressing!
I’ve heard bad things about today’s schools, not only from the USA but also in Europe, but this?
My granddaughter “just” finished her studies as an elementary schoolteacher with half a year of practice – she says she was lucky, the little ones were interetesd in school, but her partner had a class of older pupils and he almost went crazy because many of the kids were so …
Can’t say dumb, just really uninterested and unschooled, hadn’t learnt to read and write really …
So after that they took a sabbatical – went to India and from there to Australia on the “Work and travel programme” and have been away for almost two years now!
It seems they are not very anxious to start their teaching jobs …
Wolf, the best schools–not surprisingly–are in the wealthy suburbs. Rich people know how important education is so they make sure their children attend schools with excellent teachers and facilities. The main reason Americans with children move is to get their kids into better schools.
Jackie doesn’t understand how he was able to teach so many levels. What license did he have? You can’t teach high school with an early childhood license.
That said, it sounds like a book I would read. I’ve read quite a few school-related books over the years.
Jeff, tell Jackie that things are so bad around here, that school districts are allowing substitutes who only have a high school diploma!
Wow. She is amazed.
Jeff, and the going rate for substitute pay around here is $70 a day. Doesn’t matter what degree you have.
I have 2 friends from college who are retired teachers, and both sub. One is a special ed teacher who took on a long term project (3 months) and is totally bummed by it. Her frustration is the lack of cooperation and support from the school staff. She was promised support when she took the job, and though I don’t know the details she’s had none of what was promised. She thinks they’re going to want her for an extra month and she won’t do it. She’s got another job lined up that will be hopefully a better experience. She doesn’t really need the money, though she said she wants to help her son who recently moved to WI, and do some stuff around their house.
the other one just does a few days a month.
Maggie, anyone who read SUBSTITUTE would not want to sub!
Jackie thought her mother was insane for subbing after she’d retired, even though she didn’t need the money,
Jeff, subbing is a thankless job.
I don’t know just how our educational system got the way it is, but it’s deplorable. Back in my day… there were no excuses, no failure to pay attention, consequences to not doing assignments, and of course no devices in class. But in those days almost all parents cared about their child’s school performance, and supported learning. These days it seems the kids rule the roost and no one cares. The nation is getting dumber every year, and look who that dumber nation of voters put in the White House, and the Secretary of Education he picked.
* steps off soapbox *
Sorry Rick. I started teaching as did my sisters’s in the early 70’s. My mother was a teacher who had to go on strike in 1968 because Ocean Hill/Brownsville was about to explode. True we went to public schools filled with children from two parent families and we did well. Unfortunately,that was never the case in the inner city neighborhoods we all worked in. So many of our students were being brought up in the crime-ridden projects by grandmothers. Their mothers were lost to drugs and there never were any fathers around. Most of those students got lost in the culture of poverty or eventually joined gangs.
Even more tragic were the stories we heard from black teachers who had to leave their families in the south to go live with relatives in the North to get a decent education. Growing up Black in the segregated South was no way to get an education.
Jackie
Jackie, there are still a lot of segregated schools in Buffalo.
When I said back in my day, it was in California in the Fifties. The schools I went to were about 85% white, 14% Latino, 1% black. All the teachers were white, of course.
Rick, same with me. Although there were a fair number of women teachers in High School.
Rick, everything you say is true. SUBSTITUTE shows how far our educational system has fallen.
Yeah. We have a Secretary of Education who believes the earth is 6,000 years old as does the VP and Ben Carson.
Steve, I think we’re in for some “Alternate Education” as well as “Alternate Facts.”
Wow, $70 a day will JUST NOT DO IT. Her school system was like $125 a day 12 years ago. But of course you needed a license on the right level. Currently it is $162.86 a day, but you do have to go through this to get the certification, plus $450.
Jeff, in order to be a substitute here, you have to be fingerprinted. That costs $100 out of your pocket (the school districts won’t pay for it). And the low pay, $70 a day, means the school districts are chronically short of substitute teachers nearly every day.
It all went to hell when they banned the hickory stick, I say!
Bob, education in this country is completely dependent on money. Live in a wealthy school district, you get a laptop and field trips to Europe. Live in a poor district, and you might get shot on the way to school.
Really? Gee, I didn’t know that!
The fact that Baker only subbed for 28 days tells me he already had an agenda in mind and just wanted to get enough days under his belt to be able to “justify” his hypothesis. Anyone who works or has worked in our public schools (for more than 28 days!) knows that there are some intractable problems that we’ve been grappling with for generations and that doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon what with our headlong charge into charter-ism.
Deb, most of the charter schools up here take the best students and leave the most “needy” students in the regular public schools to flounder.
George, we respected substitute teachers and paid attention to them in class though I don’t think we took them as seriously as we did our regular teachers, probably because they’d be gone in a day or two. Very often, our substitute teachers came from other class divisions. Sometimes, a Biology teacher would tutor us in English or a History teach would mentor us in Geography. Most school and college students in India are cooperative and well-behaved. The closest thing students come to mischief or disobedience is bunking the odd lecture in college.
Prashant, when I was a kid the culture was different: we respected our teachers and substitute teachers. Parents supported the teachers. Today, it is entirely different. Most parents now take the side of their children and blame the teachers for the learning and behavior “problems.” Education in the U.S. has become a difficult profession.