“Some days are diamonds, Some days are stones.”        

— Dick Feller (covered by John Denver)

While reading a recent TownBroadcast, I enjoyed the column “Yes It Is, It’s True: A Couple of Sunny Subbing Stories.”

I spent a year as a substitute teacher after first graduating from Grand Valley State College. I recall that as being the only time I used to come home from work feeling like I needed a drink. But, not all days were that way.

I was in the Grand Rapids Public Schools system.* It was often difficult, because students sat where they wanted, had fun with their friends and knew the sub didn’t know their names. It was also very likely that the sub would be there for only one day. Kids took advantage, as I used to do when I was a kid. I suspect that now subs are provided with a chart of names and photographs, which would have been enormously helpful then.

On one occasion early in my year of subbing, I finished my day, checked out at the school office, and began walking toward my car. It was a difficult way to make $25, but I needed the money. As I got halfway to the car, two boys started to fight each other. I broke up the fight. Each had taken a couple of punches, but no one was injured seriously, including me. I thought nothing of it, until suddenly a man appeared, having race walked out to intercept me.

“You had completed your assignment. Your day here was done. I saw what you did out of my window. I’m the principal. I really appreciate that you handled that when you could have just kept going.” I still thought nothing of it, but thanked for him for mentioning it.

The next week I got called for a long term subbing assignment, teaching geography for several weeks. I wouldn’t need to lie in bed hoping the phone would ring early in the morning with an assignment, while being ambivalent (at best) about putting on a coat and tie and getting to the school before the kids. The bed was so cozy. But I needed that $25.

Now, for a while, I’d get up every day, go to the same school, and teach the same classes. It was wonderful, and I was really teaching. I learned the names of the kids. They learned I could be fun, if they didn’t make me be “Mr. NotFunAtAll.” I felt like I taught them about the subject, and that was very gratifying

That assignment went pretty well, I thought, and perhaps as a result, I got many assignments in that school. I knew my way there, I knew where the coffee was, and the men’s room, and, most importantly, I knew the kids.

On one of these later assignments, it was a one-day-only gig, an English class. There was no note from the teacher. I said we would discuss the elements of movie that are similar to the elements of a story or novel. All the kids seemed to like movies. They hadn’t really thought much about similarities to novel structure. But that day we talked about plot and characters and actions and settings and dialog and denouement. I asked if anyone had a movie he or she might like to discuss. “I have one,” this lively young fellow said, “Bedknobs & Broomsticks.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “We will not be discussing that sort of movie in class. Any suggestions of movies must be G-Rated.” My ignorance of this Disney flick, with the odd title, provided great merriment from the students. I really didn’t know. But to me, it didn’t sound, from the title, as one we should discuss. Clearly, my mind was solely G-Rated.

One of my best days was when I was sent to an inner city school. My job, I was told, was not so much as to teach classes of choir (for which I was totally unsuited), but to guard the piano. “We asked the sub coordinator to “send a big one down to South,” I was told. “If the piano is OK at the end of the day, we’ll be happy with you.

The first class set the tone. I asked how the classes usually went. I was told that Tyrone would play the piano, and that the class would sing, and that the teacher would interrupt every few bars with corrections and suggestions. I had Tyrone come forward and play. He played beautifully, and the class sang along. They were quite good. I had no corrections and/or suggestions. I applauded at the end of that first song, and at the end of the subsequent songs. It turned into a period long recital, and I believe the kids enjoyed performing their music almost as much as I enjoyed hearing it. Each class thereafter followed that same pattern. At the end of the day there had been not difficulties whatsoever, and I’d had a very nice day. And earned my twenty-five bucks.

*Public schools – where discipline-problem students, Learning Disabled students, kids with very challenging home lives, ESL students, POHI students – all students – were served.