A Successful Substitute

By Joyce Smith Williams

Substitute! said my mother. Thats the word you need to learn if you are going to be a cook. I dont understand.

Remember, Susan, we live in the country. We can only get to the grocery store once a week. We cant always anticipate what we will need, so learn to substitute like honey for sugar. Substitute became a part of my vocabulary at age eight. By the time I was a wife and mother, I could work in the kitchen and make-do for some twenty items missing from my pantry. But when my youngest child entered first grade, I began to look at the word substitute in a different way- like substitute teaching. I realized I needed to supplement my minister husbands salary or there would be no college fund for our three children. I had worked with groups of children in Vacation Bible School, coordinated Christmas pageants, taught Sunday school, directed childrens choirsyou name it. If it involved teaching children, I was a ready volunteer. But substitute teaching? In elementary school? Was I ready for a brand new experience?

Several weeks into the sub work I asked myself, Are there no guidelines to make this job easier? I looked, but didnt find a single hint. In the teachers lounge, I was timid about asking for help- and no one volunteered. I was on my own. If I was going to continue substitute teaching something had to be more rewarding than the $23.60 I brought home after a grueling six hours in the classroom.

One morning as I walked into the teachers lounge, a regular teacher looked up. Are you here again for room 26? Before I could answer, she added, You dont expect to teach those children anything, do you? My automatic response was, You bet I do, or I wouldnt be here. Second grade was my favorite and most days in grades one through three went well. However, the principal who often called me, regularly needed teachers in grades four, five, and six. I always arrived early, opened the plan book, and sometimes found a blank page. After a few days of winging it I devised my own teaching plan. Blank page in the plan book may not exist today, but in 1964 I walked into a class Id taught before- a difficult sixth grade class. It was the day after Christmas holidays and the plan book was blank. I had no hint as to where my students were in any of their six subjects. I stayed with those sixth graders a week- determined they would learn SOMETHING. In every class I was asked to teach, I looked for some tidbit to learn. Sometimes, I learned volumes; sometimes, the tidbit was too small to identify. Week after week and month after month, I added to my repertoire of How to be a Successful Substitute. Not only did I now sub in grades one through six but also in music. The music was a hoot, but when a principal is desperate for a warm body to keep a class under control, I was better thanwell, you know.

After I learned a few lifesaving tricks, I became a very popular sub. Teachers lined me up weeks before they were due for maternity leave. Two principals called when they had an emergency appendectomy. I started one year the first six weeks with a 4th grade class and ended the year the last six weeks with an accelerated class of second graders. I learned valuable lessons and grew to love substitute teaching. Someday, when Im not called at six a.m., Ill write it all down.