Working as a substitute teacher, it was sometimes amazing to see the different vibes that schools gave off, even if they were only twenty miles away from each other. At one school, a couple of the male teachers were chuds who had clearly never left the (extremely rural northeastern) state. I repeatedly caught the weird computer guy staring at me. The secretary there also wore a massive silver cross necklace. That school said the pledge, the others did not. At the high school I listened to a lib English teacher in an upper level class just kind of rant for awhile about how women couldn’t walk around by themselves outside of towns or cities in the 19th century (which women? where are your sources? Nobody asked because I think they just wanted to move on). A lib teacher at an elementary school said she was “hiring me out” (😬) to sub for other teachers, she also had me use this massive heavy vacuum cleaner backpack to clean her room, not in the job description. An incredibly boring high-level science class at the high school where they did an experiment measuring the temperature under a lightbulb or something while already knowing the answer, everyone was ready to pass out from boredom. I had to teach a calculus class after admitting that I had never taken calculus and knew nothing about it. (I asked the students to teach for each other instead.) The cops on patrol and locked doors also make these places seem more like prison than ever. The smell of chocolate milk and steak-fried pork from the linoleum fluorescent cafeteria where there was one tall dude with a mustache sitting alone and huge crowds of everyone else sitting together. There’s a lot of humanity struggling to break free there but it’s also dreary and depressing and almost everyone is obviously just waiting for the end of the day. I stopped when the pandemic started, everyone there is unmasked there now even though most of the teachers are actually unionized Bernie libs, subbing was actually really fun and exciting, it was different every day, just wish the pay was higher and that they took public health seriously and made Pedagogy of the Oppressed into a reality.
Working as a substitute teacher, it was sometimes amazing to see the different vibes that schools gave off, even if they were only twenty miles away from each other. At one school, a couple of the male teachers were chuds who had clearly never left the (extremely rural northeastern) state. I repeatedly caught the weird computer guy staring at me. The secretary there also wore a massive silver cross necklace. That school said the pledge, the others did not. At the high school I listened to a lib English teacher in an upper level class just kind of rant for awhile about how women couldn’t walk around by themselves outside of towns or cities in the 19th century (which women? where are your sources? Nobody asked because I think they just wanted to move on). A lib teacher at an elementary school said she was “hiring me out” (😬) to sub for other teachers, she also had me use this massive heavy vacuum cleaner backpack to clean her room, not in the job description. An incredibly boring high-level science class at the high school where they did an experiment measuring the temperature under a lightbulb or something while already knowing the answer, everyone was ready to pass out from boredom. I had to teach a calculus class after admitting that I had never taken calculus and knew nothing about it. (I asked the students to teach for each other instead.) The cops on patrol and locked doors also make these places seem more like prison than ever. The smell of chocolate milk and steak-fried pork from the linoleum fluorescent cafeteria where there was one tall dude with a mustache sitting alone and huge crowds of everyone else sitting together. There’s a lot of humanity struggling to break free there but it’s also dreary and depressing and almost everyone is obviously just waiting for the end of the day. I stopped when the pandemic started, everyone there is unmasked there now even though most of the teachers are actually unionized Bernie libs, subbing was actually really fun and exciting, it was different every day, just wish the pay was higher and that they took public health seriously and made Pedagogy of the Oppressed into a reality.
I know that feel all too well.