My Turn
Subbing: A Most Wonderful Time

A Pennsylvanian finds subbing so rewarding, she's decided to teach full time.

By Gail Dawson-White

February 1999. I quit my job as a vice president in community development banking. For the previous 25 years I had worked in social services and banking, but the changing face of banking, the constant turmoil of merger after merger, had made each day a struggle. I quit without a plan for my future.

Then I read a local newspaper story about the desperate need for substitute teachers in area school districts. The schools were calling for people interested in becoming "guest professional teachers"--individuals paid at a daily rate to substitute at a specific academic level.

Back in 1964, as a college student, I had planned to become a teacher. But I changed majors in my sophomore year. Now I thought about teaching again. I submitted my resum? to the Reading school district, and, six months later, I was called in for a three-day training session.

I chose to teach in local inner-city schools for several reasons. I'm committed to diversity in education, I'm bilingual, and I had actually worked with this particular inner-city school system as a community banking officer.

At the beginning, I was able to shadow elementary teachers in one of our premier city schools, my first opportunity to learn about classroom management and everything else from the school system's specialized reading program to the library system and curriculum.

With my certificate as a substitute finally in hand, I was called in to teach K through fifth grades. I worked four to five days every week until the last full day of school.

In every city school I worked, the welcome was sincere--and often overwhelming. Each school had unmet daily needs for substitutes.

The school principals made a point of meeting me and stopping in each day. Teachers on each side of my classroom helped by "inviting" especially disruptive students to spend time in their rooms, and they filled me in on any scheduling or special changes.

I found the classroom lesson plans that teachers left to be consistently excellent. They reflected considerable effort by teachers to provide a quality day for their students while they were gone.

The school district provided me, for each of my assignments, a substitute information packet. This was completed by each classroom teacher, and in it was all sorts of useful information on the room and building protocol: how to use the phones, the fire drill procedures, which child would be a reliable helper, the daily schedule.

I always found myself spending lunchtime in my classroom, trying to get ahead in planning the afternoon's lessons and writing up the morning for the teacher. I guess I was just too excited, at the start, to eat! In many of my elementary classes, the children assumed that I must be either the mother or sister of their permanent teacher--or why else would I be there to care for them!

The kids also consistently told me that I looked like their permanent teacher. I would always glance at the regular teacher's photo. I would see that, of course, I really didn't resemble her at all.

I especially enjoyed the bilingual elementary classes. On April Fools' Day, I spent a little time explaining this custom, which doesn't exist in Puerto Rico or Mexico, and gave some examples of jokes.

By 10 a.m., students were telling me that I had a spider on my shoulder or that they heard we had early dismissal that day--all because they understood the holiday and its pleasures. The students appreciated that I spoke another language.

At one point, I also taught junior high school students in our alternative discipline center. We read poetry by Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes. They loved The Ballad of the Landlord. They understood the injustice of discrimination.

The Latino boys were especially taken with Emily Dickinson's life of isolation. She must have been very shy, they felt.

What especially excited my fourth and fifth graders was my experience with organ donation. I had given a kidney to my husband, and I value the opportunity to talk to any group about the power of donation. In one school, I'm now called "the Kidney Lady."

My greatest regret, as a day-to- day substitute, was what I would miss with the children the next day, when I'm not there--all the extras I thought I could bring to the lessons we began.

The year of substituting was such a wonderfully positive experience that I'm now at Alvernia College in Reading, Pennsylvania, working on my elementary school certification.

My coursework will take me 18 months to complete, and I'll then be back in the schools full time. I currently have a 4.0, and I'm the only grandmother in all of my classes.

Life experience has given me such a powerful edge, and the experience of working as a guest professional has made my classes here at Alvernia College much more alive and understandable. I have lived what the teachers are discussing.

Wish me luck in my new career!

You can reach Gail Dawson-White at wyowhite@gateway.net.

Editor's Note

Welcome to a brand new school year! As you page through this first issue of the year, you'll find just a few major changes in the organization and design of NEA Today.

You'll notice, for starters, that we've expanded our health coverage, from one page devoted exclusively to student health issues to two pages of student and adult health and fitness tips and features. Obviously, your health and fitness are just as important as the health of your students. This change acknowledges that fact.

Our two-page Bits & Bytes spread is now a single-page Tips for the Wired Classroom. But, rest assured, you won't see any diminution of technology-related coverage.

We simply concluded that consigning classroom technology stories to one two-page section was artificial and unnecessary. So look for stories on technology applications throughout each NEA Today issue.

We hope these changes make NEA Today more valuable to you, and we'd love to know your opinion of them.

Like to share your com-ments? You can reach us at NEAToday@nea.org. Please let us know what you think!

Looking ahead, we've planned what we think will be a provocative and practical array of cover story features for the coming year.

Next month, for instance, we'll be zeroing in on the November elections and what's at stake for children and public education.

In the months after that, we'll be tackling issues like paperwork and high stakes testing. We'll help you prepare for next year's Read Across America celebration, and we'll highlight efforts to help older students who have difficulty reading.

We'll also be examining the coming impact of wireless technology in education, the emerging new roles of school support staff, and the importance of minority teacher recruitment.

We're excited about the new year--and hope you are, too!

—Bill Fischer