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Surviving June: A Grandparent Teacher’s Day
A Morning in Environmental Science
After the Gradebook
Today I subbed in a high school in Southern New Jersey. I’ve been a teacher for over 25 years — English, all levels, all grades — and even did a brief two-month stint earlier this year in a Catholic PK-8th School. I taught 8th and 6th graders. Oh, boy. Right after I left there, I picked up two courses in English at an Orthodox Jewish Boarding School for high school juniors and seniors. All Boys. Small classes. Almost no technology.
Though I’m officially retired now, I still teach college composition as an adjunct professor. And I wrote this essay as I sat, observing and thinking.
‘Subbing’ is something I enjoy now as a temporary position for its flexibility. I enjoy the small, often unspoken joys: the rhythm of the school day, the chance to connect with students, the simple fact that I still get to care about kids without all the extra weight — grading, administrators, parents, content pacing guides, the minefield of faculty gossip, and the ever-fluctuating world of educational policy.
In some ways, I’ve come to see myself as a “grandparent” teacher. I take care of the kids while the real teachers — the full-timers, the ones in the thick of it—carry the burden of the bigger…
