There are around 200 countries in the world but some people who have seen two of them consider themselves to be ‘world travellers’. Some who have visited a dozen feel they have seen it all, been everywhere, done everything.  In fact no one has.

School teaching is like that. I know a man who began his career teaching at  a large Calgary high school and who is still there 30 years later and now near retirement. He never left. His experience is in-depth, seeing thousands of students, several changes of principals and administration, a few shifts in school rules and philosophies, several constructional additions to the building, renovations, innovations of computers, and several fads of options and new courses.  He may feel he has ‘seen it all’ but he has not. He has only taught at one school.

Others teach at several schools, a few years at each, and that is the much more common version of ‘teaching experience’. They get to know in depth, for a few years, the rules and philosophy of that school, that particular group of principals, that particular mix of staff, that particular route down the hallways, set up of classrooms, schedule of meetings and class times. But  moving to a new school they get to see also how great a difference those little things make, how attention span of a student may or may not survive the extension of class time from 30 minutes to 55 or to 85. They get to see if kids really do function well if a class begins at 8AM compared to one at 10AM, and who falls asleep and who is a morning person.  At a new school they see how a different group dynamic with staff or how a different style of administration really can change teacher morale, the tenor of meetings, openness to new ideas, or the amount of prep time or tolerance of family crisis that each school has.  Mostly though, at each new school they see how districts in poverty, districts with professionally educated parents, districts with high immigrant populations or ones with high pull to join gangs really do have a different tone in the classroom. They get to see the wide spread of parental involvement in kids’ lives, the huge divergence in parent council funding for classroom equipment, how many turn up for parent-teacher interviews, how many do volunteer work at the school, and who comes to pick up the kids, and if the kids are disheveled, sporting all the high tech devices, talking of their weekend trips to New York or unable to afford a winter coat.

A teacher who has been in several schools in a city or in several cities may feel they have ‘seen it all’. But they have not.

Some teach across grade spectrums. I know two teachers who began their careers in elementary, who loved it, got to know the kids well there but who also yearned to work with older kids and who switched to teaching secondary.  I am fascinated by the aspects of elementary teacher they retained because they both are very personable with the several hundred high school kids they teach each semester. They know their names and call them by name. One even calls the high school kids towering over her “My little angels” and “Mes petits choux” a French term of general endearment. They are both meticulously well organized too with little happy ‘frilly’ touches to the classroom, flowers, happy posters.  One day a student in grade 10 came up to one of them in shock recognizing her from grade 3. “Is that YOU?”  A teacher who has taught across levels has seen an amazing shift that boggles the mind. Those tiny fingers of playful innocence are now long stretched competent hands of a near-adult.  Those insecure shaky little voices are now deeper, calmer.  Those jumpy vivacious little bodies hard to keep in straight lines are now sophisticated wiry and sleek, magazine cover worthy radiating health and the energy of youth.  And a teacher who has taught across levels  skipped the transformation but sees the result. She may feel she has seen it all. But she has not.

Some teach in an upwardly mobile career path.  They start of course in the classroom but yearn to ‘move up’ to administration, first maybe to being a department head, then to assistant principal and principal and then maybe to higher positions ‘downtown’ developing curriculum, or with the teachers’ association going to meetings to bargain for the profession.  I am always somewhat amazed at those who have moved along this path, first for who does it and their goals, but also for whether they stay in touch with teaching.  I know of a teacher who only taught one year in a classroom before he was moved into administration. The leap happened quite quickly in earlier eras, with one room and two room schools after all.  And it also happened quite quickly for men. The gender imbalance of administration continues but if you look at it, the gender imbalance of teaching itself continues. Most elementary schools have predominantly female teachers and though the secondary schools may have a  nearly even gender mix, odds are still that to represent ‘teachers’ you would have more women than men, but in fact you usually have in the higher echelons both of head office for employers at the schools boards, and for head office of teacher associations , men.  Does it matter? Well I think men and women are equally good at teaching so gender really does not matter in terms of competence, but on principle I would like to see it not matter.  There was a time about ten years ago when a male teacher who had frequently applied for promotion and been turned down, confided in me that he felt there were two criteria for being promoted – you had to be female and you had to be blonde.  The gender imbalance was for a time being rejigged by a preference for women and for a time if you looked across the spectrum of who were principals, there were a lot of blonde women, often middle aged and dyed blonde.  I found that upsetting on another level.  But that seems to have been readjusted again lately and it seems that  competence is the main factor for promotion.  Maybe it always was.  The irony of women seeking promotions is the same in the corporate world as in teaching though – many don’t want the headaches or travel or evening commitments for meetings that come with moving up. They have families and obligations at home. In the case of teaching, many also entered the profession because they enjoy hearing the ideas of little kids. The higher up you move in the profession, the less time you have with large groups of kids and for some, that is not an appealing shift.Those who have moved ‘up’ in the profession though, who used to teach and who now talk with teachers, may feel they have ‘seen it all’

There are some who have entered and left the profession, who have had lives and careers outside teaching and they also bring a special wealth of expertise to schools. We used to hire in the tech fields particularly, those who had worked in industry. Our auto shop and wood shop, carpentry and IT people often come from industry and have their papers.  I know of teachers who were in the military, who were chefs, police officers who then came to teaching. And sadly, or maybe not, I know of teachers who have left teaching to join the police, to become professional entertainers, writers, sales staff, even retired teachers who sell life insurance or work for airlines companies.  So those who have been ‘out there’ in the world and who have also taught may feel they have ‘seen it all’. But of course they have, like all the others, only had a sampling.

The thing is, teaching is such a broad field it’s like eating.  You have never seen it all, never  experienced all the diversity of kids, locations, courses, teaching philosophies.
You only see a  part of the forest, your particular trees.

Substitute teachers are an oddity.  They also see things across the spectrum, of location, of socioeconomic status, of grade, of stages in career but their particular sample shifts daily. Their snapshot of education is not the deep grind of seeing through major project plans of a classroom teacher but the gap-filler. They are like mortar between the bricks, a dab here, a touch there, bailing out teachers who had to leave the task briefly and they get to see a lot, the ‘unplugged’ version of education. They get behind the scenes to what the classroom is really like, warts and all, without the veneer of the spruced up open house, without the officialdom of the school inspector come to evaluate teacher lesson plans and competence and they see what even the principal in the school does not. They come as one-offs, to help whatever stage the lesson is at, whatever stage the teacher is at, to come like The Lone Ranger, nearly anonymous, and to then disappear into the night.

It’s a privilege to be a sub like that and many of us subs may feel we’ve ‘seen it all’. We have taught kindergarten to grade 12, in the high needs and the high affluence schools, in several languages, under traditional and liberal and classical and all sorts of school philosophies. We’ve taught early morning starts or long-day shifts and yet none of us has ever seen it all. I talked to a sub who says he loves teaching all subjects but music. He does not ‘do’ music. One career sub told me she took extra in-services to get good at teaching special needs handicapped kids and that is one more area she can help out in that many subs cannot.  But any day presents for a sub a new experience and we stay humble – and wary.

You just never know.  Kids add that extra element of unpredictability. Not only individual kids’ attitudes  but the group dynamic shifts each class, and from one day to the next. From little kindergarteners whose tenuous hold on going off to school is suddenly in crisis when the regular teacher is not there, and who take one look at the sub and cry, to junior high kids who whoop with joy seeing a sub and plot outrages, turning up thermostats behind your back, to blasé senior high kids who sit back and assess how little you probably know about the subject, you just never know how the audience will be. And so we subs too have never ‘seen it all’.

My last several years have been filled with quirky, touching, troubling, maddening moments subbing, and moments of pure joy. There has been once in a while  that magical event when you’re telling the kids an exciting fact about a subject and they respond, they ask questions, they engage in the discussion and they care. This is what I came for mostly. I love those moments. I will never have seen them all.