Sub Stories: A Substitute Teacher’S View of the Classroom

By Renee D. Cowdery

In this unique collection of short stories based on actual situations, the author transports the reader into the classroom. There, you will experience the feeling of being an outsider from a substitute teachers point of view.

In Sub Stories, Renee Cowderys debut short-story collection, the stories take place in an educational settingan elementary, middle, or high school. Themes consistently touched on are starting over, the unknown, surviving a day at a time, and adult-child interaction.

Throughout the thirty-one stories in the book, the author incorporates a glimpse of reality from everything to overcoming job obstacles, dealing with daily difficulties, and recovering from random mishaps, while occasionally just catching a break and owning the day.

Discover what its really like to be alone in a room full of kindergartners or to attempt to teach a subject that you barely mastered in school. Find out why its not as easy as it seems while sometimes its the best job ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524591427

Renee D. Cowdery

Renee Cowdery was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. For twenty years, she was an Air Force wife. During that time, while raising a family, she acquired her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maryland University College. Through the years, she has worked in many different schools in a variety of places as a substitute teacher in kindergarten through twelfth grade in a wide range of subjects. During her free time, Renee enjoys cooking, camping, geocaching, and going on family cruise vacations. Becoming a published author is one of the items on her bucket list in life. For enjoyment, she reads and writes short stories. With the encouragement of friends and family, she decided to write a book based on the stories she has shared with them. Currently, she lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband of twenty-three years and their teenage son and daughter.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

My professional life has been a potluck of jobs. It has been a little of everything. Some I loved, and others, well . . . I wonder how they even wound up on my plate. I am a substitute teacher—also known as a guest teacher, depending on the school. I hate being called that. Guest teacher sounds so fake and so politically correct, which I am not.

I cannot sugarcoat the stories, because I am presenting them to you the way that they actually happened. They are all true, with me as the substitute teacher in the classroom. I like to tell things the way they are to give the reader insight into how I see and feel about situations that affected me. And just like life, everything doesn’t always end happily ever after.

These substitute stories, or sub stories, as I refer to them, were written about what it’s really like to substitute. It’s not, by any means, a how-to manual. I was a military spouse and lived in different places, but that’s not what this is about. While working this job through the years, I realized there were many rare situations that occurred and were worth mentioning. I felt like everyone had a story to tell; it’s just a matter of writing it down.

All the names in the stories were changed. Not to protect anyone, I just like making up names as I see fit.

ASIAN ANGEL

English was my favorite class to sub in, no doubt. With the amount of time I spent reading and writing, it just seemed to be a good fit. And now, here I was, the English teacher! Well, for that day anyway.

It was a high school English class for juniors. The teacher had left a decent lesson plan, and the day was going okay until I got a message from the office. It said for me to cover a precalculus class during my free period.

Are they serious? Precalculus? What part did they not understand when I said I don’t do Math? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I could probably fake algebra with a little help from YouTube.com.

Anyway, after rereading the note, I told myself to relax, because more than likely, I would just be a warm body in the class while they worked on something they had already learned.

During the passing period, I made my way through the masses to the precalculus class. The teacher looked young and could easily be mistaken for a student. He introduced himself to me.

Hello, my name is Mr. Math. Thanks for coming on such short notice. I have a meeting in ten minutes, and the students have a test tomorrow. I’d love it if you could just review the blah, blah, blah, blah with them.

I really tried to be attentive to what he was saying, but as he rambled on in his monotone voice, I was just staring at him while thinking about how good the chips and salsa tasted at Chili’s.

Then do problems 1 through 5 on the board, he continued. That should do it. Thanks again.

And then he was gone.

The bell rang and about twenty-two kids sat in the desks with notebooks, mechanical pencils, and calculators, which consisted of a ridiculous number of buttons on them, along with symbols I didn’t recognize. I took a quick drink of water so I didn’t sound like I had just swallowed sandpaper.

Hello, students, I’m Mrs. Substitute. Mr. Math is in a meeting, and today we are going to review for your test tomorrow.

I said it with such confidence that it actually sounded like I knew what I was doing.

Next, I went to the board and wrote #1. I was staring at the paper given to me by Mr. Math, praying for a fire drill, an earthquake, a zombie apocalypse, anything!

Please, God, help me get out of this situation! I prayed silently to myself. Would anyone care to share how you got the answer to number 1?

Nothing. And then it happened. An Asian student raised his hand. Since I’d lived in Japan for eleven years, any interaction with Asians reminded me of that home, which I missed so much. I quickly passed him the dry-erase marker I was holding and said Thank you. I might have even bowed. Not sure. Old habits.

Well, this kid was amazing! After seeing him power through the problems while answering questions and giving advice to his classmates, I just sat down and let him do his thing. No one seemed to be upset, let alone even notice that I wasn’t actively participating.

By the time he got to problem number 5, it was apparent who was leading the class, and I didn’t mind. I had survived.

The bell rang and the Asian student returned Mr. Math’s review sheet to me. I thanked him several times. It was over. I couldn’t have done it without him. #myhero

MARCH 32ND

All the kindergarten teachers were out for training, so it was all subs for full-day kindergarten. I actually liked it better that way. For some reason, when I was surrounded by subs, the day seemed to go by quicker.

The secretary in the front office looked slightly worried as we all signed in, most of us toting coffee in one hand. She pointed us in the direction of the kindergarten classrooms, and we were off.

The room was set up with rows of desks. I prefer when the littles, as I call them, are at tables. It is just my opinion, but I think tables are more age-appropriate for them.

This should have been a fairly easy day despite the countless lessons, activities, and projects the teacher had planned, but it just wasn’t.

I don’t dread working in kindergarten like some of the other subs I’ve spoken to do. I actually prefer being with kids who are still eager to learn, give hugs, and are most of the time such cuties.

As I began studying the teacher’s lesson plan, which was overly detailed, I got nervous. It read more like a complicated recipe. I decided to just figure out the first part of the day, and then worry about the rest of the day during lunch.

Okay, so the calendar was a very long, exaggerated activity in kindergarten. It usually included a few songs, helpers, and a poster-size calendar. I had to prepare this before the students came in. Easy enough, I thought.

It had three columns labeled as follows: Today is____, Yesterday was____, and Tomorrow will be ____. The teacher had also noted that the students would be very excited since this was the end of the month.

I located the dry-erase markers and chose three different colors. I wrote in red March 30 for yesterday. In blue, I wrote March 31, and in the column labeled tomorrow, I wrote April 1 in green.

Just as I was finishing this, the day care bus arrived, and in came seven of the littles, well, a few not so little. They began taking off their coats, hats, and gloves while staring at me, as if I’d just spawned out of a box of Crayolas.

Who is she? I overheard from cute little voices repeatedly.

Then one little girl, I’ll just call her Satana—for no reason. Anyway, Satana came charging at me full speed while screaming in such a high-pitched tone—I don’t know if the sound was detectable by most humans. She snatched an eraser from a basket and erased April 1.

You’re messin’ it all up! she shrieked as tears streamed down her face.

The bell hadn’t even rung yet, and I was already regretting being there. Then she grabbed an orange marker and wrote in March 32 where April 1 used to be.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to laugh so hard that I almost started crying myself. So tomorrow is March 32nd? I said to myself. But then I thought, She’s only five years old. With a five-year-old thought process, I understood how she was convinced that since today was March 31st, then logically, tomorrow must, in fact, be March 32nd.

At that point, I knelt down to her level and said in a motherly tone, "No, sweetie, tomorrow is a new month. March will be over. Next is—"

And then I was interrupted by a scream even louder and more pronounced than before. It was almost like in the Home Alone movie, but not cute in the least. Others heard it too—not just the other classes, but also other cities. That was the quickest I’d ever gotten a migraine.

By this time, the bell had rung, and the remainder of the class was ushered in by the recess monitor. She went over to Satana and told her to go sit down. And she did, but not without kicking and knocking things down on the path to her desk. Both the recess monitor and I had seen enough.

Can you take her to the office please? I asked the recess monitor.

Satana, let’s go! she said. Before leaving, she stormed up to the calendar and rewrote March 32. Then she threw some more random objects on the floor—pencils, glue sticks, and scissors—I guess to make her point.

During this time, the other students carried on with their morning routines, you know, hot lunch or cold lunch, ignoring Satana’s meltdown as if this were part of the norm.

I had to regather my thoughts and get back on task. I needed a moment, but I couldn’t pause reality. I stood at the front of the room and introduced myself. I found a timer and set it for two minutes.

We will do calendar activities, but first, let’s take two minutes and clean up. Three-two-one, Go!

There, I’d bought myself a little time. They cleaned up Satana’s chaos while singing "Clean up, clean up! / Everybody, everywhere! / Clean up, clean up!