Attendance is the most important duty of any substitute teacher. At first, it was also the dullest. Imagine if you were the opening act of a comedy show, and had to begin by reading names, one by one, in the phone book. In class, by the time you hit the B’s, bored students begin pairing off in conversation, which you then gradually have to shout above, which means the volume war is already underway. I used to dislike attendance. Now, I actually look forward to it.
I remember going to one school to sub for the first time – in a “high risk” area – and receiving a sub folder that had nothing but class rosters and a stack of referrals. No map, or fire drill routes, or phone directory, or list of school rules. I never read those things anyway, but when they weren’t there, I began to grow wary of such a minimalist approach to education. When I arrived in the classroom, which had the tint of a banana Now & Later, I found no lesson plans. I cluelessly shuffled through some papers on the absent teacher’s desk, then checked the sub folder again: nope. Nothing tucked behind those rosters and referrals. It was about then I began to hear the growing rumble, the stampede of eighth graders echoing down the hall, headed straight for me.
This is when you better hurry the hell up and go nag the teacher next door, who sighs loudly and grabs a ditto to Xerox. She takes her time – a subtle punishment for me – how dare I ask the school to actually do its job? Meanwhile, back in my classroom, behavior entropy has begun. Chatting is devolving into loud laughing, which then quickly mutates into casual cussing, then running and chasing, and throwing, and hitting, and all the other reasons why the Lord invented referrals.
But before I could worry about that, I had to get through attendance. I knew this because earlier that week at another school, I had gotten a stern phone call from the office. It had been a particularly rough day, with very little learning or anything resembling it going on. So when I heard the phone ring, I braced myself for a lecture on effective classroom management.
“Hello?”
“Yes, this is Barb in the office. We need you to please send down your attendance in the first ten minutes of each class period. The instructions are right there on the sub folder.”
“Oh. Sorry. I’m sending a student right now.”
She must have heard the noise in the background, which sounded like twenty-five TVs, on full blast, in the same room. But no; not a word about that. I soon realized that my main function as a sub was not pedagogical, but custodial. From the office’s point of view, as long as the students were in the room and accounted for, whatevs. In the poorest schools, I served the purpose of a prison guard: keep some students in the room, others out of the room, and send the worst ones to isolation. In slightly richer schools, I was more of a babysitter. In the richest schools, perhaps a scarecrow.
And on this day I was in a poor school, and it was time for cell block count. I read the first name.
“Jessica Allen.”
My weak voice barely penetrated the din. Unsurprisingly, no one responded, or even looked my way.
“Jessica Allen,” I repeated, louder. A girl in the front row glanced in my direction and, I think, half-raised her hand. While thinking of how the hell I would get through the next 36 students at this pace, I noticed all the names on the roster included a middle initial.
“Jessica M. Allen!”
OK, so it definitely was the girl in the front row. She looked at me expectantly, and a little pissed off.
“What’s the ‘M’ for? Marie?”
“No,” she said, squinting with disdain.
“Michelle?”
“Nope.”
“Monique?”
“No.”
“Margeret?”
“Ew. No.”
“Uhhh…Mae?”
She smiled, and blushed a little. “Yeah. I didn’t think you would get it.”
Honestly, I didn’t think I would either. But it’s my grandma’s middle name, so it surfaced like a magic eight ball answer. At this point I noticed the class was marginally quieter. Plus, this was fun! I decided to try again.
“Devonte J. Brown!”
A student the back reaches his arm up, without breaking conversation with the boys around him.
“Devonte Joseph Brown?” I call out. He turns around, and now, suddenly everyone is quiet.
“What?”
“Is the ‘J’ in your name for ‘Joseph’?”
“No.”
“How about….ummm….Justin?” Scattered laughter.
Devonte looks at me, incredulously. “Naw. Think ghetto.” Everyone laughs. And I break into a smile, surprised and appreciative of his candor. Time for me to do the same, and not slip back into boring teacher mode by chiding him for racial insensitivity. I pause for a second to think, now in complete silence.
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