Seven Things I Like Best About Being A Sub

I love substitute teaching.

No. Really. I do.

And as I sit around in ministry limbo these days, waiting for God to show me the next step after seminary, I've been biding my time by taking a lot of sub calls. Since I've been mulling over the unique joys and challenges of this specific occupation a lot lately, I thought I'd share the seven things I love best about my job.

7. Daily lessons in mental yoga. In what other job can you go from teaching grade one phys-ed (love those parachute games) to grade twelve algebra in the course of a week? Sometimes I feel like my brain is gonna get stuck in permanent lotus-position.

6. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Nietzsche never subbed for grade nine sex-ed or grade eleven shop. If he had, he would probably agree that, according to his dictum, junior high subs should rank among the emotional Joe Weilders of our day.

5. Because John Coltrane is easily as cool as Mozart. I like to think of subbing as the experimental jazz of the teaching profession (mostly because no one else will). I never knew what improvisation was until I had to stand in front of a room full of mid-pubescent strangers-- who can smell fear like sharks can blood-- and convince them that they really care to know how to solve a quadratic equation by completing the square. (You have five minutes to prepare. Go.)

4. Broad scope for the imagination. One of my favorite little games is to imagine a creative story about why the regular teacher is away. My list of theories includes things like "called on assignment for the British Secret Service," and "Space/time vortex in the refrigerator."

3. Ties. Now, I realize many would put this on the list of things they hate about their job, but I love wearing ties. There is something truly liberating in being able to match the mood of the day with the appropriate tie. Feeling mysterious? the blue silk tie with the obscure Mandarin symbols all over it that my father in-law got me from China. Feeling playful? the tasteful-but-edgy Snoopy tie. Feeling like you need to regain a little control in your life: the burgundy print on the burgundy shirt. Feeling a little gutsy: the navy paisley.

2. (What I like to think of as) the mythic status of my occupation. Who doesn't have a glory-days story about the time their class made the sub cry? Or some semi-repressed memory of a sub-Nazi who could wither houseplants with a mere glance? Or a no-holds-barred game of "tell the sub the wrong name at role call and then mix up the seating plan" lurking in their middle-school past? Now I'm living those mythic memories on a daily basis.

1. Constant reminders of the Image of God. Each sub-call I get is a chance to walk into a room full of perfect, innocent strangers (who can smell insincerity like bears can campfire bacon) and be deeply reminded that these young lives--full of exuberance and hopes and hurts and questions-- these young lives are each made in the image of God. Each day is a chance to show young people, through careful acts of grace and love, that they are made in the image of the God I serve and love with all my life.