The Substitute Teacher (Part 1.)

I am not a real teacher at all, my real job has nothing to do with education, I am just a substitute teacher. Today I am a substitute teacher at Springhill High School, a local high school in a suburb of Houston, Texas.  At this very moment twenty-six boys and girls are under my supervision in an Advisory period which lasts from 9:40 a.m. till 11:15 a.m. An Advisory period is not a class for learning at all. It is like a study hall period where you park students for awhile ostensibly to give them study time for tests or to do homework. Naturally none of this gang of twenty-six is doing anything like studying. So in essence I am just an Advisory Policeman. Here just to keep order and to prevent them from hurting each other. 

The demographic make up of this school is 90% African American and 10% white or Hispanic. Springhill High it is not an inner city school in a slum or ghetto sometimes known as Soulsville. I have only heard of a ghetto referred to as “Soulsville” one time, and that was on an Isaac Hayes album.  The album was called “Theme from Shaft” and there is a song on the album called “Soulsville” that I like very much.

The kids may talk here in this Advisory Period and so they talk, drum on their desks, rap (sing) and joke around a lot because they have been given an inch of freedom and so they take a yard. The TV is on showing a largely ignored historical program about Malcolm, Martin and Meredith. I glance at it some while my eyes rove up and down the aisles of desks observing my charges. Just before the black history program came on there was a student produced music program on. The student program featured students from this high school singing popular songs. They sounded quite good for lip singers and the class gave them their rapt attention and even required me to turn the volume way up. It is nice to see these sons and daughters of people my age at school albeit at play. They are young, energetic, social, enthusiastic and striving to be fly.  Was I ever like that, fly? Or was I always reserved, serious, studious, pragmatic, stoic and intensely boring all of my life.

So far I have had to speak to three boys and one girl in the classroom about their over social behavior. One girl I had been warned about by another teacher. I was warned to not give her a hall pass under any circumstances and to not let her outside of the classroom without an escort. The other teacher didn’t mention the reason why.