It is a bit odd, I suppose. Substitute teaching for students who are just a few years younger than I. It’s a bit odd being back in my high school, too. Some days it feels like I haven’t had time to leave, others it feels like ages since my bum grew bored in the cool, static seats. The teachers are still assigned the same class rooms, some are still sporting t-shirts and tennis shoes with their slacks. Still, go Eagles!
It takes a second for them to recognize me (the teachers). In some ways, I’m just the same. My hair has grown out like it was when I proudly passed my driving test at 16, my face is breaking out as if I were teenager, and just like a high school student, I’m always 3-5 minutes late. . . to everything.
I’m four years older than the oldest students roaming the halls, cellphone in hand, snapchatt-ing–as if it were part of the curriculum. And I’m seven years older than the youngest lads who are wrestling with their awkwardness in a stretch to reach their popularity.
They’re younger than me: that’s the point. Not by much, but someone younger, “less-wise” than me is teaching me something. They’re all schooling their substitute teacher, I suppose.
When they come up to me in the hallway and say, “hi, Miss Noel. Who are you subbing for today? Do I have you?” they massage the heart that loves intentional and inviting conversation. They remind me of inviting and including others.
When they assume I deserve respect, even before I demand it as their authority, they remind me the lack of cheesiness in respecting and obeying my elder.
They’ve shown me a little peep of bravery starts something. Every time. It’s usually something like this: “Miss Noel, I know you’re frustrated they’re being so loud. It’s okay if you want to take their name down for our teacher.” Of course I know this. I know that though kids can be focused and diligent they can be chatty and distracted. I also know that I have reason to demand their focus and work ethic during instructional time. It only takes that one brave, gentle peep from the sweet, shyish girl to remind me of my bold voice that can hold students accountable.
Grace. They teach me grace, grace, grace. Goodness gracious, they teach me grace. Sorry, I mean I practice grace when I’m with them.
They’re teaching me about addiction and its dangers.
Once, a student pulled a deck of cards out of his backpack. He shuffled and asked if anyone wanted to play. Only one other student accepted the invitation. The rest remained hostage to their addiction. TIME magazine published an article that reported on schools with strict cell-phone use. The result of strict cell-phone rules: a time’s worth of an entire additional week of school was added when cell phones were not allowed in the classroom. An extra week of learning. Their testing scores also increased 6%.
Students don’t pick up books to read once their work is finished. They grab their phones and they sit and complain about the 12-20 pages of required reading they have each day. Here’s the kicker: as I was standing in for an English teacher just last week, I observed the books students were required to read 12-20 pages of a day. There were a few, all were Non-Fiction, mostly Memoirs or Autobiographies. True stories, real life, real struggle, real redemption. Two girls were told their assignment for the day: read. Nothing more than read and be prepared for discussion the following day when the teacher would return. Something like a Socratic Seminar, maybe more casual as it is only amongst peers, sans faculty.
Two girls held these described, truth-telling books in their hands: “twenty pages a day. I don’t believe it. I don’t want to. I’m tired.”
In her hand: I am Malala. A memoir written by a 16 year old girl, the youngest for a Nobel Peace Prize, which she won after being published. Which came after her escape from home. Her story: gruesome and honest. Brave and bold. After the Taliban took over her home country of Pakistan in 2012, she continued her education and was shot point-blank in the head for doing so. Though she wasn’t expected to survive, she did. Then she wrote about it. She used her education and knowledge that she so boldly fought for and inspired millions of people.
But back in America, those twenty pages weren’t going to read themselves. Complaining about reading them didn’t seem to bother anyone else. In fact, others joined in the complaining chorus. After all, they were just on their spring break. They spent good money to go skiing or sun bathe on the beach. They paid good money to do anything but read for that demanding, bossy teacher.
I resisted the urge to take the seat next to the director of the complaining choir and ask her what her book was about. Ask if she thought about how though Malala’s words seemed unreal, they were most-true. And that a girl, younger than she, didn’t worry about her prom dress or snap chat filter, she worried about survival—life after being shot in the head for wanting and pursuing an education.
I didn’t, though. That is, I didn’t ask her thoughts on the contrast of the life she lived and the life the young, brave Malala lived. I only asked that she stop complaining and start reading in her air-conditioned classroom where her education was free and her teachers loved her. I just asked her to read. Nothing more. Then, she called me a “bitch.”
They’re teaching me about integrity. I studied integrity with ten of my closest friends in college. We pushed back on integrity as we would soon enter the real world, integrity with ourselves, and integrity with who we are becoming. I like to think on this word. The dictionary defines it as “adherence to moral or ethical principle; honesty.”
I was taught integrity when I was young: elementary school in the Character Counts program from my calm school counselor that cared a lot. Then it was mostly “doing the right thing when no one is looking.” It’s still that! It’s still not cheating when the teacher is gone. It’s not watching Netflix when the substitute thinks you’re watching “educational videos.” Integrity is not saying the assigned work is completed when it actually is not. Integrity isn’t finding the answers to the homework online and sharing them with the class. It’s not allowing your friend to cheat off of you, either.
Integrity isn’t a lot of things I see every day. Integrity is mostly making your words count; it’s mostly being what one says they are.
Becoming is an ongoing journey. As in, becoming our best next will always be happening. High school: what a time to become. I see it most evident in these years. The wrestle to become smart and sharp or stylish and self-obsessed with what one sees in the mirror. I’m learning how fun becoming can be.
They’re teaching me about the importance of listening to others. How to be a loud listener and what that means to others.
They’re teaching me about tastefulness, about appropriate conversation topics, about Friday nights in this small town, and about that rapper—the one named Kanye.
Though I don’t believe a few years make me more-wise than those who occupy the seats I once did, I do believe I know something now that I didn’t know then.
That is, your smile is always in style no matter the trend nor the season. Wear it like the proud designer of it, you are. You’re prettiest, coolest, cutest when you’re smart. When you’re knowledgeable, passionate, informed about something intellectual, you’re a babe, or a stud. Make that a champion, Olympian, artist. Think on big things, not people; little people talk about people, big people talk about ideas.
An example of your commitment to education: those nerds who know how to program and those nerds you try to cheat off of during algebra II, are soon to program the logarithms that create and control your news feed on instagram and facebook. Think they’re nerds now?
And lastly, practice diligence. Diligence in who you want to become one day, diligence in and out of the classroom, on the soccer field, on that homework assignment that means nothing in comparison to the project in AP English. Practice diligence. Just start there, practicing.
nonfiction narrator 