Coughing, Sniffing, Teaching

I spent a lot of my February vacation vomiting. After successfully avoiding the upper-respiratory bug that laid waste to so many last month (thank you, flu shot!), I fell victim to the stomach reptile, just about 48 hours after it bit my wife. So as Garrison Keillor would say, it was a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.

But once the worst of it was over, we agreed that it was better to be sick during vacation than during school. At least it gave us time to recover. Had school been in session, there's no doubt that each of us would have gone back to work too soon.

It seems to be a chronic disease of teachers. We get sick leave, of course -- it's guaranteed in our contracts. But there's a severe shortage of substitutes. One of my colleagues told me that on two different occasions he has called the sub coordinator to ask for a sub, only to have the sub coordinator call him back to say no subs were available. "I came in sick the first time that happened," my friend said. "The second time, I told him, 'I'm sorry, but that's your problem, not mine. I'm too sick to teach.'"

If you get a sub, you have to provide him or her with lesson plans for the day. In theory, teachers could have generic sub plans (watch this video, do that work sheet) available at the main office. In practice, it doesn't happen. A class block is 84 minutes long -- not enough time to watch a whole movie, too much time to spend on a work sheet. You don't know who your sub will be -- will it be someone who has read the book you're working on? You need a lesson plan simple enough for this unknown person (often roused out of bed before dawn) to handle, yet challenging enough to keep your students engaged and active -- maybe even learning something. So, more often than not, you end up going to school anyway, where you spend the day coughing, sniffing, running to the bathroom, sharing your germs and prolonging your misery.

It wasn't like this at my old job. If I was sick, I stayed home. Voice mail would answer my phone. E-mail could wait. Paperwork could pile up on my desk. I could read or edit stories at home, and if not, I could always call in and ask somebody else to do it.

That won't work in a school. You can't teach by remote control. Teenagers won't sit there quietly like the papers on your desk, waiting for you to return. And your colleagues, though sympathetic, have their own work to do.

Besides, they don't know your class -- who needs a kind word, who needs a kick in the pants. Kids aren't widgets to be stamped out on an assembly line, each one an identical product. You feel like you're the only one who knows them well enough to make that day a true learning experience.

I don't know about other teachers, but I worry about having somebody else teaching my classes. The funny thing is, I don't know what worries me more -- that she would do a terrible job, or that she would do a better job than I would. And that is the real disease.