Sub-par Sub

The substitute teacher system in Germany is a lot different from the one in America -- in fact, there are no special "substitute teachers." When a teacher is absent, other teachers at the school have to fill in if they have coinciding periods free. Every day, all of the teachers have to check a list to see if they've been assigned to fill in anywhere.

It's a painful system. Teachers check the daily list and find out hours or minutes before they're supposed to go into a strange classroom and try to teach the kids something, anything, whatever they can come up with, instead of having a free hour. It's like getting kicked in the crotch by your own foot. Don't ask me how -- I mean, don't ask me how it's like that, or how you'd get kicked in the crotch by your own foot. Just, no further questions.

My first experience with this system was a while ago, when one of my teachers was out for the day. On Tuesdays I have two classes with her. One of them was fine, since Chris, a teacher-in-training (I'm gonna call him a TIT from now on...tee hee), is also in that class and he had a lesson prepared. I worked my usual magic, which involves sitting back and nodding solemnly while someone else takes care of things. I'm really perfecting my "Attaboy!" face while learning to hide or at least soften my "Wow, are you sure you wanted to say that?" expression.

But for the second class, I waited, and waited, all while the chaos of 33 8th graders flowed around me, and...nobody came. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only three weeks in reality, I decided I'd better do something with the class before they toppled my empire. Let me warn you: it's tough to assert your authority over these kids after waiting like 10 or 15 minutes while they acted like you didn't exist. I'm not sure I would have survived if I wasn't so tall -- it's like my only dominant trait.

Eventually I got them somewhat settled and we talked about ourselves in English. Finally, as they were telling me their names, hobbies, and credit card PIN numbers (what? I don't get paid enough, get off my case), the sub finally showed up. Instead of teaching them geography, he suggested they write down what they had been telling me before he came, since that allowed us to avoid any real work. I made it out alive, but not unscarred.

Afterwards, Frau Bluemel, the teacher who looks after me and ensures that everything is going well, told me that I'm not actually supposed to go to the class if the teacher is absent. That is quite a relief.

Or it was a relief, until today, when the same teacher from before was missing again. I didn't need to go to the first class anyway since the Chris the TIT had that under control, but while I was relaxing during the second class, a teacher I've never seen before found me and told me that I was supposed to be subbing for the 8th grade class. Oh boy -- that's exactly what I wanted to hear 10 minutes into a class I had already written off.

Yeah, it turns out my name (or at least three apparently important letters of my name, part of the reason I missed it...CAL means less to me than my full name, thanks.) was on the list as the sub for this particular class. Well, I'm not supposed to do it, but another TIT whom I haven't met before was there too and she said she could help. That's fine...except for the 10 minutes during which she has to leave to take a phone call.

Oh well -- we got in there and started playing a ghetto version of Bingo where the kids write down 15 numbers from 1-100 and the TIT calls out random numbers. The order doesn't matter in this game. There are no prizes. There is nothing about this game that makes it worth playing except for the most important factor, which is that it gets the kids doing something other than lighting fires and heaving bricks. It worked okay, until she left and the kids started clamoring for a different game again. Whatever. I held things together until the TIT got back and moved on to something else for the last couple of minutes.

So Frau Bluemel's gonna talk to the guy who makes the sub lists and tell him once again not to assign me as a sub. It's what's best for the kids' education and for my pride.