Another Reason Why Teaching Isn't Like a Desk Job: Sub Plans

This Memorial Day Weekend, I took my 78 year old mother to the emergency room where, it turns out, she needed a two hour emergency procedure to deal with a ruptured appendix. I am her only family other than a brother in West Virginia, so I officially began this new phase in my life where I am her caretaker if need be.

I waited for her to get out of the OR, still not knowing what her situation was-- they didn't know going in it was ruptured --  and pondered what to do about going to school the next day. There were several factors to deal with. One is that there is a rule about taking time off before or after a three day weekend or other holiday. You can't unless there is an emergency. Well, Mom's prognosis was good, but after thinking about it, I decided it was an emergency and I could take the time off, even if it wasn't my own personal illness. Secondly, I needed to deal with plans for a substitute.

My school has an emergency sub plan set-up: you make up emergency plans and if you can't prepare something for your classes ahead of time to do that is reasonable, you can implement the emergency plans you have created., But I had recently fallen ill myself on the way to school with a Joan Didion Virginia Woolf style true migraine, and had to call from the side of the road and ask the answering machine to please use these emergency plans. This is already a problem. I get migraines, and unless you or someone you know gets them, it is often my experience that people have NO idea that they are debilitating, sudden, and mind and psyche melting experiences. And then, suddenly, like a window thrown open, you are fine. Better than fine, which is suspicious in and of itself. Usually I slink back to school after these attacks feeling guilty for being out a day where I am in terrible pain and quite physically ill. So even before she was out of surgery, I was already trying to figure out what to do about my mother. I know this is crazy on some level, but I also know that leaving your class to sit in a study hall is not ideal. When I taught elementary school, I always got sub plans together in detail no matter what: driving ill, pulling over, calling in favors from friends and my partner,many times while being actively sick. You can't put a class of 10 year olds in a study hall all day -- they have you all day. You need to help them and the sub. The first year teacher who recently took over my class the day I used my emergency plans because I was ill had the nerve to tell me "they didn't have anything to do with the curriculum." The assignment I left was a reading about an ethics dilemma that required the classes to write an essay about whether laptops should be used in the classroom. Not only was this greenhorn insensitive, he was limited in terms of his understanding of education, perhaps understandable on some level, granted. Actually, the kids care much more about the use of laptops in the classroom and the potential distractions they can cause than about the Ottoman Empire. Or even World War II which usually rates far above the Ottomans. (Who can blame them, really?) And it was an exercise in essay writing, a skill needed whatever the topic. But anyway.

So, I called my acting department head, left a message for the sub lady, and then wrote an email to both of these folks plus the vice principal. I will make the 70 minute round trip commute tomorrow (assuming no traffic) to make sure there are materials for my classes in case, god forbid, I need to spend more than full day in the hospital with my mother. I actually feel better making the trip in to do it, and it is better for the kids than having them sit in a study hall. My point is not to be a martyr, but to point how it is not a simple matter of calling in sick or dealing with family leave in some osrt of a vacuum. Most of my colleagues in fact would probably do the same, and will likely cover for me as I have covered for them. It is a little odd, however, to be rating levels of emergency; however, teaching is like this: shifting in a moment, triaging changes in the situation, ever moving, thinking, preparing.