Every Saturday morning, I wake up and walk down the hill to tutor one student. This one student is my favourite. He is also my most difficult. Never one to initiate conversation, verbally opposed to every suggestion, often times rude and inappropriate, this child is a challenge. But in him, there is a ray of light and an offer of hope. Although he bitterly complains about our short time together on Saturdays, I know he doesn’t mind so much – his bark is much worse than his bite. With moans, objections and excuses out of the way, we begin our weekly negotiations. We negotiate which subjects he will work on (he pretends to leave if I suggest math first), we negotiate how long we will work on the exercise, we negotiate what happens when all is finished, and last but not least we negotiate when we are done for the day. After all that – we are ready to work. But the challenges don’t end there. It is a struggle to teach any child who appears to be inattentive or unconcerned with the lesson. And I know my favourite student may not look it, but he is listening attentively and absorbing all of what I’m trying to teach him.

When it’s time for a snack break, I gently tease him about his “Beatles” style hair cut and although I know he would never begin a conversation, he enjoys the social contact. I’ve reached him when he smiles. We laugh together when I tell him stories of how I too, used to hate math as well as my grade 7 math teacher named Miss Work. I’ve connected with him on some level with that one smile, that one moment of sustained eye contact and a little shared laughter. It is the whole reason I wake up on Saturday mornings eagerly looking forward to our time together.

As I walk back up the hill, finished for another week with my favourite student, I feel satisfied that I’ve done a good job as a teacher and that I was able, if only for a short time, to crack the surface and let the light of hope shine in. Even if I had to negotiate for it.

Professional Day. For some this means a day of no school. For others it means a day of workshops and meetings. Last Friday, the district had its last professional day of the school year. As teachers, we were scheduled to attend a couple of in-school workshops. Often, these Pro-D activities are dreadfully, dreadfully boring – lecture style presentations leave me wondering how I ever made it through university. Other times, however, the presenter of the workshop hits it right and manages to deliver something dynamic and fun. As we entered the class for the first session of the day, “Behaviour Management and Your Classroom”, I began to dread this hour and a half might be of the former kind and before I even reached my seat, my brain started to feel that familiar tingly, anaesthetizing sensation and my vision started to blur– I wasn’t going to make it! Much to my surprise the lecture quickly gave way to a lively story telling event – “Tales from the Crypt of a Nearly Retired Teacher”. This fellow colleague could really yarn! I found myself (and everyone around me) fully engaged and laughing out loud – the presentation was fantastic! 90 minutes passed like it was 10 and I was still feeling that all over glow of a good laugh when I entered the second session. As I nibbled on a complementary rock-hard bagel (meant to entice teachers to the workshop) I realized too late that this session smacked of university lecture. Immediately, I had trouble focussing my thoughts, my body beginning to numb out. I settled into the most comfortable position I could find on the hard plastic chair, and not unlike days past, I let my mental body be carried off on the voice of the lecturer, my physical body only a place holder. After the session was over and I regained my senses (and the sensation in my butt), I was able to reflect: this must be what a boring class is like for our students …. No, this IS what a boring class is like for our students! As teachers, we must strive to engage our students to the maximal degree, we have to liven our lessons and relate our teachings to the lives of those being taught. Life is a story, learning is a story and this is how we come to understand. Through interesting tales, relative anecdotes and the occasional joke we are drawn in and walk, if just for a moment, beside the storyteller. If each lesson were wrapped in a parable, I know many more students would be engaged and more learning would be taking place in our classrooms. Now, if I could only figure out how to enjoy a dried out, hard bagel!

In the last few weeks, while learning many aspects of my new job as high school resource teacher, I’ve also had the wonderful opportunity to get acquainted with my new teenaged students and it has struck me how vastly different the adolescent experience is from one person to the next. Thinking back to my own high school years, of which I can remember blissfully little, I don’t recall having to face many of the issues that I’ve come to hear about in the last couple of weeks. It has shocked me to hear that one student has had to deal with the death of her brother and boyfriend within the same year. Another student, who has also lost a brother, is often late to school because he is helping his single mother, who lost a leg to cancer, get ready for her day. One student arrived to class sporting bruises on her face that she immediately claimed were from a rough game of lacrosse – but I found out later, were the result of a dispute with her father. Another battles depression. The list goes on and I have to wonder – is this state of adolescent affairs new or has it always been so desperate? The lives of these kids seem so far away from the kind of life I remember when I was young. In grappling to understand the plight of these children, I have to wonder– have times changed so much that adolescents of today are dealing with a lot more than those of the previous generation? Certainly circumstances have changed: the break up of the family unit is common place, the exposure to violence in the media has increased, the uncensored “googling” of any and all information, the advent of text messaging, Face Book and on-line chat rooms; I’m sure that a lot has changed in the last two decades and the pressures teenagers are having to deal with may indeed be greater than my own seemingly idyllic childhood. What ever happened to parents staying together for 33 years, Saturday morning cartoons vetoed because “kids need to play outside on nice days”, home baked bread, family dinners around the table, chores with no allowance, neighbourhood water fights in the summer, running around barefoot and unsupervised, having tree forts and secretly kissing the boy next door? Digging back through my own adolescent memories, I can not come up with something as singularly devastating as losing a sibling, or fighting the unseen evils of depression or being beaten by anyone, let alone a parent. In the getting to know of my students, I’ve become very aware that I haven’t experienced that kind of chaos and I feel very fortunate to have come from a solid, loving home. I can only hope that through this strong and seemingly rare trait that I’m able to show my students the compassion and understanding they deserve because everybody knows that being a teenager is difficult and given the chance, nobody would do it twice.

The last time I was in a high school, I was happily leaving it – with grad cap on, a dream of traveling the world and absolutely no clue. 15 years later, I’m back. This time with degrees and diplomas in hand, a wealth of experience from international travel and definitely more of a “clue”. I am the newest high school teacher in Vancouver! Although my education training has been entirely in the elementary school setting, I didn’t hesitate to accept this job (as all TOCs in the Metro know, you take what you can get when you’re a newbie). So I’m back amongst teenagers, teen angst, teen anxieties, teen egos, teen apathies and teen enthusiasms. Like a traveler who has spent years away and is trying to find that once well-trodden road, I’m discovering this sect of society has changed, but not unlike the persistent threads of a recent nightmare, frightening familiar. Their vernacular, always on the move to keep abreast of uncool adults, has mutated and I’m making daily entries to my secret “teen slang” dictionary just to keep up with the conversations. Their hemlines on skirts have shortened to the point of looking like headbands gone AWOL; their necklines on lacy singlets have plunged into embarrassingly adolescent décolletage, their Emos are the modern Mods, their black metal is way heavier than heavy metal, their Starbucks coffee cards have replaced loose change for the pop machine and their in-school plumbing programs are popular electives with girls. While it may be cliché to feel thankful that I’m a teenager no longer and a cliché to believe incredulously that these people are our future and a cliché to write that the more things change the more they stay the same, all of the above are… like, oh my god, so true.

Having survived my first week and glad for the chance to look back with an adult eye, I’m can honestly say, that I’ll enjoy this new teaching position – at least until the end of June!

Being a TOC, or substitute teacher, means I get to teach in a lot of different classrooms, in a lot of different schools. And each school comes with its very own staff room complete with its own atmosphere and politics. Most schools have a very friendly staff room – you can choose any coffee mug you wish, the tables are not designated by seniority and no one has precedence over any particular chair. In most schools, the staff will smile and ask, “Who are you in for today?” or “Do you want to join us?” or comment, “Hey, looks like a great lunch!” In most schools the conversation is open, usually boisterous and often engaging. But there are those rare occasions, where I happen upon the staff room from hell.

Reaching up for a nice, cozy blue mug, I notice too late that the shelf is labelled STAFF MUGS ONLY – “That’s my mug you have there, do mind if I use it?” Mortified, I turn to see a woman, with perfectly coifed hair and arched eyebrows giving me a curt and not too friendly smile. “You can use those mugs – over there,” my eyes follow the trajectory of her long, polished finger. “Thanks”, I manage to mumble as I find a suitable VISITOR MUG. Although this mug is old, cracked and stained, I’m just happy I didn’t loose a hand for it. Grabbing my tea and my lunch bag, I now have the daunting task of trying to choose where to sit. In this staff room the tables are clustered together in small groups. There are four or five seats at each table. And, so far, there is nobody sitting at any table. I’ve got a clear run at it and I make my way to the table in the far corner, the one with the newspaper on it. Settling in, I’m joined by a male teacher who introduces himself as he takes out his lunch. “You know,” he says casually, “intermediate teachers usually sit at this table. Over there is where the primary teachers sit.” Unsure of how he knew I was in for the grade 2 teacher and not completely confident he wants to share his intermediate table for lunch, I smile and open the paper. As another, apparently, intermediate teacher joins the table, the two immediately engross themselves in a conversation about the math quiz they are going to give this week. Thankful for somewhere to put my eyes and pretend like I’m not there, I sink into the newspaper. I quickly finish off my lunch, place the VISITOR MUG in the dishwasher and head for the computer room – looking forward to spending the rest of the lunch hour comfortably alone in the friendly glow of the computer screen.

A thought: as teachers, aren’t we expected to live up to our own rules for the classroom? Doesn’t “Be Nice and Share” extend beyond the life of elementary school students? Unfortunately, in some staff rooms, it feels more like navigating the unknowns of a kindergarten class rather than having lunch with other professionals.

Last Friday, the 28^th of March and just into our Spring, Vancouver had a mid-morning snow storm. The snow started falling at ten minutes after nine, precisely the moment I began to introduce the new unit on Frogs. Sitting adjacent to the windows, I noticed the first few flakes, but tried not to draw any attention away from our lesson. “What happens after the frogs hatch from their jelly-like eggs?” I ask. But I only hear the first whispers of “snow” among the students. Ploughing forward and trying to ignore the distracting rustle, I prattle on about the tadpole stage. Giggles, bursts of laughter and surprise, and flailing gestures toward the huge windows pull all eyes to the wonderous display of a springtime winter-wonderland. My hopes of discussing the froglet stage are diminishing. By this time, it looks like a veritable blizzard outside and there is no way that my students are able to contain themselves. To be truthful, I’m having a hard time staying focused myself –the sight of the beautiful spring storm is incredible. “Class,” still trying to maintain a semblance of order, “it seems that the snow is falling quite heavily and many of you are very excited.” Cheers of agreement arise from the eight year olds, the boys race to window. The final threads of interest in the frog lesson have been irrefutably broken and the kids are in near snow-fervour. Thank goodness for classroom doors that lead directly onto the field. “Okay everybody, outside for a quick snow dance!” With squeals of delight and amazement and without jackets, mittens, hats or scarves, we dash about in the falling snow. It is an amazing scene. The kids are beautiful with red cheeks, big smiles and fat snowflakes caught in their hair. I chuckle to myself, in spite of the frog lesson, and take heart in the warming experience. With the first proclamations of cold hands, we are back inside. The students are still excited and many gather around the windows chattering happily. A few wander back to their desks. One by one the snow-wowed kids dispense to their seats, the chatter quietens and the industrious sound of pencil scratchings and thinking begins. Soon, the whole class is fully engaged with The Life Cycle of the Frog sheet that I have placed upon their desks, and the snow outside is temporarily forgotten. In this moment, I have time to reflect: being a teacher often means going with the flow, on this particular Friday, I chose to go with the snow.

To teach or not to teach? That is the question I ask myself every week day morning as I wait for my phone to ring. I wait patiently, and sometimes in vain, for the “call out” that will inform me if I’m working the day or not. Today, my mobile has remained silent and it’s already 7:30am. With each passing minute the likelihood of getting that bill-paying call diminishes incrementally. But still there’s a chance and like every other TOC in the metro Vancouver area, it’s something to keep hopeful for.

Even still as I wait, I can’t help feeling like my talent is going to waste. I’m ready, eager and so willing to work it pains me to know that there are places around the world that are in such a desperate need for teachers that finding a job is not a problem – it’s deciding which one to accept. On rainy and cold days that are too typical in Vancouver, the dream of chasing warmer climes ensues. California is experiencing a teacher shortage, finding work in Florida is as easy as a second interview with that perky recruiter. Dubai, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong….the list of exotic, teaching adventures goes on. Yet still I wait.

In the far reaches of my traveling mind, I know I don’t have to go as far as that to teach. Slightly less glamorous Surrey offers full time contracts to teachers who have been TOCing, or substituting, for 70 days in the district. And Maple Ridge and Chilliwack are not that far out, are they? The fantasy of having my own classroom could be realized quickly, I’m aware, if I were to pull up stakes and move just a tad east. But I’d have to cross a bridge or two, and living in “the Metro”, we all know what that means. Nobody will come to visit you – out there- in the “sticks”.

So I wait. I wait for my turn on a long list of teaching hopefuls. I wait for my number to come up. Trying to get a teaching career off the ground in this city is a risky endeavour, as the bills continue to come in and rents are not getting any cheaper (what’s the countdown to the Olympics?). But if it happens – my dream of living and working in the same city might just come true. And I’ve been told that good things come to those who wait. (It’s just kind of unfortunate my name is Julie – a derivative, I need not remind anyone, of Juliet – and we all know what happened to her!)

Spring Break. For a substitute teacher, this often means no work for the week. For me it means just less work as I continue to tutor and teach ESL. Unfortunately, for some kids the break isn’t really a break for them, either. Keeping up with their busy schedules that the rest of the school year dictates, many kids are fortified with more tutoring sessions, more swim, dance, or math classes and no time for unstructured play. Some parents are seemingly unwilling, or perhaps, afraid, to let their kids just be kids – that is, there seems to be less time, if any during the week, that children have to really play. Unstructured free time for children appears to be the opposite of what is happening to modern kids. Recently, while tutoring a kindergarten student in English, the five year old informed me that she had to eat dinner in the car on the way to the school. Why, I wondered, didn’t she eat at home? She began to list off her day’s activities. Here is what she told me: “First, I go to Kindergarten in the morning, and sometimes eat lunch in the car on the way to art class. After art class, I go to my swimming lessons then ballet. And then I come here.” I was shocked. This little girl is 5 years old and she has a busier schedule than I do! What are we doing to our children? Have we forgotten that they are indeed just children? The trend is frightening. In a recent paper I was researching for one of my education classes, I came across some interesting literature regarding recess time in the American school system. Apparently, some schools are scaling back, or cutting recess altogether in favour of having more time for test preparation. Instead of exercising their developing muscles, socializing, playing and most importantly, learning invaluable lessons that cannot be taught inside the classroom, they are sitting to write tests. Standardized testing is a hot topic of debate among educators – its evil twin, the lack of time available for children to have unstructured play. In Vivian Gussin Paley’s book ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play she offers her “manifesto against the decline of children’s creative time”. For those who are concerned about the present state of affairs with regards to children and their education, this is a fantastic read. But back to Spring Break….I’ve realized that being an educator is a lot more philosophical than I had imagined it would be. It means thinking about things like children’s free time over vacations and becoming concerned with the current movement towards standardized testing. It means questioning my own position as an after school tutor and ESL teacher and wondering if I’m not contributing to the movement I find so disturbing.

Friday afternoon. Spring Break looming. I’ve been called to cover an afternoon French Kindergarten class. I enter the classroom a few minutes late due to a callboard scheduling error. The first thing that I notice as I open the door is the noise level. The children, it seems have brought their outdoor playground voices, inside. The second thing I notice is the classroom teacher – her eyes, and specifically the whites of them. As I approach the friendly looking woman to introduce myself and apologize for being late, I notice she has her coat on and her bag in hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, looking a tad frazzled, “they’ve just had chocolate cupcakes. Kevin’s mom brought them in and we had a little birthday party.” Ok, I think, that explains the racket and possibly why the boys are running around the room chasing each other with blue and yellow Lego guns. “I’ve really got to run. I’ve an appointment that took six months to get and I’m going to be late. I’ve left some notes for you on my desk. Don’t worry if you don’t get through everything– just do whatever you like.” With that she turns on her heel and escapes the din of the classroom. My first thought is to stop the boys and their gun chase, but I realize this distraction might buy me a few minutes as I quickly scan her notes, take off my own coat and settle myself in for the afternoon. It can’t be that bad – I’ve only got two and half hours with these little guys. Should be a breeze. With a quick scan of the day, the plans include completing an assembly and finish a plasticine art project. Looks easy, I think to myself smugly. Now, to tend to the little bunnies.

“Boys!” My voice only a little louder than the noise level from the kids. No response. Louder, and with more authority, “Boys, please stop running around!” One of the troupe quickly glances my way but realizes that his friends are still in hot pursuit so he continues the chase. I’m getting a little annoyed and worried for the safety of the rest of the class. I fill my lungs and really let it go, “Class! Can I have your attention, please!” Everybody stops in their tracks and stares at me. A workable quiet fills the air. Standing in the middle of room, in the centre of the chaos, I revel for just a moment. The quotable, “All the world is a stage” must have been borne in a Kindergarten classroom. I suddenly feel like I’m “on” and what comes out of my mouth next had better be good.

“Hello everybody! My name is Ms.Partridge and I’ll be your teacher this afternoon.”

“Can we call you Ms. P?”

“Did you say Ms. Porridge?”

“No, that’s Ms. Ostrich!”

“She’s speaking English!”

The immediate chatter needs clarification. “My name is Ms. Partridge, but if it easier you can call me Ms.P.” Muffled giggles, “Ms. PeePee!” I choose to ignore that and get on with the next order of business. “Class, I’m sorry but this afternoon I’ll be speaking English. I don’t really speak French.” The girl in the purple princess dress pipes up, “Good, cause we don’t really understand it anyway.” And with that, we are off to a running start. Until we get to the gym for the assembly.

There are some important things to know about a class, especially a Kindergarten class, before they are “assembly-ready”. These little nuggets of knowledge are a precious commodity carried by a select few. The Substitute Teacher is not one of them.

#1 Know the names of all the students, so when they begin poking each other, starfishing out on the floor or talking over the principal’s greeting, you can hiss at them, hoping to catch their eye and give them the appropriate pantomimed instruction

#2 Know who should not sit together

#3 Know which students to place closest to you, thus within immediate range of your maximal control

Being a Substitute Teacher, and not privy to any or all of these rules, is sure to garner a few hostile stares from the other teachers not to mention the complete mental and physical exhaustion of trying to keep the assembly line in quiet and respectful order. After a tortuous hour, the assembly finally ends. There is still 45 minutes to go until the end of the day and a plasticine art project on the roster. The kids, having sat “criss-cross apple sauce” for a full hour on a hard, wooden gymnasium floor, are even squirrellier than when I first entered the room. The boy with one glove on his hand, who has proclaimed himself to be Luke Skywalk, shouts up at me, “Teacher, can we have centres now?” Centres, as any teacher knows, is the god-sent answer and salvation to a primary classroom teacher’s sanity. “Centres, it is, Luke.”

Never again shall I underestimate the energy it takes to run a Kindergarten class!

I suppose I’ve always been a teacher, when I really think about it. Being the eldest child of three, I was expected to set a good example for my younger siblings. I took the job quiet seriously – after all, I was a Big Sister. And, as oldest children often are, I was, too. Bossy, that is – with a capital “B”. It is generally regarded that children need some sort of discipline to learn in a formal setting. For example, children usually need to be “potty-trained” before entering Kindergarten, they need to be able to follow simple instructions and they need to know (or at least be in the process of knowing) how to get along with others. In my youth, I must have realized these principles early on and inflicted them mercilessly upon my sister and brother. Teaching, they say, comes most naturally to the first-born. By simple fate, I was born into my career – I was a teacher! It wasn’t until much later however that I would realize all those years of taking charge would pay off!

Jump ahead a few years to university. The “tuition freeze” was still in effect back in 1997, but as a student who wasn’t enjoying the comforts of the parental home, I had to work. One particular ad on the job board looked interesting: “Work with children with Autism. No experience necessary. Training provided. $10 an hour”

Thus began my formal (read: paid) teaching career. For five years I worked with these young children, in home based programs. I was trained as a “behavioural therapist” by several experts, in the field of Applied Behavioural Analysis. My trainers and mentors were PhDs and candidates who were working out of UCLA. Working with and learning from these wonderful children provided me a fertile foundation for my growing beliefs and experiences as a teacher. Always curious, and never one to stay put for any length of time, my thoughts increasingly turned to teaching abroad. I had been on one “Circle-Pacific” trip after I graduated from Simon Fraser University with my much coveted, and very expensive Bachelor of Arts Degree. This adventure took me to the South Pacific islands, New Zealand, Australia, and South-East Asia. I knew as soon as Canadian soil was once again underfoot, that traveling was in my blood. I wanted to take my new education and make it pay for itself.

“The Korea Years”, between 2002 and 2004, gave me an opportunity to not only pay off some student loan debt but also to live in a foreign country and learn an entirely new set of social and culture values. While teaching all levels of English to students between 5 and 55, I earned insight into different educational philosophies and practices. I look back upon these years with fondness and nostalgia as I made life-long friends, memories and promises to myself to continue my own education along what seemed then, as my already clear path as a teacher. Back home in Vancouver, I earned my Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Diploma from Vancouver Community College and set about working in various ESL schools in and around the Metro Vancouver area. Not satisfied with the pay, the hours, or quite often both, I decided to make that trek up to the mountain once again. On the cold, grey peak of Burnaby Mountain that is home to SFU, trudged I, for one year and a half. The pay-off? A BC Teaching Certificate and a Bachelor of Education Degree. Finally, finally I was considered to be a True and Real Professional Educator.

With degrees and diplomas in hand and a place upon the TOC (aka substitute or supply teaching) list in Richmond, my education continues. I’ve just returned from a trip to India – that mind-opening, heart-wrenching, soul-bending country that has altered and influenced more than a few western thoughts. I already know that I must return, but not as a passing tourist. The street children of any Indian city, dressed in rags and smiles, have captured my heart – perhaps I might lend my time and my passion to spend a few afternoons with them in a classroom that I can call my very own.