When it comes to bravery and sheer toughness, substitute teachers can give construction workers, window washers, lion tamers, and tightrope walkers a run for their money. They have to be firm but friendly, exert and in-control presence immediately, show no weakness in a situation where they, and not the 30 pupils awaiting their expertise and (screw-ups), are the newcomers. They don't possess keys to the class, nor do they know where to park, eat their lunch or use the washroom. When bells announce the day's end, they're often off to their next shift as a waiter, cab driver, dispatcher or actress. Once home, they'll groggily awake to a 5:00 am call summoning them to their next line of duty. Or the call will come at 7:50 am for a class that starts at 8:15 am in an unfamiliar neighborhood - they may be chastened for their lateness verbally or in a report to the board. Often, there is no call.

And what do supply teachers get in return? About a thimble full of respect from students, other teachers, and administrators who view them as "glorified baby-sitters," according to Barry Weisleder, union president of the Toronto Substitute Teachers, and a supply teacher himself.

A particularly wearying experience motivated Winnipeg substitute, Colin Fraser, to chronicle his day for listeners of CBC Radio and for readers of the Winnipeg Free Press. The article received nods of recognition among the many who pinned it to bulletin boards and fridges at home and school. Fraser talked not of flesh wounds, bullets or knives, just of a grade six student trying to exert power by refusing to pick up a book he had deliberately crashed to the ground, and of students who talked to him with "enough profanity and graphic sexual references to make even the most liberal parent squirm." Not exactly the stuff of headlines, but for a supply teacher, who is instantly identified as a target, not harmless either.

"I endure these slights all day," wrote Fraser, who has since switched to a new school board. "I pretend I don't hear them, that they don't bother me, but they do. They begin to add up, like tiny darts - alone they don't do much damage, but eventually enough of them will bring you to your knees"

"With just one year of experience as a full time teacher sandwiched between four years of substituting, Fraser, like approximately 50 percent of supply teachers in Toronto, is looking for full-time work. The other 50 percent do this by choice," said Weisleder.

One such educator is Maggie Huculak who "loves the kids," and enjoys teaching, which adds balance to her life as an actress. A full-time job is not what she's after. It would conflict with her acting and she teaches best when not encased in the same routing daily.
"Supply teachers are experts, not just hacks who can't get full-time jobs," she said, anger tinging her words. "We teach elegantly, maintain control, and are good at what we do. We choose to do this because it suits our lives. In the old days, we could make a nice living at it and we prefer to do it." In Toronto, the old days are pretty much anytime before November of 1998 when, as part of their collective agreement, teachers voted to use some of the additional time they were required to teach, by filling in for absentee colleagues. Instead of substituting for about one period a week as they had done, many teachers now spend three to five periods each week in this way. What this means, continued Weisleder, is that at a school with approximately 2,000 high school students, there would be 12 teachers away before one substitute teacher could be called. The consequences have been catastrophic for supply teachers whose average annual income, at the best of times, less than 30,000, has been more than halved.
"It's been pretty scary," admits Huculak, who daily calls dropped to about three a month. While there has been much talk these days about a shortage of full-time and supply teachers due to the current and anticipated retirements of full-time teachers in the system, the situation has never been worse for supply teachers who work for the Toronto District School Board, said Weisleder, preparing for a possible strike, as we spoke.

Although schoolboards hold out more full-time work for substitute teachers, Huculak considers this a "moot point." "It's not the kind of work some supply teachers are able to do or want to do, plus the issue is the kids deserve to have a teacher who is going to teach them, to go in with time, energy and expertise to teach a class they are qualified to teach." Weisleder does not think that substantial numbers of substitute teachers have been or will be hired as full-time teachers as he alleges the board prefers hiring new grads or teachers from abroad, who would typically earn lower wages than experienced Toronto teachers. It is not unusual for a teacher to work as a substitute for 10 or 15 years before finding full-time work, he said. Of course, many people move on to other places or careers and this has been and will continue contributing to a "brain drain of teachers in Toronto."

While many bemoan extended stretches of unemployment, free time is also one of the pluses, and for some, the motivation behind working part-time. They have less or no prep and marking time, leaving them freer to pursue other careers, interests and spend more time with loved ones. While some feel obliged to respond to Jack-in-the-box-like 5:00 am wake-up calls, others like Pieter Bergen, in Toronto, feel free to pick and choose what they like. "To me that's one of the advantages of being a supply teacher," said Bergen, who has also taught full-time abroad and at schools offering alternative education. "You only go in on those days when you feel mentally and physically up to it." With no marking or other work to take home with him, Bergen has had more time to paint and tend to his children and the businesses he runs on the side.

Fraser, too, will take a day or two off when he feels like it, to write or volunteer, and said, "This is very important to me. I might be heading in a whole new direction by following my other interests. Supply teaching does allow you time to do that." In fact, Fraser is giving himself a deadline to get a full-time teaching job or find a new career. Nearing 50, Bergen, who was recently punched on the job, has decided to leave supply teaching "for the sake of my health."

Shauna McHarg, a Vancouver-based elementary school teacher, who had to leave Alberta to find full-time work, despite years of supply teaching combined with an exhaustive and exhausting pursuit for her own classroom, views the period of consistent subbing as a time of gestation. It's an opportunity, especially for a new teacher, to learn from others, to absorb how and what things are being taught and what bulletin boards and classroom centers are effective. It may even be a chance to broaden or change one's teaching track. In Fraser's case, though trained as a high school English, History and Physical Education teacher, he so enjoys his almost once a week work with special needs students and his Physical Education work with elementary school children that he would consider pursuing full-time work in these areas.

For students, too, a substitute teacher can be enjoyable - a break from the monotony of daily routine, said Huculak who likes to bring a fresh perspective to a class and shake up the students' days, by "nourishing love" on them, praising their work, or confirming their teacher's words, grown stale perhaps, that they need to try harder. Establishing a firm but friendly presence is something all the supply teachers mentioned and it's here that a real juggling act must be performed.
"If I show any type of weakness, give an inch - the show is over," wrote Fraser. "Blood in the water and the sharks circling."
As a supply teacher, McHarg established control best when she got to school before the students. The day always goes better if she's in the classroom with the assignment on the board when the students wander in. With elementary students, she uses the first period of the day for free reading, a time she finds invaluable for organizing and absorbing the notes and lesson plans left to her by the regular teacher. Unlike many supply teachers who want to fill in for an extremely organized teacher who left detailed lesson plans, McHarg prefers to do her "own thing" or review something from long ago, when taking over a class. This way she avoids the problems of continuity and vocabulary.
"If a supply teacher cannot adequately review yesterday's work and comes in using new words, for instance, "the sum of", instead of "two plus two," it may confuse many students and hinder their learning," she said. Instead she likes to use math puzzles, do mapping exercises, or put a jumble of letters on the board from which elementary students create words. McHarg has a bag of tricks she uses, a binder of lessons and activities she's compiled while filling in for all grades and subjects. What she likes most is all day activities such as a prolonged or multi-layered science experiment, or teaching a simple book and then guiding students to create a variation of it.
"At the end of the day, they have something to give their teacher. I didn't have to spend time catching up on what the teacher has been doing. The teacher gets to see how students react and achieve when someone neutral, who knows nothing of their strengths and weaknesses enters the class, and the students have fun," she said.

When a supply teacher is around, high school students are more apt to take their work seriously if they know it's for marks, and Huculak always insists students hand in their work at the end of the period. This too, is another way to get students to work harder, she said.
Fraser uses humour to help manage a class but he is also firm (much firmer than he had been before his exposure to the daily onslaught of student rudeness in a myriad of classes) and will call on the principal or send students to the office if their behaviour cannot be controlled. Also important, he believes, is his daily wardrobe of shirt and tie, designed to foster respect in students. Nevertheless, he misses his days as a sneaker clad basketball coach, a task that was his in the year he taught full-time. He misses feeling part of a school, knowing all the students and tackling subject matter thoroughly and in his own way. For supply teachers, while filling a gap, often have an inner chasm - teaching but not really teaching, reaching out to students but never really knowing (not in the long term) how much of a difference it makes. Huculak's lowest points come sometimes when she sees a student she knows lost in the system and there's not much she can do to help. Whereas a full-time teacher may have that experience, too, for McHarg, the thrill of teaching comes from helping individual students to grow throughout the year, and for "caring about them the way a parent would." One of the most noticeable differences between a sub and a full-time teacher is the chat, she said. On Mondays, for instance, "Some of my students literally can't wait to tell me what they did over the weekend, and that's an important part of teaching too." Even Huculak, a supply teacher through choice and enjoyment said her "most wonderful experiences" have been in longer term supply jobs where she and the students bonded.
Ironically, says McHarg, one of the hardest things about being a supply teacher is that you need to be a superb teacher to do it justice. You must be very flexible in dealing with so many grades, subjects, and a whole circus tent worth of behavourial ranges and problems.
"You learn to be a good teacher because you're in these different situations but you need to be a great teacher in order to do it well." If you're still a new teacher, untried as yet in your own classroom, this can be a Hurculean challenge.